Terrorist Plot in Michigan?

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=59411

Men held in Michigan suspected of plan to attack Mackinac Bridge

Amy Fox

Created: 8/13/2006 9:50:08 PM
Updated: 8/14/2006 8:50:00 AM

Federal authorities helped with the investigation into a possible terror threat to the Mackinac Bridge. The FBI office in Detroit worked with local law enforcement authorities before the police arrested three men in Caro on Friday. Officers found about 1,000 pre-paid cell phones in their van. Police in Caro arrested the three Palestinian-American men after they allegedly bought 80 of the phones at a Wal-Mart store in Caro.

A pre-paid cell phone can be economical and convenient. But, 22 year old Adham Othman, 23 year old Louai Othman, and 19 year old Maruwan Muhareb aroused suspicion when they allegedly bought 80 phones at the same time. Caro Police Chief Ben Page said they thought “something was wrong here."

When police pulled the men over, they found about 1,000 phones in the van. Many were separated from their battery packs and the chargers were discarded. Michigan State Police Trooper Patrick Sharkey says, “We didn't know exactly what was going on. You hear on the news about these phones being used to detonate IED's."

Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene says, “There were a thousand cell phones that were inside one motor vehicle. There's a laptop computer. There's a camera and there are things that are still being investigated at this point in time. Based on information received from a variety of agencies, we're developing how the actual headphones were sold, revenue was passed from one location to the next. Obviously, it's fairly complex." He thinks the men had a complex plan to attack the Mackinac Bridge.

However, the men, who are from Texas, say they simply purchase the cell phones, and resell them for more money. Louai Othman's wife Lina Odeh says he was simply trying to support her and their two-month old daughter. Odeh says, “Their goal in Michigan was to buy as many phones as they could so they could make a profit over here."

....

But, Othman's wife says this is a common business, and her husband is only being targeted because of his nationality. Odeh says, “There's nothing wrong with it. I don't know why they're making a big deal out of it. Are ya'll making a big deal out of this because all the Arabs are doing it?"

/snip

Was this a real plot to destroy a bridge in Michigan, or was it a plot to make some money off of Ebay? I have a feeling that Arab-Americans commit crimes unrelated to terrorism from time to time.

If the suspects had been store-owners from Dearborn, I'd be more likely to believe their story about buying cell phones to resell at their stores. The corner stores/gas stations/liquor store trade in the metro-Detroit are is run mostly by arab-americans, and they are notorious for going to buy things like that and resell them in their stores for higher prices. They make a lot of money off of people who are too poor to buy cars. Before Michigan had a cigarette stamp, my corner store from my old neighborhood in Detroit used to sell boxes that still had the Ohio stamp on them (Ohio at one time had a substantially lower cigarette tax than Michigan).

These guys were probably planning to blow up the bridge on Labor Day, when they do the bridge walk. No cars, but tons of people on foot walking across it. Plus, politicians and labor leaders tend to be there. If the cell phones were to be used as detonators, they could have used them during the walk if the explosives were already mounted in locations on the bridge. They could kill more people than 9-11 on Labor Day.

Seriously, it smells to high heaven. So they were buying phones and re-selling them? So what? It's not like you need cell phones to make cheap IEDs in the US. Heck, you can buy stuff around much cheaper and easier to use. This sounds like one of those instances where people saw their ethnicity and got all scared about it. It's Caro, for crying out loud--not exactly the center of ethnic diversity.

Oh, and the Bridge? Really? Because it's a great symbol of American commerce and military power? There are other targets in our state that make more sense, like the Blue Water Bridge betweeen the US and Canada or the tunnel between Windsor and Detroit or anything owned by DeVos in Grand Rapids (evil Republican that he is).

I really doubt this one is what they're saying it is. It just doesn't smell right.