Posted on 02/12/2006 7:20:41 PM PST by Cornpone
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Federal investigators have accused a Pennsylvania man of trying to conspire with al-Qaeda to blow up major U.S. oil and gas pipelines and wreck the economy, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Sunday.
The FBI says Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. attempted to provide material aid to al-Qaeda to disrupt the federal government, to change its foreign policy, and to turn the public against the war in Iraq, the newspaper said.
The allegations were disclosed in a federal transcript obtained by the Inquirer on Friday.
Reynolds has not been formally charged with terrorist offences but has been held in a Pennsylvania jail since December 5 on the unrelated charge of possessing a hand grenade, the paper said.
Reynolds, who is unemployed, was drawn into an FBI sting operation in Idaho two months ago in which he meet with a purported al-Qaeda operative who was really a Montana judge who monitors extremist Muslim Web sites looking for potential terrorist activity, according to the report.
At that meeting, Reynolds expected to receive $40,000 to finance a plot to blow up sections of the Transcontinental Pipeline which carries natural gas from the U.S. Gulf Coast to New York City via Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The alleged plot also included a plan to detonate propane trucks along the Alaska Pipeline, and to blow up oil refineries in New Jersey and Wyoming.
The newspaper quoted John Gurganus, a federal prosecutor, as saying Reynolds hoped to "disrupt government function", provoke opposition to the war in Iraq, drive up fuel prices, and "lend to the efforts by al-Qaeda to terrorise this nation."
Reynolds was arrested on the hand grenade charge in December. He told federal agents he was not a terrorist but a patriot trying to trap al-Qaeda operatives, the newspaper said. FBI agents obtained search warrants for his computers and e-mail accounts, which contained information on the alleged plot.
Reynolds, who has lived in many parts of the United States, has a string of bad debts and criminal convictions, including one for attempted arson, according to the Inquirer.
"He told federal agents he was not a terrorist but a patriot trying to trap al-Qaeda operatives"
Riiiiiiight.
He's a little young to be one of those 'patriots' I remember from 1968...you know, the one's that followed Jane Fonda....
It is war...and traitors should die.
Should = shouldn't
guilt = guilty
Semper Fi
I don't know anything about Reynolds political leanings, but one thing that has always worried me on the domestic front has been the possibility of AQ hooking-up with some of our own homegrown anti-gov types. Like McVeigh and a few other yahoos, there are plenty of these people who have many of the same gripes and hatred that isn't too dissimilar to the radical Jihadists.
Whether it's their shared anti-Semitism or spite for {our} government, this is a collaboration I have expected for some time. Ironically, whether it's left or right...it seems the further you get to these extremes, the more these people have in common with each other...and our enemies.
"My Name is Earl Qaeda"
"...to provoke feelings against the war in Iraq"
Sounds like he's on the DNC payroll...
one word --- TREASON.
Two words -- HANG HIM.
That's three words all together! Would you like to see what's behind the curtain, or phone a friend? ;)
The right has never been a threat to America.
Only the left is willing to turn our nation to ashes.
You were told a lie about Oklahoma City, and only a syncophant would believe the media version.
The Iraq Republican Guard, vanquished by President Bush 41, was allowed to assimilate into middle America but the biggest traitor in American history, Bubba Clinton.
At the time, Steven Emerson was quoted on CBS Evening News as saying, "Oklahoma City, I can tell you, is probably considered one of the largest centers of Islamic radical activity outside the Middle East."
Emerson chronicled the rise of radical Islam in America in a 1994 PBS documentary which showed how fundamentalists had launched a recruiting campaign across the mid- and southwest. An Oklahoma City meeting in 1988 was attended by members of Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Islamic Jihad (Holy War) and the Muslim Brotherhood, each notorious for their sponsorship of terrorism. The meeting was held only blocks from the Murrah Federal Building.
Connect the bullet holes.
Well, what more incontrovertible proof could you require?
-ccm
oh I'll go ahead and look behind the curtain. :)
Tell us, Bob! What has Shadowstrike won???
Well, Tom, Shadowstrike wins an all expense paid trip on AIR FORCE TWO! He will accompany the Vice President to a super-secret location for a super-secret hunting trip! (crowd goes wild) It's ......you guessed it..... a Saddam Safari! (crowd says "ahhhhhhhhhh") Saddam, dressed in loincloth and purple turban, will be dropped by helicopter onto a stretch of desert completely enclosed with razor wire. Expenses paid by the U.S. taxpayers. Have fun, Shadowstrike!
*screams wildly* oh my GOD! What a fantastic prize!
This just goes to show you that she who waits, gets it all.
Tho I must admit the image of Saddam in a loincloth --- That's a little sick. :)
I was trying to give him SOME cover. Animal that he is, we should drop him buck naked. =)
Now, shame -- I mean buck naked? Think of all the poor animals you would frighten. No. I vote for a Porky Pig Costume myself.
(very evil grin). That way he gets to die (rightly) and is humiliated, and we all know that humiliation is far worse than death -- at least to him.
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