Posted on 03/20/2007 5:54:09 PM PDT by elhombrelibre
An American Beslan? By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, March 20, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Homeland Security: As Democrats hold more silly hearings to embarrass Republicans, the FBI is warning local police to be alert for Muslim extremists hijacking school buses. Reality check, please.
We wonder if any of the grandstanding politicians on Capitol Hill are thinking in terms of one of these nuts driving a fertilizer-filled yellow bus up to a government building — or, easier yet, a school. Of course not. They're too busy swooning over Valerie Plame to even notice we're still under threat from the Islamic terrorists they say we shouldn't be spying on.
The FBI and Homeland Security Department last week sent out a bulletin to law enforcement across the country warning that Muslims with "ties to extremist groups" are signing up to be school bus drivers. They also noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who drive school buses or are licensed to drive them.
Recent events come on top of several other school bus-related incidents involving Mideast men that raise suspicion of terror activity.
They include last year's surprise boarding of a school bus in Florida by two Saudi men dressed in trench coats. Authorities suspect they were making a dry run to see how easy it would be to hijack or blow up a school bus filled with American children.
Previously, an Arab man from Detroit was caught trying to obtain a job as a school bus driver in New York using fake Social Security documents.
Authorities fear the school massacre that took place in Beslan, Russia, in 2004 may be a dress rehearsal for what al-Qaida plans to do here. Chechen terrorists tied to al-Qaida seized a building in Beslan on the first day of school and slaughtered 338, including 172 kids.
Three years later, schools and local police in this country are still unprepared to deal with such an assault. Most don't have response plans for handling a single active shooter, let alone a cell of trained terrorists.
Yet terror cells secreted inside America may be planning to use buses as a Trojan horse to infiltrate school campuses and murder students and teachers. Floor plans for schools in Virginia, Texas and New Jersey have been recovered from terrorist hands in Iraq. Videotapes confiscated in Afghanistan show al-Qaida terrorists practicing the takeover of a school.
Simultaneous attacks on schools in multiple states would follow Osama bin Laden's goal of crippling the U.S. economy. If multiple schools were hit, parents would drop out of the work force en masse to protect their children.
A prolonged labor disruption would cost businesses billions of dollars in lost revenue.
It's a grim picture. But don't think for a moment that al-Qaida is above targeting school children. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in his Gitmo confession that while he may not like killing kids, they're fair game in jihad. He claims U.S. forces bombed and killed the children of bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, and arrested and "abused" his own children.
These people have nothing better to do than sit around and think of ways to kill us and our most precious resource, our children. They have many helpers placed inside U.S. cities who canvass targets and perform other logistics for such attacks. And these people will stop at nothing to pull them off. They're just waiting for the right time, when our guard is down.
Are we witnessing with Muslim men trying to obtain bus licenses what some alert (but ignored) agents witnessed before 9/11 when they noticed a number of Muslim men training to obtain pilot's licenses? Are schools and children the target of the next wave of terror attacks?
Parents should be outraged that Washington would continue to play politics with national security. Instead of using hearings to score partisan points, Congress would best serve constituents by using that power to investigate the terror threat to schools and how best to protect our children from attack.
ping
The moment it happened, the first act of the Rosie O'Donnells of the world would be to leap into action (well, okay, waddle into action) and condemn Christian fundamentalists because, you know, they're all the same.
Of course, we should add why would they be afraid to tangle with the "peace now at any price" Democrats who hate and fear Bush more than our enemies.
http://www.justwhatithink.com/blog/index.php?y=2007&m=1&d=25
Mass Slaughter in Our Public Schools: The Terrorists' Chilling Plan
2007-01-25 @ 12:08:15
http://www.policeone.com
Mass Slaughter in Our Public Schools: The Terrorists' Chilling Plan
ping for later
According to the following AP wire, the FBI has released noting "noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them". The wire is included below.
Please also note the posting sent out to this group on January 28, 2007 about this same issue, as well as earlier articles I've posted. I'm including a copy of the January 28 posting at the bottom of this email.
Laura
WASHINGTON -- Members of extremist groups have signed up as school bus drivers in the United States, counterterror officials said Friday, in a cautionary bulletin to police. An FBI spokesman said "parents and children have nothing to fear."
Asked about the alert notice, the FBI's Rich Kolko said "there are no threats, no plots and no history leading us to believe there is any reason for concern," although law enforcement agencies around the country were asked to watch out for kids' safety.
The bulletin, parts of which were read to The Associated Press, did not say how often foreign extremists have sought to acquire licenses to drive school buses, or where. It was sent Friday as part of what officials said was a routine FBI and Homeland Security Department advisory to local law enforcement.
It noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them, according to a counterterror official who read parts of the document to The Associated Press.
Foreigners under recent investigation include "some with ties to extremist groups" who have been able to "purchase buses and acquire licenses," the bulletin says.
But Homeland Security and the FBI "have no information indicating these individuals are involved in a terrorist plot against the homeland," it says. The memo also notes: "Most attempts by foreign nationals in the United States to acquire school bus licenses to drive them are legitimate."
Kolko said the bulletin was sent merely as an educational tool to help local police identify and respond to any suspicious activity.
It was not immediately clear whether the extremists intended to do with the school buses. One counterterror official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said it was likely that the foreigners investigated were merely employed as bus drivers, and did not intend to use them as part of any terror plot.
Not again: FirstStudent fails to submit Columbus OH school bus drivers for background checks since 2004; same company that employed man indicted in terror charges as school bus driver
by Laura Mansfield
Reports emerged this week that 56,000 Columbus OH school students had their classes canceled because First Student, the contractor responsible for their school buses, had failed to submit their drivers for background checks since 2004.
According to an Associated Press article released on Friday:
Columbus schools canceled classes for their 56,000 students Thursday after a contractor responsible for some school bus routes discovered it had not done complete criminal background checks on drivers.
First Student Inc. had not submitted any of its bus drivers' information to the state for checks since August 2004, said Jennifer Brindisi, spokeswoman for Attorney General Marc Dann.
This is especially concerning considering that this is not the first time that First Student has had problems with its background checks. In fact, one of First Student's bus drivers has been indicted on terrorism-related charges, and was a roommate of a man convicted of luxury hotel bombing and a suspect in the USS Cole attack.
This steller First Student driver was Mohamed Kamal Elzahabi. In 2004, First Student driver Mohamed Kamal Elzahabi was indicted in Minneapolis. The charges: two counts of lying to agents with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in connection with an international terrorism investigation.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the case, al Zahabi allegedly attended a jihad military training camp and fought in Afghanistan in 1988 and 1989. Later, the indictment alleges he acted as a sniper in combat and also served as an instructor in small arms and sniper skills for other jihadists attending the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan.
Records show he passed the school bus driver portion of his CDL on Oct. 17, 2001, a date Pearson said was around the time First Student hired him and he began driving routes.
On September 11, 2001, Elzahabi applied with First Student of Minneapolis, to become a school bus driver. Elzahabi spent four months as a First Student school bus driver in late 2001, transporting students for the Minneapolis Public Schools. The company fired him in January of 2002 after he failed to report to work, said Jeff Pearson, region vice president with First Student, Inc. First Student is based in Cincinnati, OH, and employs 19,000 drivers on 15,000 school buses nationwide.
Elzahabi also held Commercial Driver's Licenses in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Minnesota, and also had a HAZMAT certification.
While in Massachusetts, Elzahabi's roommate in Everett was none other than Raid Hijazi, who has been convicted of blowing up a luxury hotel in Jordan. Hijazi is also a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole.
According to an article in School Bus Transportation News at http://www.stnonline.com/stn/security/stn_articles/alqaeda1.htm:
After fighting in Chechnya from late 1999 through 2000, the FBI said, Elzahabi re-entered the United Stats and settled in the Minneapolis area. Pearson said Elzahabi applied with First Student on Sept. 11, 2001, the same day terrorists flew airplanes into the WorldTradeCenter and the Pentagon. At the time, Elzahabi held a valid Massachusetts driver's license and school bus CDL, including hazmat clearance.
It is unclear at this point as to whether or not Elzahabi ever used his school bus CDL in Massachusetts or not.
In that same article, School Bus Transportation News reported on comments about Elzahabi from Jeff Pearson, region vice president with First Student, Inc. said:
First Student, a Cincinnati-based company, employs 19,000 drivers on 15,000 school buses nationwide. The fact that at least one of those drivers may have had connections to Al Qaeda is disturbing to Pearson, but also a sign of how over-stretched background investigators are when attempting to verify a prospective employee's identity and past.
"I don't think we can ever be satisfied with the way background checks are done," Pearson said. "It seems almost impossible to get all the information you need on individuals, especially if they are trying to hide something.
One thing is certain. If you don't do the background check, you get even less information, and it becomes even easier for people to hide information.
Our nightmare FYI.
The author either missed it in haste, or I missed it in the article in haste - but the terrorists probably don't want to hijack empty school buses. The value of a school bus isn't in its size and the quantity of fertilizer based bomb material that it can hold, but in the children such buses carry on a daily basis, usually filled to capacity. Imagine a large school bus with 80-120 students on board being held hostage by an insane, Islamic fanatic whose rigged the bus to blow up with the children still aboard. Now imagine a coordinated attack involving dozens of school buses nation wide on the same day.
Frightening.
correction: whose should be "who has"
When our Islamists enemies see how feeble our politicians are in the war against al Qaeda abroad, it would come as no surprise to me that they'd want to pull this type of terror on us at home to get their way. In the eyes of the DNC, Iran enjoys the benefit of the doubt on whether it is aiding those who murder Americans in Iraq, even as we know they aid those who kill Iraqis in Iraq, Lebanese in Lebanon, and Israelis in Israel. Why would the Islamists and the Iranian agents hesitate to strike such cowering fools in denial whose most important mission is to destroy Bush?
Wouldn't want to profile anyone...
I wish I could convince others to get their kids out of public schools for the poor academics ... NOW maybe jihad bus drivers might do it.
Private school is worth its weight in gold.
They WILL do this sooner or later. They've done it before, and we've created these wonderful 'gun-free zones' giveng them carte-blanche to do whatever they wish.
Post incident, it will not pay to be a Muslim in this country. Not a mosque will be left standing. And I'll do my very best to assist in that outcome. When the government fails in its duty, that duty passes to the hands of non-state actors. I will not be alone.
I find this to be frightening and I take my daughter to school every day and pick her up. Her private school doesn't pick up kids - and I'm frightened for her friends.
Our private school uses First Student. Did you see what I posted about First Student?
Don't forget, here in NJ, First Student had that bus driver connected to NAMGLA:
http://losangeles.fbi.gov/pressrel/2007/la011207.htm
I can't help but think about that and the little kids that keep getting left on buses.
I will add, my husband keeps telling me there are a lot of kids coming to the emergency room with STDs. They consistantly say they catch it on the buses.
What is going on with our school buses?
(I drive my kids, no buses!)
ping to post #21 above
ping to thread
They do this and every Islamic scumbag in the country will have a big target on the back of their heads.
Such an incident won't end with shooting every terrorist--preventing any possibility for John McCain and Dick Durbin to repeat their shrieking fairy act.
It will prompt the demand that Mecca be targeted.
And of course the thought police will attempt to blame some "troubled loner"--
See post 31.
They want to hurt us, and hurt us badly. What could do so more efficiently than simultaneous attacks on our children?
My wife is a teacher and I know a little bit about the local schools. They are prepared to deal with naughty students and improper parking and late homework.
But an attack by a group of armed terrorists? Please. They would go into "lockdown", meaning they pull all the students into their classrooms and lock the doors. Someone, probably the principal, would call the local police. Within a few minutes the local police would arrive and stand back while assessing the situation and deciding what to do. Word would get out to the Feds, who would arrive later. All would be cautious and stay away from the school. The media circus would arrive. Negotiators would arrive. Useless politicians would arrive.
Meanwhile, the terrorists have had plenty of time to scope out the school and wire the entrances with explosives and place themselves in optimum positions. They would laugh at the locked classroom doors, and would bring many students together in a central location such as the gym, as they did at Beslan. They would ensure that anyone attempting to breach the gathering area would cause the deaths of the hostages. They don't want to negotiate, they want to horrify.
Once this scenario has developed, there is no easy solution. There is no Rambo plan. There is no negotiation. Kids are going to die. The only way to solve such a scenario is to prevent it in the first place.
May Allah help his people if such a plan is carried out.
STD'S as in Sexually Transmitted Diseases from riding a School Bus?
Must be talking about body lice, not real STD'S. If the kids are getting real STD'S, then it is criminal on the part of any and all drivers and officials for allowing wanton sexual activities on those buses.
One cannot contract STD's without doing it.
No, not body lice. Actual sexually transmitted diseases.
>>>One cannot contract STD's without doing it.
We know that.
Great post! Read the horrors of the Beslan massacre. BTTT!
I've been concerned about this for a few years now. From what I've seen, school buses are barely watched over while garaged. A coordinated multiple bus, multiple location attack would bring unimaginable hell and misery.
O.M.G.!!! Calpernia, this is extremely disturbing news.
I live near Salt Lake City now. Recently, as you probably read, we had a psychopath go into a mall and start shooting and killing people. An off duty cop who was having a pre-Valentine's Day dinner with his wife engaged the shooter and within minutes city police arrived and went right after the Bosnian Muslim terrorist and killed him. The news reports said that this rapid counter attack was the tactic now used by police since the Columbine High School shoot up and slaughter where cops stood by trying to assess the situation before going after the two kids killing their classmates. News reports about the Trolley Mall shooting also said police forces throughout the nation are studying the Salt Lake City incident to learn what they can about confronting the murderers as soon as they can to save lives.
Even civilized society can be pushed over the edge if given the right set of circumstances. The dirty little secret of war is one side has to reduce the other side to the brink of annihilation in order to win. The question is…are we prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure we are not the one annihilated? Judging by the resolve of the real Americans, I would submit to you that we are. We outnumber the PC wimpy Americans by vast numbers, and we are well armed.
Did you click the link I posted about one of First Student's drivers being affiliated with NAMGLA?
Now go back and read what I posted from Laura Mansfield about First Student not screening drivers.
We have a large about of students never making it to school. The drivers leave them on the bus. Alone.
large about = large amount
Thank you for that, very encouraging
Looks like it isn't just my state with this problem.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=school%20bus%20child%20left&btnG=Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
Google News for 'School Bus Child Left'
I did not recognize NAMGLA, so did not read it. Did you mean NAMBLA, if so then I know what that disgusting organization is about. I'll go back and read it anyway.
NAMGLA is NAMBLA's sister.
Not to mention the OTMs from Islamic countries that have illegally entered across our poorly protected borders. .......a number that could very well exceed the one you posted above by several times. Sometimes it appears our nation is on its very own suicide mission.
A friend there writes a newsletter and has much criticism for the liberals there who will not fight.
We are repeatedly told here that there is only a small Islamist threat--and all of that beyond the oceans in Baghdad streets and Afghan caves.
But the stark revelation of writers such as Melanie Phillips in Londonistan indicates the radical imams are busily recruiting jihadists worldwide.
The "media" has been and continues to be the propaganda arm of the treason party and of the enemies of America.
The case of Israel is indicative: the BBC (and to a slightly lesser extent, The New York Times and other American outlets) paint Israel as the oppressor and the occupier, paint the terrorists as "militants" or "freedom fighters"--thus paralyzing the appropriate response.
We are made infinitely less safe by this propaganda industry--which is the same one which paints our work in Iraq as self-defeating, exacerbating the problem, doomed to failure.
The treason party opposes every defense we take to be preemptive, leaking key security tactics, demonizing our troops (Haditha, etc.), bleating over nothing-burgers like abu Ghraib.
When the outrages occur, there will be no telling the American people today--post 911--that their children are victims of Ritalin or bullying or some lone outrider.
O.M.G. Calpernia, I just received an email from a FRiend whom was reading this article and commentary coincidentally as we posted, and she informed me that such stuff is commonplace on the school busses anymore. I had never heard of this going on. Must be my age and being out of touch with the youth in our society anymore.
My friends email tells me without telling me that I could probably blame ONE particular individual and his enablers for making it OK in kids minds to do what they are apparently doing.
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