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Islam convert gets 35 years in plot to attack mall The Associated Press - 30 Sep 2008 CHICAGO (AP) — A 24-year-old convert to Islam has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for plotting to set off hand grenades in a crowded shopping mall ... Man gets 35 years in '06 terror plot Chicago Tribune

FARMINGTON - A Somers man is to be arraigned in Hartford Community Court Wednesday after he allegedly made about 900 lewd phone calls to employees of several stores at Westfarms mall, police said. Mark Batiste, 34, of Rye Hill Circle, told police he'd been belittled by a female employee of Banana Republic at the mall, police spokesman Lt. William Tyler said. In retaliation, police said Batiste used his cell phone to make 891 calls between July 5 and July 16 asking female employees if he could lick their feet and suck their toes. The victims were working at Banana Republic,...

A Kentucky college student has hired a lawyer after she was escorted out of a mall by security on Sunday because her dress was deemed too short, MyFOXBoston reports. Kymberly Clem, a 20-year-old student at Eastern Kentucky University, wore the dress Sunday after purchasing it from the mall in Richmond the previous day, the Richmond Register reported Tuesday. After just a few minutes inside of the mall, a security guard approached her and expressed concerns over the length of the garment. According to MyFOXBoston, the guard informed her that several female patrons had complained that she was disrupting their shopping...

Kymberly Clem, 20, says she walked into the Richmond Mall Saturday but was soon escorted out all because of her dress. "I was walking through and 10 minutes after I was there, the security guard approached me, asked me to step aside, made me completely do a turn around while he stared me up and down and then asked me to leave because my outfit was too provocative and people's husbands was (sic) looking at me," says Clem. Clem says she bought the dress at the mall just the day before. She says she's worn more revealing clothing before to...

Raleigh, N.C. — About 200 to 300 people joined a melee that began inside a Raleigh mall and spilled outside the shopping center during the fight, police said Sunday. Raleigh Police Department spokesman Jim Sughrue said the gang-related brawl began inside Triangle Town Center Mall on Saturday night at about 8 p.m.. Off-duty officers working at the mall requested assistance, and authorities from the Wake County Sheriff's Office and the N.C. Highway Patrol also responded. Sughrue said a 15-year-old was stabbed during the incident. He was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. A police officer was also injured...

MEXICO CITY – Gunmen killed eight youths and a police chief and took dozens of restaurant patrons hostage for hours in two attacks in the drug gang-ridden state of Sinaloa, officials saidSunday. A group of hitmen sprayed four cars with bullets on a busy street in the city of Guamuchil in the early hours of Sunday, killing five young men and three female minors, a police source told Reuters. Advertisement In an earlier attack on Saturday, six other armed men caused pandemonium in the Pacific port city of Mazatlan by taking refuge in a shopping mall to escape security forces...

WARNING: this audio broadcast will contain offensive material.

(IsraelNN.com) Arab terrorists in Gaza fired two Grad Katyusha missiles at southern Ashkelon late Wednesday afternoon, and one rocket scored a direct hit on a children's medical clinic inside a shopping center. Parts of the building collapsed, trapping four people for a half-hour. At least 94 people had been rushed to Barzilai Medical Center by 8:30 p.m., most suffering severe post-traumatic stress reactions. A spokesman for the local Fire Department stated that the powerful rocket hit the building's 3rd floor and crashed down to the floor below. He said the firefighters rescued four people - including a little girl -...

A national American-Islamic group is calling on local, state and national law enforcement authorities to investigate an alleged incident in which a Muslim woman was ejected from the Oakwood mall near Gretna for refusing a security guard's demand to remove her headscarf, known as a hijab.

WAUKEGAN, Ill. -- Firefighters from several departments are battling what appeared to be an explosion and fire at a shopping plaza early Thursday afternoon. The fire is burning at 1926 Grand Ave. in the northern suburb, a shopping plaza home to Tuxedo World, Cleopatra's Unisex Hair Salon, Cellular Concepts and a travel agency. Authorities reported there are several injuries. Reports of a structure collapse could not be confirmed. Authorities have closed Grand Avenue between Martin and Lewis avenues, and crews from People's Gas are on the scene because firefighters fear a gas leak.

Matt Shaver almost didn't recognize his old hangout as he strolled through the food court at Clearview Mall in Metairie on Friday evening. It was 6:30 p.m. and nowhere to be seen were the throngs of teens and youngsters who would usually begin to trickle in about that time -- at least, that was the usual pattern before the mall began strictly enforcing its new parental escort policy last weekend.

08 February 2008, 16:47 CET (BELGRADE) - A bomb blast rocked a Slovenian-run shopping mall in Serbia on Friday, while another had to be evacuated following an anonymous bomb threat, B92 radio reported. An explosive device went off early Friday at the entrance of Mercator Center in the New Belgrade area of the capital, which is located next to a police station, shattering glass but causing no casualties, the report said. The blast occurred at around 5:00 am (0400 GMT), according to a statement by police, who launched a probe but revealed no possible motives. Several hours later, employees and...

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

New Haven (AP) _ A federal judge says prosecutors may not introduce at trial a claim that a former Navy sailor plotted to attack military personnel. Hassan Abu-Jihaad is charged with disclosing the location of Navy ships to terrorism supporters. The 31-year-old Abu-Jihaad of Phoenix pleaded not guilty in April to charges he provided material support to terrorists with intent to kill U.S. citizens and disclosed classified information relating to national defense. He is accused of disclosing the location of Navy ships and the best ways to attack them. During a hearing in November, prosecutors played secretly recorded phone calls...

There he stood in the Tyrone Square Mall parking lot, surrounded by three police cruisers and mall security. Police had searched and interrogated him. All the while, DiSalvo said, shoppers gawked, perhaps wondering whom he had killed. The 57-year-old said he was guilty of one thing: forgetfulness. He lost his 1991 Grand Marquis in a sea of 6,000 parked cars.

Omaha, Nebraska -- The day after my hometown was rocked by the senseless murder of eight innocent people and the wounding of five others in a local shopping mall, ‘Today Show’ co-host Meredith Vieira asked this obtuse question of two of the shooter’s friends: “Do you think your friend was a victim?” Therein lies the problem with our society’s view of guns and gun violence. The rights of victims are forgotten while murderers are called victims. Poor Robbie Hawkins. Apparently 265,000 of our hard-earned tax dollars spent on this “victim” over the last several years by our Health and Human...

OMAHA, Neb. — The mother of the teenage gunman who killed eight people at a busy shopping mall last week apologized Thursday for her son's crime and said she did her best raising him. "I have been absolutely devastated," Maribel Rodriguez told The Associated Press. "The most difficult part is giving all of my best efforts to convey to all these beautiful people that I truly am sorry." Her son, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins, fired more than 30 rounds inside a mall department store Dec. 5, striking 11 people. Eight of them died, and he killed himself. Families held funerals and...

At issue: A woman using a handgun to stop a killer in a “soft target,” a church. Our view: The case shows why Michigan school staff need an option for training and concealed carry, not “gun-free zones.” Another month has brought more shooting sprees in what commonly are “gun-free zones.” Four died in two separate shootings Sunday in Colorado. Eight were murdered last Wednesday in an Omaha, Neb., shopping mall. Seven students were slain recently in Finland. That followed a Cleveland school shooting in October. Only in the latest attack did an adult have a right to a gun to...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After getting off to a fast start last month, holiday sales at some of the nation's largest retailers have slowed to an excruciatingly slow pace and mall traffic has dropped dramatically. The results, coming two weeks before Christmas, jeopardize an already weak holiday sales period. Chain-store sales rose a mere 0.2 percent for the week ended Dec. 8, following a disappointing 2 percent sales decline in the prior week, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Council of Shopping Centers. "Consumers continue to be slow in finishing their holiday shopping," said Michael Niemira, the...

The following comments are from an actual witness to the Omaha shooting, and a Police Officer who responded. Other than minor edits for spelling and clarity, we have not altered their comments, since, though somewhat disjointed, they convey the surreal and disorienting reality of being involved in a public shooting rampage.

(2007-12-07) — When 19-year-old Robert Hawkins entered the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, carrying an AK-47 assault rifle wrapped in a sweater, he intended to become famous by shooting as many people as possible and then turning the gun on himself.The mentally-troubled teen left a suicide note, and a trail of evidence on his computer and elsewhere that he knew the police would spend months investigating. He had done everything possible to ensure that his name would be mentioned along with other mass killers at Virginia Tech, Columbine High School and the like.He knew that the Westroads Mall was a...

OMAHA, Neb. - The teenage gunman who went on a shooting rampage in a department store may have smuggled an assault rifle into the mall underneath clothing, police said Thursday. Police Chief Thomas Warren said the young man "appeared to be concealing something balled up in a hooded sweat shirt" he was carrying, according to a surveillance video. The teen entered the store Wednesday using an elevator, and moments later, gunfire pierced through the notes of Christmas music at the Westroads Mall's Von Maur department store. People huddled in dressing rooms and barricaded themselves in offices as 19-year-old Robert A....

As some of you know, I am from Omaha. Just my opinion, for what it’s worth, but I’m watching the reports on TV and Radio, both locally (here in Omaha) and nationally and I’m getting ticked off .. I have to speak out. I've been listening to people who knew this kid, on a local radio station, talking about threats he has made. There was one classmate who claims he threatened to kill her and burn down her house. Then there are the friends from his clique who are defending him. One even supposedly threatened to kill another student who...

OMAHA, Neb., Dec 5 (Reuters) - A 19-year-old man killed eight people and then himself with an assault rifle at a busy mall in Omaha on Wednesday, sending terrified workers and Christmas shoppers scrambling for cover. "Now I will be famous," the gunman wrote in a suicide note, his landlady told CNN after finding a three-part document that she said included his will. Police declined to discuss the contents of the note. Five people were wounded, two of them critically, in the early afternoon rampage in the Midwestern U.S. city. Most of the victims at the upscale Westroads Mall were...

OMAHA, Neb. -- The shooter at Westroads Mall was identified as Robert A. Hawkins of Bellevue, according to the Sarpy County Sheriff's Department, and a suicide note said he was going to be famous. Hawkins, 19, had been arrested on a couple of misdemeanors in November and was due in court this month. One charge included minor in possession of alcohol. He was arrested on Nov. 24. He was due in court for an arraignment on Dec. 19. Sarpy County deputies said they are getting a warrant to search Hawkins' home in the Quail Creek neighborhood in Bellevue. The woman...

Omaha, NE - Nine people are confirmed dead following the shooting at Westroads Mall this afternoon. Action 3 News has learned at least 5 other people were hurt. Two are in critical condition at area hospitals. 34-year-old Omaha attorney, Jeff Schaffert was shot in the arm. He is in fair condition at the Nebraska Medical Center. A 55-year-old man has already been released from the hospital. Police believe one of the dead is the shooter. Sergeant Teresa Negron says he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police are asking everyone to stay away from the area. The neighborhoods around the...

Have not seen this posted. At least 5 shot, possibly 2 dead at Westroads Mall in Omaha, NE in past 2 hours. My office has view of mall. It has been a scene, MANY police cars, helicopter, ambulances. Pray for the victims and their loves ones

An elderly man was found near an escalator in the store, and police said a young black man was being sought as the suspected shooter. Early indications were that as many as five people may be injured. Colby Barak told KETV NewsWatch 7 that she was on lockdown inside Westroads Mall. She said she was doing Christmas shopping at Younkers, and an announcement was made that no one would be allowed to leave. Just before 2 p.m., Barrett said, another announcement was made that shoppers could leave but would not be allowed back in. Dozens of police and sheriff's cars...

Calculating the Risks in Pakistan A small group of U.S. military experts and intelligence officials convened in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country's political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart. The secret exercise — conducted without official sponsorship from any government agency, apparently due to the sensitivity of its subject — was one of several such games the U.S. government has conducted in recent years examining various options and scenarios for Pakistan's nuclear weapons: How many troops might be required for a military intervention in...

<p>Greensport Mall, Houston. Being reported on Fox News right now.</p>

An FBI report warned al Qaeda may be planning to strike shopping malls in Chicago and Los Angeles during the Christmas season, but a bureau official said on Thursday there was no information it was a credible threat. ABC News first disclosed portions of the report that was based on intelligence received by the FBI in late September. The report said al Qaeda hoped to disrupt the U.S. economy and had been planning the attack for the past two years. The document, called an intelligence information report, was intended for law enforcement and the intelligence community, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko...

U.S. to Offer Turkey Help on PKK The U.S. is to offer Turkey a package of measures to dissuade Ankara from mounting a large-scale military incursion into Iraq to attack PKK Kurdish guerrillas, who have killed scores of Turkish soldiers in recent weeks. Ahead of a meeting in Washington on Monday between President George W. Bush and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, U.S. officials said Ankara would have to get concrete American help to combat the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq from where it frequently launches attacks into Turkey. “Erdogan has to go back with the...

AN explosion apparently caused by a fuel tank ripped through an upmarket shopping mall in the main Philippine financial district of Makati in the capital Manila today. Panicked shoppers ran out of the Glorietta mall as smoke billowed out of the building and police rushed in to investigate, witnesses said. "Our initial report is that it was an accidental explosion of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas). We are still trying to determine if there are any casualties,''.

HAYWARD -- Hayward police closed Southland Mall late Saturday afternoon after about 200 teenagers and young adults stormed the popular shopping center and began ransacking stores. The young people poured out of bleachers, set up in the parking lot outside Macy's, after a basketball game known as streetball ended. Police Lt. Mark Koller said clothes were pulled off hangers and advertising displays overturned. Employees and shoppers saw the intruders kick merchandise and mall kiosks as they made their way past Mervyn's and J.C. Penney stores. Thousands of shoppers left the mall by car and on foot as more than 60...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Muslim man is demanding police take action after, he said, he was discriminated against at a local mall. Mustapha El Mahjahtti said he was at a store at the Prime Outlet Mall on I-Drive when a woman tried to cut him in line. He said he told the woman to go to the back of the line, but she allegedly physically attacked him and even called him a terrorist. Mahjahtti said security guards failed to help. Now he's working with the local Council on American-Islamic Relations to get action. "We are not criticizing the Orlando Police...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A Somali pleaded guilty in federal court on Tuesday to a charge involving a plot to blow up a central Ohio shopping mall. Nuradin Abdi agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to providing material support for terrorists, 10TV's Kevin Landers reported. He was indicted on four counts but only pleaded guilty to the conspiracy to provide material support charge, Landers reported. Abdi was scheduled to go on trial in federal court next week, 10TV reported. Abdi was accused of wanting to blow up a shopping mall. The target was never made public, 10TV News reported. Abdi's attorney...

CHRISTIANA, Del. - July 30, 2007 - A fight at a Delaware mall involving hundreds of young people is prompting new calls for a curfew today. The fight near the food court at the Christiana Mall forced the shopping center to shut down early. It was a mall brawl of epic proportions, and at the height of it police said a thousand kids were going at it in the food court Friday night. Things got so out of hand the Christina Mall closed early and shoppers left in fear. "An extremely large crowd started to gather and get disorderly. Eventually...

The mother accused of launching a brutal beat-down of a 16-year-old at the Natick Mall last week has a record that includes 26 prior guilty pleas for various crimes, prosecutors said yesterday. This time, Marilyn Camacho, 40, of Framingham faces charges of launching a hair-pulling and kicking attack on a teen at the mall along with her own 12-, 13- and 16-year-old daughters. Natick District Court Judge Andrew D’Angelo ordered Camacho held on $1,000 bail yesterday. She is already being held on $5,000 bail out of the Framingham Juvenile Court, where she is charged with contributing to the delinquency of...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former Target employee who was turned down for a private security license and planned to "cause havoc" was identified Monday as the man who killed two people in a crowded mall parking lot before he was shot by police.

KANSAS CITY, MO. -- At least three people are dead after a gunman fired shots in Ward Parkway Mall at 86th and Ward Parkway in Kansas City, Mo. around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. Two citizens and the gunman are among the dead. According to KCMO Police, the two dead citizens were shot in the parking lot of the mall, and the gunman died inside the mall. There are other reports of two more wounded at the shopping center, and an officer who was shot at a gas station and another dead body on E 93rd Street in KCMO. [...]

Just happening at Ward parkway mall

San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Facts have emerged in this case which prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bosnian Muslim immigrant's rampage at a Utah shopping mall, killing five people is a textbook study of a jihadist attack. Just a day before the murders Talovic told his 17 year old Bosnian girlfriend Monika, with whom he had discussed marriage plans that he was involved in a dark plot. "Something is going to happen tomorrow that you'll never be able to forgive me about" Talovic's girlfriend told the Salt Lake Times adding that "It was supposed be the happiest...

March 7, 2007 — A former U.S. Navy sailor has been charged with allegedly passing military secrets about U.S. Navy movements through waters in the Middle East to al Qaeda-related Web sites during the spring of 2001, just months after the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen. Hassan Abujihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, allegedly passed information about U.S. Navy warship movements in the Straits of Hormuz in April 2001 while he was a member of the Navy. The information passed along contained details about vulnerabilites of U.S. vessels — including susceptibility to small boat attacks by terrorists. Abujihaad...

WEST VALLEY CITY - Imam Shuaib-ud Din has been terminated from his position as religious leader of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake amid allegations of domestic violence. Police said they responded to a "domestic-related incident" at Din's home a week ago, and the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office reported an attempt to serve a protective order against him on Thursday. Contacted by phone, a relative of the imam said he was in Chicago now but would not comment on the allegations. The relative acknowledged that Din and his wife were having marital problems but said the imam was...

If you only read the news as reported by the Main Stream Media, you would never know that we had just recently experienced another Jihad style attack by a Muslim on American soil. On Monday, Feb. 12th, one time Bosnian refugee Sulejmen Talovic (age 18) walked into the Trolley Valley shopping mall in Salt Lake City and in a six minute rampage killed five people and severely wounded several more. The dead were identified as Jeffrey Walker, 52, Vanessa Quinn, 29, Kirsten Hinkley, 15, Teresa Ellis, 29, and Brad Frantz, 24. My initial (blogged) reaction was: “Any guesses as to...

SOUTH JORDAN - Those speaking at Jeffrey Walker's funeral attempted to "pull a Jeff."     In other words, they wanted to match their friend's personality by keeping the ceremony lighthearted and compassionate.     Walker, 52, was one of five people gunned down Monday night at Trolley Square.     "Evil has touched us, but it will not leave its mark because Jeff's legacy is love, compassion, faith, hope, service, unconditional caring and love and love and love," said friend Tracy Mower as he addressed the more than 1,500 gathered at the Country Park LDS Stake Center Saturday.     Mower related the...

Family in Bosnia describes Utah gunman as child of war and upheavalALMIR ARNAUT, Associated Press Writer February 15, 2007 12:23 PM TALOVICI, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Relatives of the Bosnian teen who shot and killed five people in a Salt Lake City mall said the boy's early life was marked by war and upheaval: The family fled Serb forces on foot when he was 4 and his grandfather was killed in the war. Sulejman Talovic was a toddler when fighting broke out in Bosnia in 1992. Serb troops laid siege to the hamlet of Talovici in northeastern Bosnia, bombing it for...

Jaron Dansie was inside a Salt Lake City shopping mall when 18-year old Sulejmen Talovic entered the building, pulled a gun and started shooting people at random. As he took shelter inside one of the shops on the first floor, Dansie pulled out his video camera. “What the… What the hell's going on?” Dansie can be heard saying on the video, in between a barrage of loud gunshots. Dansie, a wedding videographer, said that turning his video camera on was not the first thing on his mind. But his actions led to an intense visual record of the tragic events...

[snip] Although he quit school at 16, Sulejman Talovic often attended Friday prayers at the Al-Noor mosque on 700 East in Salt Lake City,[ a block away from the mall] said Salih Omerovic, Ajka's cousin. Salih Omerovic said the young man stopped coming to the prayers in December, when he landed a full-time job at Aramark Uniform Services in South Salt Lake. He said Sulejman Talovic's father had pressured his son to get a job to help out with the family's living expenses. Imam Ali Mohamed, the spiritual leader at Al-Noor, said he does not know Talovic. "I know some...

COORDINATED BANGKOK BOMBS KILL 2; New Year's Eve Countdown cancelled(BangkokPost.com) At least six bombs or grenades have exploded in Bangkok early on New Year's Eve. Two people are reported to have been killed, about 25 have been wounded. Bangkok authorities ordered all public New Year's Eve parties cancelled. Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin appeared at the huge Bangkok Countdown 2006 venue and told the crowd to "go home and stay in peace." There had been confusion for an hour over whether New Year's parties would be permitted after the bombing. New Year's is the biggest public party in Thailand. The national...