Free Republic

SNIPPET: "Agents copied the contents of two computers and a thumb drive apparently used by Hosam "Sam" Smadi..." SNIPPET: "The hardware apparently belonged to Smadi's friends..." SNIPPET: "Attempts to reach the friends, who have been identified in court documents, were unsuccessful."

DALLAS — Eight years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and despite repeated mandates from Congress, the United States still has no reliable system for verifying that foreign visitors have left the country. New concern was focused on that security loophole last week, when Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian who had overstayed his tourist visa, was accused in court of plotting to blow up a Dallas skyscraper. Last year alone, 2.9 million foreign visitors on temporary visas like Mr. Smadi’s checked in to the country but never officially checked out, immigration officials said... ...officials said, about 40 percent...

Pittsburgh was treated to an impressive show the week of the recent G20 conference. A nice assortment of military choppers of various types and missions, along with odder aircraft difficult both to identify and explain. Both police and the National Guard were out in force, with downtown nearly sealed off. None of this hardware was used against the "3,000 - 4,000" (more like a few hundred) anarchist demonstrators when they turned their righteous wrath on a dozen Starbucks and a Whole Foods store. No serious confrontation was expected and none occurred. Because all of it - the Guard troops, the...

DALLAS – A 19-year-old Italy resident was arrested by federal authorities after he attempted to blow up a prominent downtown Dallas skyscraper last Thursday. Italy, a town of 2,000 located south of Waxahachie, was home to the Jordanian born Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, who worked at a Shell gas station on Interstate Highway 35 and lived in a Monolithic dome house in town. Smadi was arrested in a sting operation when the phony bombs the Federal Bureau of Investigations provided to him to detonate failed to go off. FBI agents, in widely reported news accounts, monitored Smadi for several months...

AJLOUN, Jordan – Hosam Maher Husein Smadi cradled his mother, weeping. Just 16 years old, the eldest of four children, he had dreaded this moment. During his mother’s 18-month fight with cancer, he had kept vigil by her bed. Now it was time to let her go. Along with his brother, Husein, and several loved ones, he gripped his mother’s cloth-wrapped body. They began to lower her into the freshly dug 3-foot-deep grave. Suddenly, he froze. Please, he implored of his uncle, a doctor. Check her pulse. Maybe she is still alive.

Channel 33 news is reporting that a suspected terrorist has been arrested along with an "inert" car bomb in downtown Dallas. The is a Muslim jihadi. Details as I find them.

DALLAS - A teenage illegal immigrant from Jordan who allegedly planned to blow up a Dallas skyscraper appeared in federal court on Friday morning . Mosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, faced a judge around 11 a.m., just blocks away from the building that, according to investigators, he attempted to destroy. Observers described Smadi as a small, soft-spoken man who speaks little English. In court, he told the judge that he understood his rights, and he accepted a court-appointed attorney . That lawyer said Smadi seemed to him to be a confused and scared young man. Smadi will likely be transferred...

A 19-year-old Jordanian citizen accused of trying to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper told a federal magistrate this morning at his first court appearance that he understands the charges against him. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, who was provided a court-appointed attorney, is charged with trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. He is expected to enter a plea at a later hearing. Smadi was arrested Thursday after he parked a vehicle laden with government-supplied fake explosives in the underground parking garage of Fountain Place, a 60-story tower at Ross Avenue at Field Street, authorities said. [Hosam Maher Husein...