A 20-year-old Saudi man was arrested on Thursday. He was plotting to blow up multiple targets in the United States. This guy seems to have, “I’m an obvious terrorist” written all over his dossier. He is young. He comes from the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia. He doesn’t make friends and United States. He writes a blog with extremist statements. This guy seems to be a no-brainer. My question is how to we detect those that aren’t so obvious? How do we detect those terrorist that do fit into society? How do we detect those terrorist that don’t come from Saudi Arabia but instead come from somewhere like London or Paris or Germany? How do we detect terrorist that don’t send up these multiple red flags?
From TPM:
A 20-year-old Saudi man living in Texas was arrested Wednesday and charged with the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment used to make an improvised explosive device (IED).
Federal authorities say that Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari wrote an e-mail to himself listing the Dallas address of former President George W. Bush as the “Tyrant’s House” and considered used infant dolls to conceal explosives and targeting of a nightclub with an explosive device concealed in a backpack.
We’ve posted the criminal complaint here.
Late Update: We’ve got more on this story here.
