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| Home Front: WoT |
| FBI undercover stings foil terrorist plots ‐ but often plots of the agency's own making |
| 2017-03-13 |
| [Kansas City Star] Announcements of foiled terrorist plots make for lurid reading. Schemes to carry out a Presidents Day jihadist attack on a train station in Kansas City. Bomb a Sept. 11 memorial event. Blow up a 1,000-pound bomb at Fort Riley. Detonate a weapon of mass destruction at a Wichita airport -- the failed plans all show imagination. But how much of it was real? Often not much, according to a review of several recent terrorism cases investigated by the FBI in Kansas and Missouri. The most sensational plots invoking the name of the Islamic State or al-Qaida here were largely the invention of FBI agents carrying out elaborate sting operations on individuals identified through social media as being potentially dangerous. In fact, in terrorism investigations in Wichita, at Fort Riley and last week in Kansas City, the alleged terrorists reportedly were unknowingly following the directions of undercover FBI agents who supplied fake bombs and came up with key elements of the plans. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #13 This needs some serious looking into. Pour encourager les autres. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2017-03-13 14:04 |
| #12 So, they can count both sides of a sting transaction as an "investigation." The bean counters tracking stats will call this a win/win. |
| Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 2017-03-13 13:58 |
| #11 My sentiments exactly Tennessee. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-13 13:33 |
| #10 Soofa and Simpson in Garland Texas, Abdulazeez in Chatanooga, the Tsarnev brothers in Boston, Mateen in Orlando...all were "groomed" or collected on by the FBI in a CI type manner...all eventually launched attacks on innocent US citizens, and we're eliminated by local police. All FBI failures just like Nokoula. The FBI needs Roto Rooter their head outta their azz. |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2017-03-13 13:25 |
| #9 i'd term it "counter colonization" |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2017-03-13 12:26 |
| #8 Shortsighted articles such as these never quite a give the complete picture. In one respect they reveal the challenges (often folly) of conducting domestic counter-terrorism through a law enforcement model The more accurate term is counter-intelligence, even when it's done by the FBI. And in the past, it's been done more aggressively. Unfortunately its application has also been spotty. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2017-03-13 11:45 |
| #7 Shortsighted articles such as these never quite a give the complete picture. In one respect they reveal the challenges (often folly) of conducting domestic counter-terrorism through a law enforcement model. But they always seem to insinuate that the mental instability of the targets is proof of their vulnerability. And they never state the obvious. People that are willing to kill and maime innocents are wired much differently than the rest of civilized society. Moreover, Islamic terrorists willing to kill themselves in a quest for martyrdom can't be treated the same as common criminals. Therfore prevention strategies require a more aggressive approach. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2017-03-13 11:34 |
| #6 The problem is that ISIS also has groomers looking for these people, and when they're done with 'em, they'll commit jihad for real. Rachid Kassim, who specialized in youths in France for ISIS, had 317 boys and girls who were his friends on the Telegram chat app -- a significant number not originally Muslim -- that he was at various stages of seducing either to make hijra to Iraq or commit jihad at home. He accounted for half of the jihadi plot arrests in France last year, as I recall. It was reported that he was killed by a drone this February. In time, no doubt, it will be revealed who took over cultivating his garden, and who is cultivating other gardens using ISIS' channel on Telegram. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-03-13 09:31 |
| #5 I would say they do it to make themselves look good and to justify better budgets... but never assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2017-03-13 09:13 |
| #4 Sounds like the old KKK meetings when more than half the attendees were FBI. Is it entrapment when you're trapping yourself plus some poor schmuck that don't know nothin'? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2017-03-13 08:45 |
| #3 Quite often this complementary antagonism is all that is necessary to push an already unstable personality into action. Nidal Hasan immediately comes to mind |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-13 08:26 |
| #2 I'm certain the closely held methods and agents will be protected under some DHS 'official secrets' policy. Of the incidents published, invariably there is some UC agent involved early engaging the actor. Quite often this complementary antagonism is all that is necessary to push an already unstable personality into action. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-03-13 08:20 |
| #1 This needs some serious looking into. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-13 05:02 |