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2023-07-22 Home Front: WoT
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Mohamad Barakat: Serious Omissions by Legacy Media
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All the things we’ve been wondering, except whether he is Moslem, and if so is he a connected jihadi, self-radicalized, or nuts.. [RedState] Last week, following a traffic stop in normally peaceful Fargo, ND, a gunman opened fire on coppers, killing one officer and wounding two others, along with a bystander. What the media coverage isn’t telling you is anything about the background of the shooter, one Mohamad Barakat.
According to this morning’s (July 21) update from Attorney General Drew Wrigley, Barakat had been researching mass attacks online and had notes from an attempted Times Square bombing attack.
Barakat had been studying mass casualty events for several years, and most recently was researching local events happening in the Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo and surrounding areas.
And:
Forensics experts with the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation say Mohammed Barakat has no social media presence and appears to have had very little interaction with people. Wrigley and the U.S. Attorney for the District of North Dakota both said, they have no evidence at this time that indicates a further threat to the community.
Investigators say Barakat had been reading about other mass shooting events around the country, and researching local events in the Fargo-Moorhead and surrounding areas. His online searches about mass violence go back as far as 2018. The final online search Barakat made on Thursday, July 13, was about thousands of people attending the Downtown Fargo Street Fair.
Wrigley said with the evidence they have so far, they believe Barakat may have been planning to bring his guns, ammunition, and explosives to execute a mass casualty event at the Downtown Fargo Street Fair or the Red River Valley Fair. As he was heading north on 25th Street, he could have turned right to go downtown or left to go to West Fargo.
One of his research subjects was a failed car-bombing attempt in Times Square in 2010. The placement of the fuel cans in Barakat’s car presents an uncanny resemblance to the boom-mobile in that failed attempt
 ...Curses! Foiled again! ...
(click to expand thread):
This is all the information released today about Mohammad Barakat himself:
July 21 is the first time officials have released a photo of Mohammed Barakat. Officials say he is a Syrian national who came to the United States in 2012. Barakat became a U.S. citizen in 2019. Investigators say it appears Barakat was working off and on at different jobs, and over the years he has been researching mass casualty events and collecting weaponry. His name appeared on what officials call a "Guardian Report," but they clarified the tip received was not about a threat of violence.
Wrigley says Mohammed Barakat was not on the terrorist watch list and all of the firearms appear to have been purchased legally. Investigators say he appears to have no ties to the local Moslem community. He has family living in the United States, but not in the local area. Wrigley says Barakat’s family has been spoken to, but they do not appear to have had a lot of communication with Barakat.
The investigation is still ongoing, and no information has been released on any ties Barakat may have had with any person or persons in Syria, where he lived until eleven years ago.
Several local media outlets covered the story at the time.
This isn’t the first time an immigrant, for unknown reasons, has turned out to be violent mostly peaceful. But it’s not at all clear — yet — what Mr. Barakat’s motivation was — at least not with the information we have on him at this point. The legacy media outlets, however, at the time of the event seemed decidedly incurious.
It is certain, as we see from the ABC coverage, that this will be spun as an argument for another ill-advised "Assault Weapon" ban based on Barakat’s possession of three semi-auto rifles; grenades are already illegal, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped Barakat from possessing one, presumably home-made.
In the car that Barakat drove to the ambush scene, Sherlocks found three long rifles, 1,800 rounds of .223 caliber ammunition, a homemade grenade, a can of gasoline, explosives and other firearms, Wrigley said.
A perpetrator from a war-torn country who has kept a low profile while in the United States and about whom we still know little or nothing.
The angle the legacy media takes on this will be to blame the sword for the hand that wields it. If one wanted to arrive at the root of this incident, one might look into screening practices for admitting refugees, although in this case it’s unclear as to whether this would have set off any alarms. Barakat’s time in the United States, where he went through the process to become a naturalized citizen, seems to have been spent as a low-profile, law-abiding person. And while his choice of weapons sets hits the "assault weapon" hot-button, the facts of the matter are that he could have used a wide variety of weapons to conduct a horrific attack; his possession of improvised explosives, for example.
But wait — there’s more! Everything we know about Fargo gunman Mohamad Barakat
[Inforum] Originally from Syria, Barakat was granted political asylum and arrived in the U.S. in 2012. He became an American citizen in 2019, authorities said.
From an investigative perspective, Mohamad Barakat was like a ghost, authorities said.
The 37-year-old man who bumped off three coppers and a bystander on July 14 was asocial, had little social media presence, and his cellphone records listed just five calls in a recent week, according to North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley.
With the exception of a 2018 speeding ticket in Fargo, Barakat had no criminal record anywhere in the United States.
Originally from Syria, Barakat was granted political asylum and arrived in the U.S. in 2012, Wrigley said at a news conference on Friday, July 21.
Investigators aren’t aware yet if Barakat ever married or had children, or if he came to America with family.
In 2019, Barakat was naturalized as a U.S. citizen, Wrigley said.
Why Barakat ambushed coppers with a high-powered rifle on 25th Street South is still not known.
So far, Sherlocks have found no manifesto or anything linking Barakat to terrorist groups, Wrigley said.
Due to his asocial nature and evidence from his cellphone and computer, authorities believe Barakat was a lone-wolf attacker who was not networking with any co-conspirators.
Wrigley said Barakat, at some point before the shooting, was in a federal report called a Guardian report and that there was talk of Barakat being on a terrorist watch list, although he was not on such a list. It's not clear what led Barakat to be mentioned in the Guardian report, which North Dakota's U.S. Attorney General Mac Schneider described as a way for the public to engage with law enforcement.
A federal website describes the FBI’s Guardian system as "a web-enabled counterterrorism incident management system that supports the FBI's role in defending the United States and its interests abroad from the threat of terrorism by receiving, assessing, disseminating, and retaining threats, suspicious activities, and events."
When asked if a member of the public ever reported Barakat on suspicions related to terrorism, Wrigley said: "Have not heard anything along those lines, it doesn’t mean it has never happened. I don't want you to take from that and say it doesn't exist. We're a week into the investigation."
At a local level, Fargo Police Chief Dave Zibolski has said police had interactions with Barakat before the shooting, but did not elaborate.
Barakat worked odd jobs, Wrigley said. For an unknown amount of time, Barakat was employed at Fleet Farm, 3730 36th St. S. in Fargo, a store that sells various items, including rifles, shotguns, handguns and ammunition. He was interested in setting up a trucking company shortly before he was killed, Wrigley said.
Barakat visited the Red River Regional Marksmanship Center, a West Fargo gun range, to practice his aim, said Terri Suchy, the center's operations manager. Barakat was "practicing his shooting skills" in the hours before the ambush, Wrigley said.
Wrigley said Barakat's web browser history showed searches for information on mass shooting events and how to shoot and injure people in specific ways.
The last website Barakat visited before the shooting was a news article with the headline "Thousands enjoy first day of Downtown Fargo Street Fair," the attorney general said.
On July 14, Barakat ambushed coppers as they dealt with a routine car crash near 25th Street and Ninth Avenue South. The ensuing shootout lasted roughly two minutes, killing Officer Jake Wallin and seriously injuring officers Tyler Hawes and Andrew Dotas. Barakat also maimed Karlee Koswick, a Boston-area woman who recently moved to Fargo. Officer Zachary Robinson ended the shootout by shooting and killing Barakat.
In the car that Barakat drove to the ambush scene, Sherlocks found three long rifles, 1,800 rounds of .223 caliber ammunition, a homemade grenade, a can of gasoline, explosives and other firearms, Wrigley said.
The explosives in Barakat's car were filled with large amounts of Tannerite, an explosive compound made from ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder. If Barakat had shot an explosive, it could have caused significant destruction, Wrigley said.
It's uncertain whether Barakat intended to create a diversion by ambushing the coppers before possibly heading to the street fair.
"I don’t know if he had a diversion in mind, but it would make sense though," Wrigley said.
The attorney general said Barakat "was looking for significant crowd events in the area. We do know he had a clear path, he was going to downtown Fargo."
Barakat may have been hoping to survive the attack and return home, Wrigley said.
"I have one indication, to me, that indicates that he did, that he hoped to (survive) ... in the means he would check to see if anyone had been to his apartment in his absence. He had a couple of different techniques in that regard, and they were employed in this instance," Wrigley said, without elaborating.
Barakat's last residence in Fargo was Apartment 305 at Bluemont Village Apartments in the 2800 block of 23rd Avenue South. There, Sherlocks found more guns and ammunition, Wrigley said. A downstairs neighbor of Barakat’s, Nathan Johnson, remembered the balding, slightly overweight man, saying that their conversations went no further than greetings in the mail room.
Barakat previously lived in an apartment at 4255 9th Ave. Circle S., but current residents there told The Forum they didn’t know him. He lived there from 2015 until 2020, before he moved to Bluemont Village Apartments, according to online records.
At some point, Barakat had a cooking fire that brought firefighters to his apartment, Wrigley said.
In spring 2020, Barakat enrolled in the emergency medical services program at the Fargo campus of North Dakota State College of Science, said Lee Schwartz, the college's director of marketing. It's unclear if Barakat finished the program.
FLEEING SYRIA
Leaders of Fargo-Moorhead's Moslem community told The Forum they did not know Barakat. When a family member made a request to local mosque leaders to handle Barakat’s funeral arrangements, the leaders refused, said Sajit Ghauri, an adviser to the Moorhead mosque known as the Moorhead Fargo Islamic Center.
Wrigley said Barakat was a Moslem and that Sherlocks found a Koran in his apartment, but noted that authorities have not established any ties between him and the local Moslem community.
"At this point in the investigation, I find his Moslem faith no more notable than my Lutheran faith," Wrigley said.
The Syrian refugee crisis began in 2011, the year before Barakat arrived in the U.S. The conflict in Syria has since left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.
After the war began, Syrian refugees fled to neighboring The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
 ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
, and then through the Balkans into Europe. When Syrians turned their eyes toward the United States for asylum, a large-scale political debate erupted, including in North Dakota.
In 2016, former President Barack Obama
I inhaled. That was the point ...
announced plans to allow about 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country. But after Gay Paree terrorist attacks later that year, former North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple joined more than half the country’s governors and demanded that the flow of Syrian refugees be halted. Those governors believed the federal government’s screening process was inadequate to weed out terrorists.
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Posted by trailing wife 2023-07-22 00:00||
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