Thursday, January 20, 2005
Dirty Bomb in Boston
This has already been well covered by Little Green Footballs. What was odd yesterday is that they trotted out these local al Qaeda fugitives. I had heard that Shukrijumah was trying to get back into the country by way of the Mara Salvatrucha gangs. The threat seemed to be serious enough that state officials were huddled in the MEMA bunker in Framingham.
But the truly strange thing about this story is the Chinese. Who are these people? The Pinyin transliterations of their names suggests People's Republic. All the other information on this threat is so sketchy that it wouldn't be surprising if it turned out to be a false alarm. But the fact that officials were able to come up with names for the four Chinese is troubling. The possibility that China could be this involved in terrorism is staggering. Another possibility is that they are simply illegal aliens who were along for the ride and the FBI wants to question them to get more information on the Iraqis.
However this statement from MA Governor Mitt Romney would seem to suggest otherwise
"The intelligence information indicates that people were going to be traveling to New York City and then they were going to be coming to Boston and that the threat was targeted at Boston or the Boston-area. We don't have any reason to believe that they're in Massachusetts at this point, don't even know that they're coming here, but the information is sufficiently specific that we wanted to look into it very, very carefully," Romney said.
Mitt does bring up another possibility:
"We don't know whether that's a reliable tip or whether it's something designed to make people fearful, to interfere with the inauguration festivities perhaps..."
More recent reports are focusing only on the four Chinese without mentioning the Iraqis.
According to The Boston Globe, this kind of attack is almost inevitable.
Anyone with any information about this threat should call the local FBI office at 617-742-5533
But the truly strange thing about this story is the Chinese. Who are these people? The Pinyin transliterations of their names suggests People's Republic. All the other information on this threat is so sketchy that it wouldn't be surprising if it turned out to be a false alarm. But the fact that officials were able to come up with names for the four Chinese is troubling. The possibility that China could be this involved in terrorism is staggering. Another possibility is that they are simply illegal aliens who were along for the ride and the FBI wants to question them to get more information on the Iraqis.
However this statement from MA Governor Mitt Romney would seem to suggest otherwise
"The intelligence information indicates that people were going to be traveling to New York City and then they were going to be coming to Boston and that the threat was targeted at Boston or the Boston-area. We don't have any reason to believe that they're in Massachusetts at this point, don't even know that they're coming here, but the information is sufficiently specific that we wanted to look into it very, very carefully," Romney said.
Mitt does bring up another possibility:
"We don't know whether that's a reliable tip or whether it's something designed to make people fearful, to interfere with the inauguration festivities perhaps..."
More recent reports are focusing only on the four Chinese without mentioning the Iraqis.
According to The Boston Globe, this kind of attack is almost inevitable.
Anyone with any information about this threat should call the local FBI office at 617-742-5533
papijoe 8:11 AM
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