Inside a Domestic Terror Attack

[BEER980]

Some parts of the article contain some graphic decriptions. Click the link for Adnan G. El Shukrijumah and see how easy he can blend into our population.

Inside a Domestic Terror Attack

Novermber 9, 2004

by Tom Marzullo

For the past two years the Islamists have been busily constructing the infrastructure of a terror network in the United States and lately have been staffing it with the expendable bodies that will be used to carry out the attacks. Beyond that they have also moved to put in what in their view is dependable leadership.

One immutable behavioral norm of the Islamist terror groups is the required familial or long-term personal connections to get into the leadership circle. While the motivations for this behavior are both cultural and security driven, the end result is a two-edged sword for the Islamists. First it is extremely difficult to infiltrate any inner circle so constructed, but the flip side is that it is very difficult to get replacements for those killed or captured.

On this basis, the Islamists have recently moved to bring in yet another Saudi-born terror leader to head up their structure in the United States. Adnan G. El Shukrijumah has been recently identified by Homeland Security and now has a five million dollar price on his head. This reward may make little enough difference in the short run however as the Islamists are fairly adept at setting up very secure methods of transporting key personnel into and out of the United States… but since it is not cheap to do this, it is not often used. In practice it is akin to our Secret Service, though as completely clandestine as possible for both the principal and the service.

With the arrival of this experienced Saudi terror leader we can make some reasonable assumptions… First is that the terror network is about to go active and second that the Saudi-based Wahabbi terror organizations are to be firmly in control of this network.

Just as an aside, to understand how these interconnected terror networks are funded and, by extrapolation, how they operate I most strongly recommend reading Dr. Ehrenfeld’s book, ”Funding Evil” as a basic primer on the subject.

Given the thinly veiled threats recently made by the infamous Saudi terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, we can expect attacks against targets used by our civilian populace that are aimed at producing mass casualties. Not only are these kinds of attacks promised, but they are also a routine form of mass coercion within the culture the Islamists sprang from. Since ‘You do what you know’ is a basic axiom of behaviorists that can be seen across all cultural barriers, many leaders, not understanding their opponents, attempt to apply their own cultural norms to predict their opponent’s behavior… with the usual abysmal results. So it is with the Islamists as well.

We have just seen this cultural blinder at work on Bin Laden’s attempt to sway the presidential election and it is but a short step to the long promised bloody coercion by attacks on the American populace.

This part of the commentary will briefly address are the whys and wherefores of such a possible attack scenario, followed by how the attack would look from the perspective of one of the terrorists and an adult survivor, and finally the immediate and short term aftermath.

Let us begin…

The regional Islamist terror cell has a set of target information folders for all of the potential weak points in their area vulnerable to attack… from the hardest (highly protected) to the softest.

There is also an analysis of local response capabilities to include police, fire, military and medical organizations and how they communicate and coordinate. This is important as the typical Islamist strike doctrine includes the use of imposters outfitted as responders/protectors to aid in gaining entry for the attack, creating confusion at the scene and aiding in escape/evasion of the principals.

The infrastructure having already obtained the intelligence and performed the planning now can hand off these operations as a prepackaged strike to a minimally trained and expendable strike force that was brought into the country for this purpose.

The use of the expendable imported attackers is critical from an operational standpoint as they know next to nothing of the organization, its plans and points of contact since security concerns dictate a strict need-to-know type of briefing.

In this case our postulated cell has chosen a major shopping center as the target since it is nearly impossible to secure and fulfills the strategic need of causing maximum disruption to the American economy with massive casualties as well as a severe psychological blow with the aid of the American media.

The strike date is the extremely busy Saturday after Thanksgiving at the large mall.

There are two teams to be used for the strike… the main assault force and a supporting team of English speaking strikers dressed as mall security and local police. There are escape provisions only for English-speaking imposters as the main force consider themselves part of a martyrdom operation.

The weapons in this case will be mostly conventional with the addition of non-lethal chemical agents easily available in the illegal arms market.

Since there is a local prohibition against civilians carrying personal weapons, it is expected that will be virtually no armed resistance from the people in the mall within the first 10 minutes of the strike and since that is the estimated duration of the main attack the target is considered to be virtually helpless.

The attack is timed for early afternoon with the support vehicles carrying arms and explosives being pre-positioned in the parking lot an hour before the mall opens for business.

The Islamist strike team is now committed and the clock is running as shoppers get ready to fill the mall.


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VIEW TO A KILL
His morning prayers complete, Assad drives his blue panel van to the mall early enough to get a parking space very close to his assigned entrance. The tools and assorted metal parts filling the shelves on both sides are what one would expect in the truck with the handyman logo on its sides. But while that handyman service does not exist, the 700 pounds of high explosives in cardboard boxes are very real indeed. Assad smiles, knowing that as those tools and boxes of fasteners are propelled by the explosion they will become bringers of death to the infidels, just like the two jerry cans of gasoline thickened with powdered soap.

Assad waits for the mall to open and then goes in to mix with the throng of holiday shoppers for a short while before walking out through another entrance, just like the other four members of his assault team that parked their non-descript car-bombs in the same way. They all carry a shopping bag with a minor purchase to aid in the disguise.

Assad goes to his assigned pick-up point where a car drives him and the rest of the pre-positioning team away from the mall to wait for the appointed time.

Across town, Mary Johnson is having the usual problems getting her two teenage daughters out of bed to do the shopping they had planned on Thanksgiving after deciding what to get for each of the family. This year has been a little better financially as both Mary and her husband have managed to work steadily and so there is more room in the budget for gifts, though they still have to bargain hunt seriously.

Sandra and Helen are a little grumpy as they sit down to a late breakfast and their usual sibling bickering. Henry and the boy are going out to a friend’s house to watch the nearly inescapable holiday ballgames.

A little later than Mary had planned on, they head out knowing that the traffic jam in the mall parking lot awaits.

Assad and the rest of the twelve-man assault team get into the vans that will drop them off at the mall entrances. Their Russian-made fully automatic weapons that have been cleaned, checked and loaded are now suspended under their right arms by a loop of bungee cord so are easily hidden under their long winter-appropriate coats of various types and colors. The reinforced shopping bags are full of fragmentation and tear-gas grenades to herd the shoppers into the center of the mall.

About ten miles from the mall a car sits in the very closest parking space of the movie multiplex lot. The clone-phone remote detonators inserted into the explosives ensure that this car bomb aimed at the long lines waiting for tickets does not fail to happen as planned. This explosion will be timed a carefully calculated number of minutes before the time of the attack at the mall to draw away police and emergency responders and further muddle the waters for the dispatchers.

Meanwhile, Mary and her daughters finally find a place at the mall to park, though it is pretty far away from the entrance. The sale flyers and list in hand, away they go to get the slippers, sweaters and trinkets that will make this holiday one to remember.

Assad and the each of the assault team enter the mall and the major stores, killing the few moments remaining by pretending to shop and on this busiest of days there are precious few overly solicitous sales staff to discover that Assad’s English language skills, like that of the rest of the assault team, are minimal indeed.

Hearing his beeper go off like those of the rest of the team, Assad begins the attack by throwing tear gas grenades at each of the exits. At the same time, men costumed as mall security appear from the dressing rooms and lavatories armed with portable loudspeakers and instruct the shoppers to go to the center of the mall and these instructions are reinforced by exploding fragmentation grenades thrown by the assault team driving the panicked crowds into the open spaces.

Mary and her daughters are caught up by the sheer panic caused by this situation and are separated. Mary has reacted to the tear gas exposure and can’t breathe very well and so is among the last to arrive in the open spaces, but does not see them anywhere and screaming their names does no good as it is drowned out by the hundreds of people doing the same thing.

Like the fake security guards who now grab coats to hide their uniforms, Assad and three others run out of the mall to their explosive laden trucks and SUVs parked close to the entrances. Assad guns the motor and literally pushes his way through the little bit of panicked traffic before him… driving his panel truck right through the mall doors in a shower of glass and aluminum, coming to rest right next to what has now become a frightened mob of families.

Assad flicks his first switch and then looks down at the simple set of lights that now tell him that all four truck-bombs are in place. Eyes wide and shaking with adrenaline, Assad counts to thirty and then reaches for the second switch…

Mary feels herself thrown off her feet and into a clothing store by the series of massive explosions coming in very quick succession.

Blinded, deafened and in pain she comes to amid smoke, fire and the smell of torn and burned flesh… Mary tries to clear her vision by blinking and the searing pain from the bits of debris in her eyes jolts her to consciousness and all she can think of is “I have to find my daughters!”

Blending into the large number of dazed people running away from that unimaginable explosion, the imposters go on foot to meet up with their transport at the preplanned points beyond the immediate mall area.

The terrorist assault team-members have all perished since they deliberately crowded close to the truck bombs inside the mall.

Police, fire and emergency vehicles try valiantly to get to the mall complex but are vastly slowed by the gridlock that appeared around the mall within moments of the blast.

Mary is in pain, fighting hard to keep from going into shock but still manages to get to her feet and goes out into the carnage and destruction… but she can’t even hear herself screaming her daughter’s names. There are bits of bodies everywhere, but most are just an unrecognizable smear of gore.

Mary then goes into what remains of the toy store and sees the sleeve of her daughter Helen’s favorite pink coat with her smudged hand still protruding, but that’s all there is… just the arm and the bit of coat.

Now sickened and stunned, Mary turns away and sees a pile of bodies and debris in the corner of the store. Some of the bodies are still moving a little, but that eerie ringing silence persists…

Then she spots Sandra’s shoes and jeans in the tangle… and they are moving. Mary claws the pieces off of her daughter and sees her suddenly convulse… then realizes she has just tried to rip Sandra’s own protruding intestines away in her desperation. The blackness of shock overtakes her and she knows no more until an EMT shakes her awake.


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THE AFTERMATH...
The dispatchers are frantically calling State and Federal authorities as well outlaying jurisdictions for police and emergency medical support as the first car bomb had drawn most ambulances to the theater where 17 people are known dead and there are better than 100 people injured from the blast and broken glass.

Already on the scene at the mall are the local reporters and camera crews, but the ambulances have not arrived in great numbers as yet. Firemen and EMTs are starting to comb the wreckage for survivors and a triage area has been set up just outside to stabilize the badly injured and select which cases go in what order and to where. A landing area for medical evacuation helicopters is being hastily cleared.

The EMT that found Mary led her away with the other walking wounded, while Sandra was brought outside strapped into a stretcher, an IV started and her still attached abdominal organs carefully placed in a plastic bag for the surgeons to deal with after her medevac.

Unbeknownst to the rescuers, the fifth truck bomb silently waits where it was parked near to the area now being used as the triage and command area as expected, its delay detonator timed to catch the rescuers unawares. It does its work as expected, catching the assembled responders in its blast. Like so many other critically wounded in the triage area, Sandra dies in this third explosion.

The ability to provide care and transport to medical facilities are now set back several hours as civilian vehicles are commandeered to transport the injured. Lacking the medical monitoring/support equipment and properly trained personnel contributes to more people dying on the way to the hospitals.

The terrorist attack was splashed across television screens all over the world and over the coming days Mary finds herself besieged by an army of intruding microphones and lenses asking how she felt. After she manages to get away from them, the house is so empty and quiet and the funeral arrangements still loom as makeshift morgues struggle to process the dead. Life will never be the same again.

‘The holiday shopping season is over’ becomes the recurring theme of talking heads whose staff dipped into their files for this and that dependable purveyor of doom and gloom.

Wall Street reacts negatively to the news, but within weeks those retailers who long positioned themselves outside of the typical mall environments experience a mounting upsurge in sales as they are viewed as safer shopping venues.

The term ‘ambulance chaser’ takes on renewed meaning as attorneys vie for the new business opportunities presented by the attack. Legal suits are beginning to wind their way through the system alleging malfeasance on the part of responders and hospitals.

The various domestic Muslim groups ignore the attack entirely to focus outrage at what they perceive as profiling by investigators trying to unravel the facts surrounding the multiple bombings.

Meanwhile the various outside groups that had ostensibly worked for the Kerry campaign and against US policy buttonholed reporters to reiterate their view that this attack was the President’s fault. This claim was reported and eventually picked up as a statement of fact to be bounced back and forth on the myriad of political ‘panels’ and by those writers with a leftist point of view.

In the months that follow the mall attacks, the mainstream media introduces the notion that the ‘insurgents’ have brought their fight to American soil as a natural response to US policy. The terms terrorist and murderer are deemed as inflammatory. The footage from the mall attack, like the fall of the World Trade Center in 2001, disappears to be replaced by the footage of the traumatized survivors and assorted ‘experts’ interpreting and explaining away what should be as plain as the nose on your face. Internet news sites provide much more of the unvarnished coverage of this attack and the ratings of the networks take yet another nosedive.

Although this narrative may be upsetting to the sensibilities of some readers it is actually a mild treatment of the reality of the terror attacks that have become so very common around the world.

Mary Johnson and her daughters simply represent the cost in human terms in a way that brings home to us what so many people across the globe go through. The reality is that the nameless victims suffering and dying from terrorist attacks all over the world and so blithely mentioned in sound bites is that our media have reduced them to mere background noises as they go through this ordeal with horrid regularity. Just because they aren’t Americans, their suffering and traumatization is just as real and lasting… to represent this in any other way underscores the unstated but blatantly innate racism and prejudice of the mainstream media.

It is time we took off our rose-colored glasses and see the Islamist terror organizations for what they really are. The alphabet soup of Islamist terror groups and their allies-of-convenience are our merciless foes… make no mistake about it.

When we face the next domestic terror attack, we as individuals and a nation have the responsibility to see the world as it is and take onboard the fact that we are at war with a coordinated group that makes the Nazis seem relatively pleasant by comparison. Our own media and many leftist political groups for whom America has always been and remains their enemy number one aid these murderers.

If the past is any guide, we have about an 80% probability that there is about two months remaining to get our act together.


Tom Marzullo

Tom Marzullo is a columnist/physicist/educator who is a former US Army Special Forces combat soldier and US Navy Submariner with special operations experience in both services

Source

[Aslkahuna]

Do you really think that there would be many Domestic Muslim groups (let alone domestic Muslims) left after such an outrage? Although I totally agree about the Liberals and media seeking to blame this on us-there ARE 200 Million guns in this Country and many owners willing to use them.

Steve

[LSU2001]

It seems Tom Clancy and the above writer have the same idea. Read Clancy's new book Teeth Of the Tiger. We all remember Clancy's idea about using Airliners as terrorist weapons coming true. What about this one??
TIm

[streetsoldier]

Believe me, this scenario is actually TAME compared to what could happen.

Think about this...if only TEN such cells were activated, each in a different city or state, with the same results...

And I, for one, am certain that the ji'ihadi have more than just ten cells within our borders.

[yoda]

Believe me, this scenario is actually TAME compared to what could happen.

Think about this...if only TEN such cells were activated, each in a different city or state, with the same results...

And I, for one, am certain that the ji'ihadi have more than just ten cells within our borders.

I agree Streetsoldier.

[Aslkahuna]

KVOA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Tucson ran an investigative report tonight called "Return to Terror Alley" where they followed up on their report last August about terrorists entering the US via the Mexican Border in Cochise County (for which they were severely attacked by Liberals as being racist). In the latest, they talk to a current BP agent who reveals that recently they caught a Pakistani who was on the terror watch list and who had an outstanding arrest warrant from FRANCE! The seven dudes who triggered the warning last Summer and whoes photos are plastered all over the Place are also believed to have crossed over near here. Should be noted that Tucson is listed by the FBI as a hotbed of AQ and Hamas activity.

Steve

[streetsoldier]

http://www.kvoa.com/global/story.asp?s=2545055

I read and printed off the news story...and it isn't anything I didn't expect at all.

Thanks, Steve.

[BEER980]

Yes there are 200 million guns nationwide but how many people would really go out and hunt down Middle Eastern people. I think it would take a large scale event for that to happen. Even if the stuff hit the fan I think there would be a good many that could not pull the trigger.
Yea I know this is tame and I wish there were only 10 cells in the country.
These are patient people that plan and study the enemy.

[Aslkahuna]

OTOH, from what my son says there are a bunch of people in Tucson just waiting for Open Season to be declared on illegals and/or certain other people.

Steve

[BEER980]

I understand that the people have had enough near the border. I read recently that Ranch Rescue has had problems and split into several groups. See if your son has heard about the Scorpian call that was put out.

[Aslkahuna]

No he hasn't and he hasn't even heard what it is. Ranch Rescue indeed has split up and one of their local leaders is in jail and his bodyguard in the hospital after a shootout with the FBI.

Steve