Reid: Christmas terror attempt highly likely

Will Woodward, chief political correspondent
Monday December 11, 2006
The Guardian
An attempted terrorist attack in Britain in the run-up to Christmas is "highly likely", the home secretary, John Reid, warned yesterday.


"The threat in this country is very high indeed. It is at the second highest level and people now know that publicly, because we publish it on the web. And that means that it is highly likely that there'll be a terrorist attempt," Mr Reid told GMTV's Sunday programme.

"We know that the number of conspiracies of a major type are in the tens - 30 or round about that," he said, although he did not give the details of any plots.
But I think we just ought to be very grateful for the people in the security services and the police and other areas, who work night and day to try and protect us. We can never guarantee that we'll have a 100% success, but we do get a 100% effort from the security services."


Mr Reid did not say an attack was inevitable, but he added: "The terrorists only have to get through once as they did on July 7 for us to see the terrible, terrible carnage that it causes."

"Our security services and the police and those who are fighting against the terrorists have to be successful on every occasion in order to prevent that from happening."
The battle against terror would continue for "longer than a generation", Mr Reid warned. "When it came to the struggle against republican terrorism in Ireland and in the mainland here, that lasted 30 years, and there is no indication to me that this is going to be resolved any quicker than that."

Not only is a terrorist attack higher before Christmas in Britian but here in the U.S. as well. Take into account Derrick Shareef's planning to blowup a mall in Ill. and the guy in Rhode Island.
Jag

Suspicious Truck Driving Student In Custody

December 9th, 2006
Federal terrorism officials and Rhode Island authorities converged this week to arrest an Indian citizen enrolled in a Smithfield tractor-trailer training school who was trying to obtain a commercial driver’s license and permit to haul hazardous materials.

The man, Mohammed Yusef Mullawala, of Jamaica, N.Y., is being held in federal custody for overstaying his student visa. State police Maj. Steven O’Donnell said that after two days of truck-driving classes, Mullawala’s behavior was suspicious enough to prompt school officials to contact the Department of Homeland Security late last month.

“His behavior was consistent with terrorist-type activity,” O’Donnell said. “He showed no interest in learning the fine art of driving a tractor-trailer. He had no interest in learning how to back up.”

Using protocol established after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials from Nationwide Tractor Trailer Driving School, of 125 Washington Highway in Smithfield, contacted the federal Highway Information Sharing and Analysis Center with concerns about Mullawala. The center relayed the concerns to the Department of Homeland Security, which then contacted the Rhode Island State Police, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Authorities soon discovered that Mullawala was in the United States illegally , according to the state police. They also learned that he had driver’s licenses in three states, including Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.

O’Donnell said that Mullawala falsified documents when applying for a driver’s license at the Registry of Motor Vehicles by saying he was a Rhode Island resident.

State authorities intend to charge him with identity theft for allegedly lying on the forms, O’Donnell said.
“If it was just three licenses, that wouldn’t raise too many red flags. But all the other stuff really raised some eyebrows,” O’Donnell said. “Maybe he’s not a terrorist. But there’s every indication that he’s hiding something.”
Mullawala told authorities that he was commuting to the Smithfield school from New York. He indicated that he was in a hurry to obtain a commercial driver’s license and a permit to haul hazardous cargo. And Mullawala indicated to the truck driving school that he wasn’t interested in learning how to back up a tractor-trailer, according to O’Donnell.

“There may be some legitimate reason he doesn’t want to learn to back up or drive [the truck] properly…He gave an explanation,” O’Donnell said, declining to detail the explanation.

The state police lured Mullawala to state police headquarters on Tuesday “on an unrelated matter that we created for him,” O’Donnell said. “He was not aware he was coming here to be arrested.”

He has since been turned over to immigration officials and is being held in federal custody pending the results of an immigration hearing in Boston. Mullawala faces deportation.

“There’s no nexus to terrorism we can prove,” O’Donnell said. “Sometimes there’s no way of telling and we don’t want to wait to find out.


http://www.nationalterroralert.com/