Academic

A weird accounting of the top 3 domestic terrorists captured since 9/11

By Tung Yin

In the wake of the news that "Jihad Jane" is pleading guilty to various federal terrorism-related charges, Yahoo!'s Associated Content put together a side bar of the "top three domestic terrorists captured by U.S. officials" after 9/11.  The three?  John Walker Lindh, Nidal Malik Hasan, and Mohamed Osman Mohamud. . . .

Regarding Lindh, the article had this to say:

The United States needed to sentence Lindh harshly to send a message to other Americans that they cannot go live in the Middle East and train to be a terrorist and then come back to the US to plot terrorism.

This is plainly incorrect.  Lindh wasn't even captured by U.S. officials; the Northern Alliance grabbed him and turned him over to us.  Lindh's wrongdoings occurred entirely overseas, and there was no evidence that he planned to come back to the U.S. to plot terrorism.  I'm not sure why Lindh is on the list at all, since his "terrorism" was not domestic.  I mean, he's a U.S. citizen, but that can't be the meaning of "domestic terrorist."

On Major Hasan, that's hard to argue with.  We'll see if he can win his case with an insanity defense (or some other kind of mens rea-defeating claim), but his actions were certainly very bad in terms of the scope of harm caused.

This is what the story has to say about Mohamud:

According to rawstory.com, "Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old man was arrested for allegedly trying to blow up an Oregon Christmas tree lighting ceremony." Mohamud has yet to stand trial for his actions because his alleged crime occurred on Nov. 26, 2010. He is behind bars and should be getting his day in court in 2011.

That's it.  No mention of the FBI sting and possible entrapment defense.  This gets him on the list as one of the top three domestic terrorists caught since 9/11?

What about Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, who had a real car bomb that he lit, and that only failed to kill lots of people because it didn't go off like it was supposed to?

What about Najibullah Zazi, who did get all kinds of parts and material to build bombs for suicide bomb attacks that he had coordinated with two others?

What about Jose Padilla, once suspected of plotting to build and set off a dirty bomb?  Sure, when Padilla was ultimately charged with a crime (which he was convicted of), it was for providing material support to a terrorist organization.  Still, his activities were in fact domestic and seemed no less serious than Lindh's.

So, the charges against Mohamud are serious, but the legal consequences of his actions have yet to be determined since he hasn't been tried yet.  Shahzad, Zazi, and Padilla have all been convicted, and at least the first two presented far more imminent danger than Mohamud did.  I'm not sure where Mohamud would rank on the list of domestic terrorists captured since 9/11, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be in the top 3.

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on February 02, 2011 (boomark / email).