4th of July Subway Terror Plot Confirmed to be Fake!

[kittenpants]

Jeweler charged with false terror plot report
Bogus tip included details of alleged plot, spurred $100,000 investigation


NEW YORK - A jeweler, apparently bent on revenge against his former business associates, was arrested Monday for reporting a bogus plot to bomb the New York subways last Fourth of July, authorities said.

The false report launched an intense and costly terrorist investigation which stretched as far as Israel, as more than 40 investigators conducted 24-hour surveillance and other covert techniques trying to track down fictitious terrorists.

Rimon Alkatri, 34, a native of Syria living in Brooklyn, surrendered Monday after a Manhattan grand jury indicted him on charges of falsely reporting an incident, a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau...


...On July 7, authorities said they had thwarted a terrorist plot to flood lower Manhattan by attacking train tunnels under the Hudson River used by tens of thousands of commuters. Eight suspects — including an al-Qaida loyalist arrested in Lebanon and two others in custody elsewhere — had hoped to pull off the attack in October or November, federal officials said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14125979/

Sorry if this has already been posted, but I searched & couldn't find it.

[gratuitous]

1. Mission accomplished

People were good and scared at Fourth of July time, and had our Republican overlords to thank for it. God bless America, baby!

Of course, the details of the plot were just plain loony. How could Manhattan be flooded by blowing up tunnels? It's against the laws of physics. But of course, those wily terrorists don't respect any laws, so it's entirely possible that they would ignore the laws of physics, too. Be good and scared, America! It's for your own safety that you should give up your rights.

The larger lesson from this bogus scare will, naturally, be lost on the bulldogs of the Fourth Estate. That is, that intelligence gathering is an iffy business at best, and someone with a personal vendetta can tie up significant amounts of counterterrorist activity with a bogus report. All this wholesale data mining by the administration doesn't make us one whit safer, there are other investigative techniques that will yield more reliable results, and one overeager investigator can be willingly fooled and gear up a huge investigation on the dubious say-so of one unreliable source.

[Igel]

5. But the article clearly and explicitly refers to two distinct plots.

"The phony plot came at a time when investigators were pursuing another terrorist plan to bomb the New York subway.

"On July 7, authorities said they had thwarted a terrorist plot to flood lower Manhattan by attacking train tunnels under the Hudson River used by tens of thousands of commuters. Eight suspects — including an al-Qaida loyalist arrested in Lebanon and two others in custody elsewhere — had hoped to pull off the attack in October or November, federal officials said."

Now, both may be phony, but that's a different article.

[gratuitous]

6. My mistake

But flooding an area above sea level by blowing tunnels below sea level still doesn't work.

[Igel]

8. True.

The most persuasive spin I heard was that by rupturing the PATH they'd flood the Path (most directly leading to the WTC station) and also the subway system.

[sutz12]

2. And our fake Homeland Security Department foiled it.

:sarcasm:

[Kagemusha]

3. Punked.

'Nuff said.

[Rosemary2205]

4. This is EXACTLY why "enemy combatants" need lawyers.

and access to the judicial system.

[kittenpants]

7. kick

[originalpckelly]

9. Here is the NY Times story about it...

"They had hidden explosives in hollowed-out jewelry, the informant said, and then used their professional know-how to import the jewelry and bring it to a store that one of them owned in New York.

To clinch the story, the informant, who identified himself as Jose Rodriguez and said he was from Israel, told the police officer answering the hot line that he had overheard the plotters use the Arab expression “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great.”

The post-Sept. 11 antiterrorist law enforcement apparatus sprang into action, with city, federal and even Israeli officers following leads, conducting 24-hour surveillance and searching homes and businesses with bomb-sniffing dogs. A New York detective stationed in Jerusalem tried to track down the man called Jose Rodriguez.

In the end, the investigators concluded that the call was a hoax, they said yesterday, perpetrated by a Syrian Jewish refugee named Rimon Alkatri, 34, the owner of a jewelry store in Brooklyn. The five conspirators identified by Mr. Alkatri were not Muslims but Christians and Jews, the police and prosecutors said. He had done business with four of the men, officials said, and had named them as terrorists because he had a grudge against them stemming from a business deal that had ended in a bitter disagreement."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/nyregion/01false.html?ref=nyregion

How long until this makes al-Jazeera as "a plot by the evil Zionists"? <-Should be a poll.

[greenbriar]

10. kicked...we will see MOre and MORE of this in the next few months

from now till November