THE US-MEXICO BORDER, ALGERIA, AND DETROIT

This post is an attempt to out-game the enemy, by trying to think like the enemy and construct a potential scenario from recent events (as related in three news items).

(1) JIHAD WATCH (and Prairie Pundit):

The January 2005 arrest of Noel Exinia and Cesario Nuñez appeared to be just another Drug Enforcement Administration bust on the border, until court documents in the case are examined more closely. A few days before their arrest on federal cocaine trafficking charges, Exinia and Nuñez moved more than a quarter-ton of cocaine from Mexico through the Rio Grande Valley and on to New York City, the men told officials.

Nuñez, 33, pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge in September. His sentencing is set for Thursday. Exinia, 35, eventually pleaded guilty to the same charge. His sentencing is expected in March.

Court documents filed in Exinia’s case make frequent references to his position in the notorious Gulf Cartel. The paperwork also contains details of a December 2004 incident in which he tried to secure transportation for 20 Middle Eastern “terrorists” waiting to enter the United States from Monterrey, Chiapas and Puebla in Mexico. Recorded telephone conversations authorized under the U.S. Patriot Act and a court order captured the La Feria truck driver referring to the 20 men as “gente de Osama” or “Osama’s people.”

During a Jan. 5, 2005, telephone conversation, Exinia described the men as “Iraqis,” ages 25 to 33, who were willing to pay $8,000 for transportation past Border Patrol checkpoints in South Texas and into the U.S. interior. Exinia mentioned that eight of the men were coming to Progreso, northwest of Brownsville. He said they were “dangerous” and “really bad people.” They carried guns and made the smuggler that was helping them “afraid.”

(2) I warned about this here at THE ASTUTE BLOGGER on, February 14, 2005:

FLASH! ALGIERS (AP):

Algeria President Vicente Fox arrived in Algeria on Saturday with plans to sign a series of accords during the first visit by a Mexican leader to this North African nation in three decades. Four accords were being signed during his visit, Fox told Algerian government-controlled daily El Moudjahid, ranging from exchanges in education, art and culture to a decision to do away with visas in diplomatic and official passports.

As a sovereign nation, Mexico is within its rights to allow anyone it wants into it's country - with any degree of security or checking or oversight. But if they allow people into their country with NO CHECKS, then we MUST harden our border with Mexico, and make it IMPOSSIBLE for illegals to enter our nation from Mexico.

If Bush fails to do this, then it matters NOT how many other good and necessary security measures he takes; the neojihadists will attack us at our WEAKEST point, and right now it's our border with Mexico. And this move makes it a lot worse. In fact, it makes it intolerably dnagerous for us.

IMHO this border is as threratening to our natrional security as North Korea and Iran. If not, then more so. If we have to build a wall/fence/barrier - as the Israelis have begun, then so be it. And the time to begin hardening this border is now, if not PAST DUE! (Hat tip LGF.)

UPDATE: As direct result of this Mexican move, Muslim/Arab/North African neojihadists will have a much easier time posing as Algerians and entering Mexico legally. This will make it much easier for them to set up cells there, and to ferry in: messages; plans; money; materiel; etc. THIS IS A GRAVE RAMPING UP OF AN EXISTING THREAT!

(3) And suspicion of Algerians in particular turns out to be VERY WELL-FOUNDED: POWERLINE: and (PAJAMAS MEDIA): GEO (Turkey):

ROME: Three Algerians arrested in an anti-terrorist operation in southern Italy are suspected of being linked to a planned new series of attacks in the United States, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said on Friday.

The attacks would have targeted ships, stadiums or railway stations in a bid to outdo the September 11, 2001 strikes by Al-Qaeda in New York and Washington which killed some 2,700 people, Pisanu said.

The Algerians, suspected of belonging to a cell established by an Al-Qaeda-linked Algerian extremist organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), were named as Achour Rabah, Tartaq Sami and Yasmine Bouhrama. The first two were arrested Friday in the Salerno area south of Naples, and in Curingia, in the southern Calabria region, respectively.

We need a physical barrier on our border with Mexico - a wall or a fecne, or both - and we need it NOW. It may already be too late. They may alrerady be in Detroit - which hs a very large Arab population in which they might easily hide, and.... coming up on the local scehdule... THE SUPERBOWL.

BTW: That recent HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS AND SUGGESTIVE purchase of disposable cellphones in Midland texas was later discounted as NOT being terrorist related. Here's the newstory:

FBI says no terror link to group trying to buy cell phones

MIDLAND, Texas — Authorities have found no link between any terrorists and a group of people who tried to buy a large number of prepaid cell phones from a store last month, according to the FBI. Some employees at a Wal-Mart off Interstate 20 in Midland called police about 12:30 a.m. Dec. 18, saying six people of Middle Eastern descent were trying to buy "an unusually large quantity" of prepaid, disposable cell phones, according to a police report.

Officers found four of the people in the store and talked to them, but then called the FBI when they were evasive, police said. Officers also searched their van and found 60 cell phones and marijuana, and one person in the group was arrested on a drug possession charge, according to the police report.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents later charged one man with an immigration violation, and two others were released after producing appropriate documents, said Bill Vanderland, agent in charge of Midland's FBI office.

Agents at the time said members of the group were linked to suspected terrorist cells in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but Vanderland said Thursday that was not the case. "There is no known link or demonstrated link or any other kind of link at this point between the people here and any terror cell," he said.

WELL, NOW - (IF THIS REPORT FROM THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD IS ACCURATE) THERE IS AN OBVIOUS POSSIBLE LINK BETWEEN IMMIGRATION VIOLATORS, DRUG DEALERS AND ARABS INFILTRATING THE USA THROUGH MEXICO - ARABS WHO MIGHT BE TERRORISTS. There is now a proven nexus between these groups. therefore, I think that the FBI was WAY TOO QUICK at discounting any link. The druggies who bought the disposable cellpjhones MIGHT have been "hired" to make the buy by their connections in Mexico who were hired by Arab terrorists. Mexico's Narco-terrorists and jihadoterrorists might very well have made an alliance - one that might raise money for al Qaeda (by selling drugs for them), and which smuggles in al Qaeda agents, and which buys al Qaeda guns and cellphones and explosives.

IF I am right, (and the FBI was WRONG to quickly discount any connection) it would NOT be the first time that the FBI has dropped the ball on a terror investigation and allowed an attack to occur which might have been stopped: the FBI did so with Zaccarias Moussoui and the 9/11 Plot.

I hope the FBI's quick reversal and discounting of any terror connection was merely PR, and that they are really checking more deeply into the POSSIBILITY that the Algerians arrested in Italy, the drug smugglers arrested in Brownsville and the "Midland Texas disposable phone purchasers" are connected to a plot to "outdo 9/11" by possibly "targeting stadiums" - perhaps even the Super Bowl (as the PAJAMAS MEDIA post HYPOTHESIZED).

Developing a scenario, even one as wild as this, and then checking it out thoroughly is an important exercise. The possiblity that something is up is NOT zero, and the costs of slippiung up are HUGE. I hope the FBI is listening...