Terror's blueprint

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 12, 2002

While citizens and law-enforcement officials in metropolitan Washington breathe a huge sigh of relief that the snipers apparently have been apprehended, some authorities fear that the sharpshooters ultimately may have provided a game plan for al-Qaeda agents further to terrorize the nation.

AS INSIGHT went to press news continued to break about the capture of two alleged snipers who have terrorized the Washington metropolitan area in a shooting spree that killed 10 and critically injured three. While law-enforcement authorities believe the deadly attacks are over, reflection on the 22-day ordeal has raised still more troubling issues for the nation.

Observers fear al-Qaeda may look at this episode as showing the way to terrorize a city--any city--and create an indelible national fear. Imagine, some in Washington political and law-enforcement circles are saying, what might happen if al-Qaeda were to employ just 10 sharpshooters in 10 U.S. cities. In fact, evidence presented in mid-October by CNBC News indicates that al-Qaeda has trained sharpshooters to do exactly this--targeting children and others on school buses, at malls, in gas stations and going about their everyday lives. INSIGHT has confirmed that intelligence reports say al-Qaeda schemes have called for attacking schools nationwide, including elementary schools.

So expect John Allen Muhammad, 41, and his 17-year-old "stepson," Jamaican national John Lee Malvo, to be celebrated the world over as heroes and textbook examples for jihadists and other terrorists. And never mind that the gunsel kid and his hero from the motor pool were arrested while sound asleep outside a rest stop on Interstate 70 near Frederick, Md., about 50 miles northwest of Washington, and taken without a struggle. The arrests came when the shooters were identified after a Malvo fingerprint on a letter left at the scene of a shooting was linked to a cowardly Montgomery, Ala., robbery in September that left one woman dead and another wounded.

Neighbors reportedly said the sniper team openly was sympathetic to the jihadist hijackers who killed nearly 3,000 in attacks on the World Trade Center, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The older man converted to Islam in 1984 and legally changed his surname from Williams to Muhammad 17 months ago. Young Malvo also is believed to have converted to Islam, but as INSIGHT goes to press no evidence tying them to Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaeda terrorists has been found. Perhaps trying to calm public alarm, law-enforcement sources have claimed the alleged killers were the usual lone assassins on a murderous spree. And never mind their alleged attempt to extort $10 million and move it out of the country electronically.

The suspected serial killers had been living off and on in Clinton, Md., in the Washington suburbs of Prince George's County. Muhammad had at one time worked security for Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March" to strengthen families. Sources tell INSIGHT that paramedics were called repeatedly to Muhammad's former Maryland residence because of domestic abuse involving the second of his ex-wives.

Muhammad reportedly is connected with the Islamic Community Center in Laurel, Md., and practiced Islam while serving nine years as a mechanic in the U.S. Army. Malvo is said by law-enforcement sources to be an illegal alien, but that will have no bearing on his trial.

"Tons of evidence," police sources claim, link the two alleged killers to the crimes--including ballistic evidence, witnesses and the sniper weapon--a Bushmaster rifle that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms identifies as matching the ballistic fingerprint of bullets extracted from those killed and wounded. Ballistic evidence also has linked the men to a prior address in Tacoma, Wash.

The two are expected to be tried first in Maryland where, if convicted, Muhammad could face the death penalty. Police sources tell INSIGHT they expect the 17-year-old to claim he was coerced into the shootings. But it will avail him little since, sources say, under Maryland rules he cannot be sentenced to death if convicted, but only to life imprisonment without parole. Nor can he face the death penalty if tried in federal court for killing the FBI analyst. He can, however, be executed for murder in Virginia or Alabama.

Law-enforcement officials tell INSIGHT they believe the two shooters participated in a deadly competition with no regard for human life. So sophisticated was their method of operation that their stolen 1990 Caprice had been modified with a hole in the trunk to accommodate a rifle for easy firing. The trunk could be accessed from the backseat.

But beyond the local terror resulting from these murders and assaults on civilians, including a 13-year-old Maryland child who was shot entering a middle school, there have been other ramifications. For example, occurring in the month before general elections, the murders have been politicized by some Democrats to argue for more gun laws, including ballistic fingerprinting.