Terrorism Strikes the Heartland

By Cinnamon Stillwell, World Jewish News Agency Columnist

If you happened to be browsing the Internet last weekend, the headline, “Suicide bombing in Oklahoma” just might have caught your attention.  After all, it’s not every day that there’s a terrorist attack on U.S. soil and supposedly there hasn’t been one since 9/11. But that’s exactly what happened outside a packed football stadium at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma on Saturday night (10/1).  21-year-old engineering student Joel Henry Hinrichs III of Colorado Springs detonated a bomb near the stadium, killing himself in the process.  The explosion was so powerful that people up to four miles away reported hearing it and windows in the George L. Cross building 100 yards away shattered.  One of the drivers of several buses parked in a nearby lot was taken to the hospital after being knocked over by the blast. No one else was injured and 84,000 fans left the stadium, mostly unaware of the magnitude of what occurred outside.  Some reported hearing the explosion and seeing rising smoke, as did a few people living in the area.  There was a brief delay following the game during which crowds were kept inside while authorities combed the area for evidence and other potential threats.  According to Douglas Hagmann, Director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, an anonymous official later confirmed that “other un-detonated explosive devices were found in the area cordoned off by police and federal officials” and were brought in for further testing. No sooner had the dust settled when officials tried to play the bombing off as the act of yet another crazed “lone gunman” type.  Oklahoma University (OU) President David Boren, no doubt trying to protect the university’s reputation, eagerly opined on Hinrich’s supposed history of mental instability. “We know that he has had what I would call emotional difficulties in the past,” he said. “There is certainly no evidence at this point which points to any other kind of motivation other than his personal problems.”  Law enforcement officials offered a similarly watered down version of events.  The FBI’s Oklahoma bureau chief, Salvador Hernandez, U.S. Attorney John Richter and OU Police Chief Elizabeth Woolen, in a joint statement, said, “At this point, we have no information that suggests that there is any additional threat posed by others related to this incident.”  Not once was the word “terrorism” used by any official involved in the case.

The mainstream media wasn’t exactly forthcoming either.  Those seeking information immediately following the bombing were hard pressed to find it as there appeared to be a virtual media blackout.  None of the cable news networks, including Fox News, referred to the incident and the major wire services, newspapers and websites skipped it entirely.  Once again it was left up to bloggers like Mark Tapscott, Michelle Malkin, Wizbang, Gateway Pundit, The Jawa Report and Zombie (photojournalist for Little Green Footballs), as well as the “Freepers” of FreeRepublic.com, to pull together first hand accounts and links to the miniscule amount of news coverage available at the time. Not only was the story essentially buried when it first broke, but the major media outlets have still not seen fit to address it.  But thanks to the investigative efforts of Oklahoma photojournalist Lan Lamphere (whose blog features a firsthand account and video), World Net Daily and the Northeast Intelligence Network (cited above), the evidence points to the likelihood that the incident was indeed a botched terrorist attack. The first clue was that authorities might have had knowledge beforehand there was a threat to the stadium.  Witnesses reported heavy security at the entrance and the office of OU President David Boren put out a press release stating that, “Prior to the game, the entire stadium was swept by the expert bomb teams with the help of dogs.”  Since this occurred before the game even started, authorities likely received either a bomb threat or intelligence pointing to one.  According to the Northeast Intelligence Network, initial information “suggested that that the so-called ‘suicide-bomber’ was attempting to attach bombs to the buses parked in the area when one of the bombs detonated prematurely.”  Witnesses also described seeing a second device being detonated by robot. That someone would choose to blow himself up as a means of purely committing suicide also seemed suspicious.  In fact, far from simply committing suicide, it appears Hinrichs planned to take quite a few innocent civilians with him. Whether or not the targets were bus passengers or the crowds leaving the stadium, the explosives later found at the scene were intended to inflict massive carnage.  The Northeast Intelligence Network reports that “the bomb was detonated prematurely when the suspect was either arming a bomb vest or backpack, which contained TATP, a homemade explosive. TATP (triacetone triperoxide) is a very potent but relatively easily manufactured explosive compound that was used in the July London bombings.”  TATP was also used by attempted “shoe bomber” Richard Reid to try and blow up an American Airlines flight in 2001.  The possible connection to Islamic terrorism doesn’t end there.  Law enforcement sources indicate that Hinrich had a roommate of Pakistani descent who may also have been an OU student.  Hinrich’s apartment in the Park View Apartments complex on campus was very close to the Islamic Society of Norman, OK and witnesses now report seeing him visit the center on more than one occasion.  According to Oklahoma City’s KWTV-News 9, Zacharias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker on 9/11, used to attend the same mosque.  Authorities later searched Hinrich’s apartment where they found what’s being described as a “huge cache” of TATP explosives, bomb-making manuals, and a “significant amount” of Jihad literature both in his home and on his computer.  Even more damning, KWTV-News 9 reports that Hinrichs tried to buy large quantities of ammonium nitrate (used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) from a Norman feed store four days before the bombing.

 One doesn’t have to be an intelligence expert to conclude that Hinrichs could have been a convert to Islam who became involved in terrorist activities.  Like fellow converts Richard Reid (the shoe bomber), John Walker Lindh (who joined the Taliban in Afghanistan), Kevin James, Levar Haney Washington and Gregory Vernon Patterson (all charged this year in a Los Angeles terrorist plot), his Western lineage would have come in handy for avoiding official scrutiny.  But if Hinrichs was a convert, members of the Triangle Fraternity (consisting of engineers, architects and scientists) to which he belonged were not aware of it.  In a message of condolence on the fraternity’s website, members claim to be “as stunned as anyone else on campus.”  Hinrich did not live in the fraternity house and considering his profile as a quiet type who mostly kept to himself (much like other Western youths turned terrorists), their lack of awareness is unsurprising.  Further adding to the impression that Hinrichs was a convert, a Colorado Springs Gazette photo posted at the Northeast Intelligence Network website shows him with a beard too similar to those worn by newly observant Muslim men to be a mere coincidence. Assuming this incident did involve terrorism, it certainly wasn’t a first for Oklahoma.  As detailed by the Northeast Intelligence Network, the state has a long history of such activity.  As recently as August 2005 another UO student, Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr., was arrested at the Will Rogers World Airport after security personnel found what was essentially a pipe bomb in his carry on bag.  Dreyling pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor charge in federal court in Oklahoma City. The Airman Flight School of Norman appears to have been a popular destination for several of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, as well as Zacharias Moussaoui.  Indeed, Moussaoui conducted much of his business in Norman, including opening a bank account into which he deposited $32,000 in cash.  The improbable interaction between Moussaoui and Nicholas Berg, the American man who was beheaded by terrorists in Iraq last year, also occurred in Oklahoma.  Both men were on the same bus traveling to the University of Oklahoma, when Berg allegedly allowed Moussaoui to use his laptop and gave him his computer password to do so.  Yet another 9/11 hijacker purchased his ticket from a computer terminal at Oklahoma University and depending on what version of the story one subscribes to, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City may have involved Islamic terrorism as well. When all of the evidence is brought to light, authorities may just uncover a terrorist plot that, had it succeeded, could have killed thousands.  The fact that law enforcement and the media are downplaying that reality points to a disturbing trend.  Both seem to have a habit of dismissing terrorist angles from the get-go and then minimizing them when they arise. When it comes to the Hinrichs bombing, it doesn’t take a tinfoil hat to wonder whether there’s a cover-up in progress and why.  It may simply be that investigators don’t want to jeopardize the case by giving away too much information or maybe they don’t want to alarm the public needlessly.  But doesn’t an attempted terrorist attack that could have killed countless civilians warrant some concern?  We have a color coded alert system that’s been activated any number of times for reasons mostly unknown to the public.  Yet whenever a suspicious incident occurs in this country the first thing the media and law enforcement do is try to keep it quiet.  Perhaps both sides are pandering to political-correctness and if so, it’s got to stop.  The American people deserve to know what they’re up against and not doing so will only result in further bloodshed.  Becoming complacent is what led to the attacks of 9/11.  Can we really afford to go down that road again?  The fact is, the country is not at war just with terrorism, but with Islamic terrorism.  This may make some American Muslims uncomfortable, but we cannot deny reality simply to assuage their delicacies.  In closing, it may be instructive to listen to the warnings of a law enforcement official quoted by the Northeast Intelligence Network:“ At the end of the day, enough evidence will be collected to prove that this was a terrorist bombing that went wrong and Islamic men with terrorist beliefs were also involved. Whether that fact will ever come out, like ten years ago, [Murrah building blast on 19 April 1995 that killed 171 souls] remains to be seen.  If you could have seen the people walking out of the stadium [Saturday night], you would have thought nothing happened at all. No one seems to believe that it will ever happen again, ever happen to them. It almost did. I feel like everyone is living in a fantasyland.”