You guys have no idea how close I came to getting blown up...
http://www.kval.com/news/local/110925199.html
"CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Those who know 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud say the Somali-born man seemed to be a normal American trying to make a change in the world around him.
"He seemed like he wants to do something to change something," said Yosof Wanly, an imam at the Al-Farisi Islamic Center. "That's what he thinks in his own mind and he took that initiative."
Wanly said Mohamud had a difficult childhood, moving from Somalia at a young age with his father before relocating to Beaverton.
If Mohamud wanted to change something, at the very least the naturalized U.S. citizen has created a major stir among law enforcement and millions of Oregonians.
According to members of the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, federal agents arrested the teenager just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland Friday night.
According to a U.S. District Court warrant and a sworn affidavit, Mohamud was arrested at 5:40 p.m. just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would blow up the van.
What he didn't know is that undercover agents, who had been following him for months, had exchanged the explosives with dummies.
READ DETAILS ABOUT THE ARREST AND THE FBI INVESTIGATION
The foiled alleged bomb plot had Corvallis residents and Oregon State University students buzzing Saturday.
Mohamud was a non-degree seeking student in pre-engineering, according to OSP Spokesman Todd Simmons.
Simmons said Mohamud attended classes at OSU in the fall quarter of 2009 and again in the fall quarter of 2010. Mohamud dropped classes on Oct. 6, 2010 which Simmons said is consistent with the university add/drop period.
"It's just weird because this is not what you would think would happen here in Corvallis," said OSU sophomore Garrett Denmark. "I'm just glad [the FBI] luckily was able to get onto him before anything big actually happened."
In the affidavit FBI agents detail emails they exchanged with Mohamud under the guises of willing accomplices.
In those emails Mohamud said he had been devoted to carrying out violent jihad since the age of 15. According to the affidavit, Mohamud also wrote that he chose Oregon because "it's Oregon and Oregon, like you know, nobody ever thinks about it."
This last part really shocked me. I think Clocky and Lucifer said last spring that small rural areas were a target for terrorists just for this reason, and I didn't believe them. I will give credit where credit is due. They were right and I was actually wrong about something.
In this case, Portland is neither small nor rural, but it is definitely someplace that most of the world would be left scratching their heads wondering where it was and why someone would choose such an unfamiliar place for a bomb attack. And that means, there really is no safe place from terrorism.
