...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Profile of a would-be jihadi: Thank heaven for “profiling” (a.k.a. hyper-vigilance aimed at thwarting terrorist attacks). It’s what brought alleged Big Kaboomer Momin Khawaja to the attention of British authorities. From the Ottawa Citizen (my bolds):

…The British agency, also known as MI-5, monitored Mr. Khawaja from the moment he was picked up at London's Heathrow Airport on Feb. 20, 2004, by Mr. Khyam and his younger brother, Shujah Mahmood.

Over the following days, agents watched each move they made, dubbing Mr. Khawaja "Undue Haste."

They listened in at Mr. Khyam's apartment, in a three-storey building in the town of Slough, near London, as Mr. Khyam asked Mr. Khawaja, "Did you get that device ready?"

The Ottawa man replied, "Yeah ... I got a picture of it."

Mr. Khyam asked Mr. Khawaja how his device worked.

"You have two pieces, right? A receiver and a transmitter. The receiver will be similar to, let's say, a mobile phone. Sorta like this. It's reusable, meaning you could have one transmitter. So think of the mobile phone as a transmitter, and you could have, like five receivers," Mr. Khawaja said. Detonator wire, he said, would transmit a charge.

Later, Mr. Khawaja said: "It's actually impossible for them near urban areas to block it out because they literally use a lot of that themselves."

In recordings unchallenged by the defence and played in court yesterday, the court heard how Mr. Khawaja came to the attention of authorities immediately upon his arrival in England.

The surveillance started at the airport. Photographs show a bearded Mr. Khawaja, wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and light-coloured pants, in a parking lot with Mr. Khyam and his brother. The three are seen around Mr. Khyam's vehicle, a Suzuki Vitara, before heading back to Mr. Khyam's apartment, where a video camera captured them entering a door…

How dare authorities “profile” these lads merely on the basis of appearance! Prejudice! Bigotry! Islamophobia!

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:38 | link | comments (1)

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