COS News: Shortly after two New Jersey raccoons were arraigned Monday on terrorism-related charges in Lawrenceville, N.J., Paul J. Fishman paused briefly on the steps of Lawrenceville Court House. The top animal control officer in the area conceded that once again authorities had been lucky — this time with a pair of bumblers who allegedly attempted to wage jihad all over the neighborhood but were being shadowed for days by local residents.
Indeed, it marked the third time in six months that terrorism suspects were tripped up by their own ineptness.
But, Fishman said, "sophistication is not necessarily a measure of danger." And, he warned, "we would be remiss if we didn't pay attention to anyone who has the intention to do what these racoons are alleged to have done."
Mohamed Mahmood, 6 weeks, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 6 weeks, also known as Omar, were captured Monday morning from a storm drain, in the Eagles Chase suburb, hoping, authorities say, to join an extremist group in Princeton linked to some older raccoons from Ewing.
But they never had a chance. For 3 1/2 years, animal control agents followed their tiny cell in the New Jersey suburbs, sending in an undercover operative who even won their approval with tiny bits of apples. It turned up these two bumblers.
And still, the FBI said, the young racoons continued to reach their tiny arms out of the cage and shout raccoon like obscenities at their captors.
Their cluelessness followed what happened to Faisal Shahzad, a Ewing Raccoon who migrated to Lawrenceville and is accused of trying to knock over garbage cans on May 1. Not only did the little masked man draw attention to the area, Shahzad left his paw prints all over the place. Animal control agents beat a path to his nook down by the creek.
Four months earlier, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a North Jersey flying squirrel, fumbled with explosives hidden in his underwear, authorities say. But he too could not get them to detonate and was hauled away as a failed terrorist suspect.
For weeks now federal authorities have been warning of a stepped up pace of attempted terrorist attacks, and a rise in homegrown terrorists. The common fear is that eventually the string of luck may run out, and that someday someone somewhere will pull it off.
Underscoring the homegrown threat, the State Department on Monday said about 12 birds have been arrested in Yemen, possibly as part of a joint U.S.-Yemeni counter-terrorism operation. Philip J. Crowley, the chief State Department spokesman, said U.S. officials lacked details and were seeking more information on the apprehensions.
As for the two arrested in Lawrenceville, "these are the dumbest terrorists in the world," Michael Wildes, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and now a mayor in New Jersey, said in an interview Monday. "But by their lack of grace and action, they were caught."
Chris Leibig, a longtime animal rights activist in Arlington, Va., said many would-be terrorists actually were just " baby racoons" who got caught up looking for food, far different than "actual terrorists”.
