Times Square car bomb, possible South Park Muhammad cartoon link

Last night, Saturday, May 1, 2010 police discovered a gas tanks in the back seat of a sports utility vehicle (SUV).
Overnight, the New York City Police Department have investigated whether there were a link between Muslim outrage over "South Park"'s Muhammad-in-a-bear-suit cartoon.

This seems to be credible, as the van was parked outside Viacom offices. Viacom broadcasts "South Park."

(Video on the CNN "Breaking News" of the car bomb-as gas tanks news story, in video box at right.)

Nick Allen and Gordon Rayner, in the UK "Telegraph" reported today on the NYPD consideration of the revenge on South Park link:

The device, which failed to detonate, was left near the offices of Viacom, which owns the irreverent cartoon series.

Last month postings on an Islamic website warned the creators of South Park - Matt Stone and Trey Parker - that they could face violent reprisals after an episode of the show featured Muhammad in a bear suit.
A posting on the website of a US-based group called Revolution Muslim warned Stone and Parker that they would “probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh”, the Dutch film-maker who was murdered in 2004 by a Muslim angered by his film about Muslim women.

Images of the Prophet are strictly forbidden in Islam, and Comedy Central, which broadcasts South Park, has banned Stone and Parker from depicting Muhammad in the past. In 2006 the network stopped them from featuring Muhammad in an episode which followed worldwide protests over a caricature of the Prophet by a Danish cartoonist.

This follows on a number of episodes depicting or alluding to Muhammad, beginning with episode 68, "Super Best Friends," a 2001 episode, depicting Muhammad along with other religious iconic figures.

Detectives are also understood to be investigating striking similarities between the New York bomb and two car bombs planted by Islamic terrorists outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in London in 2007.

In both cases, the devices comprised cylinders of propane gas and cans full of petrol intended to be ignited by electronic detonators.

FORENSICS WORK AGENDA
No direct clues to individuals have been floated, but the forensics procedure should be straight-forward. The police have noticed that the van's license plates are at discrepancy with the vehicle. The plates are for a Ford vehicle. The van is a Nissan Pathfinder. While the plate switch is temporary, each vehicle carries specific Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) stamps. These numbers can ultimately be traced to the actual car ownership.
UPDATE, 12:38:
CNN reports that the VIN on the dashboard had been removed.
TIME TO STOP TINTED WINDOWS
The issue of tinted windows is a domestic security issue. The tinting of windows obscures materials in rear seats of cars and vans. In this vehicle the gas tanks were in the back seat. It appears that the tanks were visible, in this case, because the tanks were visible enough through the windows. We are fortunate that the windows were visible enough to see the gas tanks.
In regular driving situations, drivers that are doing objectional things, whether involvement in possible terrorism, sideswiping a vehicle or nearly striking a pedestrian can elude identification, due to tinted windows. The tinting of windows is intense, the windows are nearly blackened.
We must stop being libertarian on this issue. People's right to be private behind windows, when bombs or irresponsible drivers hidden behind tinted / darkened / blackened windows can threaten citizens.
MEDIA GENERAL SILENCE, THE NEXT SUNDAY MORNING
What are the priorities of the television networks. This morning the terrorism story has been only mentioned in passing.

Militia terror mobilizes against police in Michigan and for armed rally across river from Washington

You thought that the right wing tea-partiers also known as tea-baggers were bad?

We've had frequent acts of right wing vandalism against Democratic office-holder and party offices since the longest weekend (March 21, 2010) House passage of the health care bill, H.R. 3962.

Now we've got a "Christian" militia group, Hutatree, mobilizing for attacks on local law enforcement in Michigan.
Justin Elliott, "Nine Christian Militia Members Charged With Seditious Conspiracy, Attempted Use Of WMD," as reported by TPM.com.
And see this CNN report, today, March 29, 2010: "'Christian warrior' militia accused in plot to kill police."

And, as DemocraticUnderground, TPM and OliverWillis tell us, the militia groups are mobilizing for an armed rally at Gravelly Point Park in Arlington, Virginia, across the river from Washington, D.C., on April 19, 2010. [See Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Special Intelligence Report, Spring 2010Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism.] You doubt this? Just google their code phrase, "open carry."
That is pretty scary. April 19 is a business day. The 111th Congress will be back in schedule, with the April Recess having finished a week before then.

The mainstream media have been slow to pay attention to this April 19 armed rally at Gravelly Point Park.
Greater attention, came first from the SPLC, Mother Jones and bloggers, for example: "Demagogues and Dictators," on March 25 called attention to this nasty mobilization, in "Upstaging Osama -- The Next Terrorist will be Domestic."

There are links between three extremist groups, the Oath Keepers, Committees of Safety, and the Three Percenter Movement, with the tea-party groups. Read Justine Sharrock's report in the March/April 2010 "Mother Jones": "Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason".
The left-leaning blog, The Raw Story, has compiled a series of incriminating videos, both by the armed factions of the right wing and by CNN.

Bronx terror plot on synagogues and rethinking Gitmo prisoner reassignment

GIVEN THE BRONX TERROR PLOT, IS PLACING GITMO PRISONERS IN US PRISONS A WISE IDEA?

President Barack Obama is facing his first serious challenge and rebuff with Congress' rejection last week of his plan to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison (or Gitmo).
Congress' rejection of his plans to shut the facility by January 2010 came at a crucial moment. The vote came within days of an attempt by US-born Islamic radicals to bomb synagogues in Riverdale, the Bronx, New York City and to fire a Stinger missile at airborne aircraft at the Stewart Air Base in Newburgh, in Orange County, New York.
The fact that the terror plotters were jail-house converts to radical Islam should Obama the impulse to rethink his decision to ship detainees out of Guantanamo Bay.

The prisoners should not be housed in the general population in the prisons. Placing these prisoners in the general prison population runs the serious risk of spreading radical ideas among the general inmate population. The only circumstance whereby Obama could reasonably place these prisoners in the general population, would be if he had the prisoners placed in an isolated wing or corridor of the prison away from the prison population at large. It would be absolutely reckless to place possible religious radicals in with the general prison population. This could serve to facilitate an expanding base for violent religious extremism.

It is disappointing that conservatives are so far the voices out front on this perspective. (For the denial-ville approach: Witness this contribution to the Daily Kos blog: "Prisons, Islam and American Bantustans.") Contrasted with this conservative columnist: Michelle Malkin, May 22, 2009 "Breeding Jihad in U.S. Prisons."
Liberals and leftists should also counsel against anything that could assist the expansion of religious radicalism. We should remain consistent with our principals. The ultimate reason why we are against hate groups is that we oppose the worst thing that these groups could do: act towards the murder of people. Mass killing is exactly what these homegrown terrorists, James Cromitie and company, had planned for Riverdale last week. We liberals and leftists cannot cherry pick the instances in which we want to oppose hate groups.

* * *
Eric Gorski and Rachel Zoll, Associated Press, Friday, May 22, 2009,
Bronx bombing plot renews fears of radical Islam in prison

Wil Cruz, Joe Kemp and Patrice O'Shaughnessy May 22, 2009 DAILY NEWS STAFF, "http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/05/22/2009-05-22_radicals_often_born_in_state_prison.html."

Elisabeth Bumiller's New York Times article on US terror suspect recidivism rate, "Later Terror Link Cited for 1 in 7 Freed Detainees" May 20, 2009.

The New York Times' report on named recidivist individuals, active in terror, "The Recidivism Docket."

Upstate NY men arrested in Jihad terror plot in Bronx

FOUR UPSTATE NEW YORK MEN ARRESTED WEDNESDAY NIGHT IN JIHAD TERROR PLOT AGAINST SYNAGOGUES IN THE BRONX

From MSNBC news, Wednesday, May 20:

Four men have been arrested in a plot to attack several targets in the New York City area, including synagogues, federal and local authorities told NBC News Wednesday.

Authorities said the four men have long been under investigation and there was little danger they could actually have carried out their plan, NBC's Pete Williams reported.

Investigators say the four, described as Black Muslims from the Bronx, had planned to place bombs at various targets. But New York city police and federal agents got wind of the plot and kept the men under careful surveillance.
In fact, officials say, the men recently bought what they thought were explosives, which they put in storage lockers outside the city. But what the men did not know is that the material they bought was actually harmless, sold to them by informants posing as explosives dealers.

Officials emphasize that the men never had actual bombs and could not have pulled off any attack.

According to court documents, an informant met the apparent ringleader of the group, James Cromitie, in a Newburgh mosque last June. He told the informant that his parents lived in Afghanistan before he was born that that he was "upset about the war." If he died a martyr, Cromitie told the informant, he would go to paradise.

For the past year, the informant has followed Cromitie and three others, David and Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen, as they bought a camera, photographed potential synagogues to attack, and scouted out a place from which to shoot at planes at the Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh.

Two weeks ago, three of them met the informant at a Connecticut warehouse to inspect what they thought was a Stinger surface-to-air missile obtained from a terrorist group and plastic explosives. All the materials were actually provided by the FBI and were harmless.

The four are expected to face the charges in federal court Thursday.

Two years ago, two Muslims pleaded guilty to plotting to attack synagogues in Los Angeles. But officials said that they knew of no connection between those arrests and this latest plot in New York.