Feds say they disrupted suicide bomb plot by worker at Wichita airport

[mfcorey1]

By Pete Williams, Chief Justice Correspondent, NBC News
A 58-year-old airport worker was charged Friday with allegedly planning a suicide bombing at a passenger terminal at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in Kansas.


The suspect, Terry Lee Loewen, an avionics technician who lives in Wichita, was arrested earlier in the day as he attempted to use his security pass to drive a vehicle that he thought contained explosives onto the tarmac at the airport, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Wichita. In fact, the car contained only dummy explosives.
U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Loewen spent months developing a plan to drive a carload of explosives to the airport terminal and that he was determined to trigger the bomb himself and die in the blast.


Loewen, who is white, became radicalized after reading extremist Islamic material on the Internet, Grissom said.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Wichita charges Loewen with one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, one count of attempting to damage property by means of an explosive and one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He was scheduled to be arraigned at 3 p.m. local time.
If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Investigators tell NBC News that Loewen has been under scrutiny since August, when he began having an online exchange with someone he thought was a like-minded individual but who turned out to be an FBI employee.
"Let me preface the bottom line by saying I have become 'radicalized' in the strongest sense of the word, and I don't feel Allah wants me any other way," he said in one message, according to the complaint.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/13/21891923-feds-say-they-disrupted-suicide-bomb-plot-by-worker-at-wichita-airport?lite

[darkangel218]

1. Good job, feds!!

[RC]

2. Another sting operation?

I wonder how much of an involvement the NSA had in this?

[Laelth]

4. That's a good question. n/t

-Laelth

[LeftyMom]

3. Since when did religious fanatics refer themselves as "radicalized"?

It's generally my observation that they use constructions that they imply that they're doing religion the right way and that more moderate people are doing it wrong. They don't generally describe views they see as god-ordained as radical, they generally see *deviating* from literalism and extreme views as radical.

It's odd. I'm not calling bullshit or anything, but it certainly raises an eyebrow.

[darkangel218]

5. I dont know, im happy they caught this fundie.

[RC]

6. That is a good question too.

Both eyebrows, even...

[Th1onein]

7. From NBC News: Ya think he was "radicalized" by the FBI?

Investigators tell NBC News that Loewen has been under scrutiny since August, when he began having an online exchange with someone he thought was a like-minded individual but who turned out to be an FBI employee.