From Reaganites Unite:
The Northeast Intelligence Network is reporting that the investigation of this weekend’s suicide blast in Norman Oklahoma is leaning heavily toward it being a failed suicide bombing aimed at a packed OU Football game at Oklahoma Memorial stadium and not simply the suicide initially claimed.
Law enforcement sources close to the Northeast Intelligence Network have confirmed that search and seizure warrants were served today upon the residence of the suicide bomber, 21-year-old Joel Henry Hinrichs III of Colorado Springs, CO, who was a resident of the Park View Apartments on campus. Speaking strictly off the record, the officials stated that they recovered significant amount of Islam Jihad type literature, some possibly written in Arabic, along with the suspects computer. Some of the documentation included material on how to construct bomb-making vests.
Further reports by the same officials indicated that the bomb was detonated prematurely when the suspect was either arming a bomb vest or backpack, which contained TATP, a homemade explosive. TATP (triacetone triperoxide) is a very potent but relatively easily manufactured explosive compound that was used in the July London bombings. It is important to note that TATP has been cited in numerous Jihad bomb-making manuals.
As Bill Quick notes, “[t]his one doesn’t look like an Abdulla al-Fukwaddi, either. He looks like a Johnny Lindh.”
More from Wizbang, Jawa, Lam Lamphere’s Overnight AM Talk Show, and Flopping Aces, who has extensive material on the bombing and the bomber.
Meanwhile, there’s this, from Florida Cracker:
Not having learned a lesson from Sami Al-Arian’s long and profitable sojourn in her city, on Saturday Tampa’s infidel mayor Pam Iorio proclaimed CAIR day. Some of CAIR’s erstwhile employees and members were unable to attend the festivities due to their incarceration for terrorism.
(h/t Bill)
****
update: Allah is correct that we should take this all with a grain of salt. The sources cited by NIN are off the record, so keep that in mind.
Colorado Freeking Springs? You got to be kidding me.
Big, big grain of salt if this is coming from NIN.
Big.
OPEN BLOCKQUOTE! OPEN BLOCKQUOTE!
I thought that beard looked a little funny….
Jeff,
You missed a closing tag.
Thanks, fixed.
There’s also the possibility that the guy just wanted to make a suicide bomb vest and didn’t care about the ideology behind islamic suicide bombings. The research could still have had him winding up with lots of jihadist propaganda on his computer.
It’s not merely that the sources are unnamed. This is NIN. Whatever Debka’s accuracy rate is, divide that by ten; that’s about how accurate NIN is.
They don’t call it the world’s most alarmist website for nothing.
As I mentioned in my post that Jeff cited
Also, I should credit Allah for originally dubbing NEIN ‘the world’s most alarmist website’.
Well, no matter how far down the jihadi yellow-brick-road he got, he must be considered at least a serviceable suicide bomber, as he did manage to blow himself to bits.
Perhaps that will get him a dozen or so virgins.
Assuming the NIN report is accurate, my first impression is similar to Eric J’s. Researching bomb vests is one thing, Jihad is another. What better source of vest technology is out there? Jihadist materials!
After all, just because I have a kosher cook book doesn’t mean I’m converting to judaism. I might be in it only for the food!
Yeah. But that beard.
Maybe he’s Amish. Or a fan of Jim Kearn. And the jihadi stuff was just incidental.
But maybe not. Just raising the possibility here.
The beard gave me pause as well.
I saw the beard and figured maybe he was IRA. He had that goofy leprechaun look, like he was thinking, “If anyone else says ‘Always after me Lucky Charms, they’re magically delicious’ to me ONE MORE TIME, I swear to God I’m going to blow myself up!”
Burger King’s best Arabic writing analysts are currently pursuing this lead.
Shit, I missed the beard!
I think the beard explains it. The guy offed himself to avoid the life of an Abe Lincoln look alike.
I’m at OU.
The fellow who blew himself up did it quite a distance from the stadium where the football game was taking place.
He was a member of the local engineering/nerd fraternity, so my first guess was “Ooh, goofing with hazardous materials gone horribly wrong? I thought engies did beer instead of volatile chemicals…” But, it is slowly revealing that he was a major loner, depressed, feeling helpless in life, et al. Please, don’t take this much further than it actually is. I rather like Malkin’s reporting of other news reporting to be honest, though I haven’t read if she has reported more on it.
His beard seems to be of recent origin, since he was a sophomore (early in the year) and the other photo from his college ID or driver’s license didn’t have one. Also, he lived two blocks from an Islamic center in OK. The map was linked on a sublink of Malkin’s site.
At this point, I’d have to see multiple witnesses saying he wasn’t a convert to the ROP to believe he wasn’t.
The sources cited by NIN are off the record, so keep that in mind.
Now you’re citing Trent Reznor?
let me see here:
1.Jihadi beard
2.Blocks from Islamic center.
3.Silly looking Zarqawi grin about him.
4.Vest that explodes
5.Jihadist reading materials found.
OHNOES
How much clearer can the evidence be?
Or it all could be coincedence maybe………
Why are we resignifying this boy’s beard? It could be just a dark arc on his face.
I’ve got a dozen Phish fan students with the same beard.
At least half of those Phish fans also are fans of Noam Chomsky.
And the serious Phish-Chomsky fans also have at least one dirty kaffiyah and half a dozen ‘liberation’ pamphlets laying around the house, right next to their bongs and three day old pizza crusts…..
Todd you might be right. Or not.
1. Jihadi beard? Maybe. Ugly Lincoln beard, for sure.
2. Blocks from Islamic center? Yeah, just like every other student who lives near campus.
3. Zarqawi grin? Whatever that means.
4. Vest. Check.
5. Jihadi materials. Cookbook or manifesto?
Ok maybe I am looking for an excuse to once again curse the Islamofacists.
But one thing that does not add up, there was no statement of glorification made by a Jihadist group, so I guess that solves this case right?
The newsok.com site says the FBI found a bunch of explosives in his apartment, same as that used by Richard Reid. I dunno…I expect we’ll hear from his shocked imam any minute now.
There are a lot of ways for depressed people to off themselves. Why a bomb vest? Was it the engineer in him that wanted to create one more nifty gadget to blast off with? Or did he want people to think he was a jihadist for some reason? Or was he really one?
Has anyone found real ties to the Islamic center? Has he been involved with any jihadist activities? Any political protests?
What evidence is there that the vest prematurely exploded? Did he even have a ticket to the event at the statium that would have allowed him to take out some victims?
The depressed and gullible are the best suicide bomber recruits. Even if nobody actually recruited him, there’s been enough noise about the issue.
And you’re sure that’s not a head shot of Tom Hanks from Castaway……..
He looks like this guy to me:
http://rawsocket.org/rtfm/images/beavis.jpg
could there be a Hollywood connection?
just imagine you live in apartment 406 B. Perhaps I need to factor in the cost of purchasing a single family home for my kids when they go to college?
Or another take on this:
1) Engineer
2) Nerd frat
3) 72 virgins…
Hell, maybe he thought self-detonation was the only way he’d ever get laid.
Wait, didn’t you, Allah, call it the world’s most alarmist website (echo… echo… echo…) originally? Anyway, what is the deal with your site, oh great one??
I worked at a Hardees that was only one block from the Islamic Student Center during my first go-around at MU.
Only thing we blew up that semester was the motor in my friend’s Mustang. We also had our dorm room door set on fire, but that’s another story best left for another day.
So I wouldn’t make too much of that sort of proximity. Turing word: values. Nobody values a good suicide bomber like the ROP. Nobody.
Well, I suppose you guys at least aren’t as bad as the commenters over at Wizbang or LGF. Frankly, what saddens me most about this, besides the fact that a Brother from my chapter of my fraternity was so messed up that he killed himself, is how many people on the right have started sounding like DU with the dark conspiracy theories, rumors at fifth hand, “obvious” connections (if you consider, the Santa Anna wind is spreading the California fires, and Santa Anna was defeated in Texas, which is where George Bush is from; and every friggin’ person in Norman lives pretty damned close to the Islamic Center: it’s near campus (center of town) and Norman is small).
Sorry; venting. This story is personal to me, and it’s annoying having so many idiots and assholes pound (no evidence – none – of any of the wilder theories) on a depressed young engineering student who killed himself, with no thought about this poor guys’ family, or his friends (who are also my friends in some cases) or anything else.
I’m going to go drink for a bit, now.
I don’t know enough yet to conclude one way or the other, which is why my title has a question mark, and why I noted in an update that we should be careful not to jump to conclusions.
However, blowing yourself up is not a traditional method of suicide—which is why I thought it was worth noting the report.
All the facts may never come out- full disclosure is not in the university’s or even the fed’s best interests. Still, simple logic says that we know people don’t build bombs to kill themselves and themselves alone and that it’s highly unlikely this young man would intentionally detonate this “attention-getting” bomb while sitting by himself on a bench when a huge stadium game is going on nearby.
Some people are trying to explain away “coincidences”, such as his Pakistani roommate, Muslim beard, jihadi lit, the (possible) cache of explosives in his place, and the Norman-OU-Muslim terrorist connection because it’s all so uncomfortable. Better to think his was a freakish, isolated event that posed no threat to anyone else, rather than that a red-blooded American young man may have been recruited by local Muslim extremists to commit a suicide-homicide terror bombing.
Admit it B Moe. I win
Wouldn’t they at least ask some questions at the Islamic center. Maybe check if there had been any break-out sessions on “Proper Vest Fitting for Maximum Projectile Trajectory” or “Not Bringing Attention to Yourself While Wearing 60 lbs. of Explosives”?
Solved!
I mean come on!!! His picture is plastered right on the side of the Islamic Center building!!
Just be glad this person did so little damage; next time the fans at the game might not be so lucky.
Why does everyone think that he had a bomber’s vest? I can’t find that out at all; at best it appears it was in a backpack. Is this a confimed fact or merely more rumor-mongering?
I live within a few blocks of the “Isalamic Center” as do many many other people. They are good neighbors, no problems.
If he wanted to attack/kill people, why not attack O’Connells Bar right next to the stadium? It is packed (as always even if OU sucks this year) with drunken sots during the game. He had to walk past it to get to the spot where he died (assuming that he came from his apartment). Or take out a motor home or two at the Duck pond.
Assuming that his roommate is from Pakistann, if you were from that country and your roommate just killed himself with a BOMB, wouldn’t you disapear? Anyone remember the mob that stoned the house of a pregent woman right after the OKC bombing ‘cause she was the ‘wrong’ color and relgion?
From some of the websites/blogs, one would think that this local area is a hotbed of islamic revolution. It is not. Most here are concerned with classes, getting laid, and drinking beer (not necc. in that order).
Still, the rumors could be true or at least contain some elements of truth. Just wish people would try to note what is speculation and what is not.
This&That
So all we’ve really established is that he looks like Tom Hanks from Castaway.
The People rest, Your Honor.
Is there a Cargo Cult Student Center in Norman?
Not so fast.
I’ve cracked your code This&That. Your signal has been intercepted. Nice try:
everyone bomber’s vest.
Islamic Center “good neighbors”
kill people O’Connell’s Bar next to the stadium. It is packed with drunken sots.
Bomb + disappear + islamic revolution = getting laid.
but why did you pick this site to raise the call?
There are a lot of unsubstantiated rumors going around. It is entirely possible that he was just a confused kid. But there are a couple things that, if true, to me are evidence against that.
Is it true that he attempted to buy ammonium nitrate? Ammonium nitrate is not an explosive. It is an oxidizer. You don’t use ammonium nitrate to make an explosion; you use ammonium nitrate to make an explosion bigger. Were he looking only to end his own life with no collateral damage, ammonium nitrate would be a poor choice. Combine this with his possible conversion to Islam and its prohibition of suicide except in the service of jihad. If these two things are true, and it’s too early to know if they are, I would be more inclined to believe the jihadi rather than the depressed kid explanation.
The game was being broadcast on a national cable TV network (FSN). Maximizing emotional impact is just as, maybe even more, important to suicide bombing as maximizing carnage. Therefore a higher-profile target would be preferred.
It would be nice if the MSM were more concerned with this story and more capable. They could help discern the truth from the rumors.