2016 Sept 19^th

There has been a terrorist attack in New York City and New Jersey. One of the culprits, Ahmed Khan Rahami, has been caught and is in custody. Five other “people of interest” were apprehended in a car stop. (They’ve been let go.)

There was to have been a 5K race in New Jersey benefitting the Marine Corps. There was a glitch and the race did not come off as scheduled. The bomber had planted several explosive devices in a dumpster along the expected route and one of those did go off as planned but several other pipe bombs did not and those have provided evidence for authorities. Explosives planted in dumpsters tend to produce a force directed up and not out, perhaps indicating an inexperienced, or dare we say, stupid terrorist.

A pressure cooker bomb did go off injuring 29 people, but none of their injuries were life-threatening. Another pressure cooker bomb was recovered intact providing still more forensic evidence of who did what. A variety of unexploded devices have been recovered by the police. Indeed, it seems that there were more unexploded devices found by the police than devices that actually exploded.  New York’s street cameras have provided pictures of the suspect and these were very widely circulated. He was subsequently identified as Ahmed Khan Rahami. His picture was now available and he took refuge in the entryway of a closed bar leading passersby to assume that he was just a vagrant, so they called the police to roust him on his way. The officers recognized him from all the photos, a gun battle started; he was wounded and taken into custody.

It might be worthy of note that ISIS has not claimed credit for any of this. Frankly, I think they would be too embarrassed to be associated with such an amateurish effort. Fully half of this guy’s bombs didn’t go off. Then he puts himself in camera range without even wearing a hoodie to cover at least part of his face. He “hid” in the entryway of a bar instead of getting a room in some fleabag hotel and by hiding there  insured the police would come calling. In the last analysis, all good terrorists kill themselves to avoid capture. The only notable exception is the “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, who couldn’t make his shoe bomb explode as the plane he was on came in for a landing in Miami. Rahami would surely be an embarrassment to the top guys. I can hear them now, “Ahmed Khan Rahani: Hey, he’s not one of our boys. Never heard of him.”

Once in a while the bad guys recruit somebody on the wrong side of the bell curve.