Truck fleet helps foil Bush-target terror plot

LUBBOCK, Tex. – – You know all those security procedures that truckers are supposed to follow? They work.

Just ask the folks at Con-Way Freight’s Lubbock Service Center.

They just foiled a possible mass-destruction terrorist plot.

On Thursday, the FBI arrested Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 20-year-old Saudi student studying in Texas, and charged him with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Investigators allege Aldawsari was building explosives and compiling a list of possible targets, including the home of former President George W. Bush as well as west-coast reservoirs and dams and nuclear power plants.

And they caught him because of Con-Way’s diligence.

On January 30, Aldawsari called Con-Way and asked the company to hold a certain package for him.

But when the package arrived at Con-Way, Feb.1, Con-Way deemed it suspicious.

"The shipment,” according to a company statement, "matched profiles outlined in Con-way’s security protocols for identifying shipments of a suspicious nature, and which appeared for use not consistent with known commercial application of the product."

They contacted the authorities.

Meantime, officials at another company, Carolina Biological Supply of Burlington, N.C., had alerted the FBI to a "suspicious attempted purchase."

The product in question was a chemical called phenol. The buyer: Aldawsari. He asked that it be shipped to his residence in Texas.

Following up on the tips, the FBI snuck into Aldawsari’s apartment on Valentine’s Day, finding, the complaint said, "the concentrated sulfuric acid, the concentrated nitric acid, the lab equipment to include beakers and flasks, wiring, the Christmas lights, the Hazmat suit and clocks." All of which, the government alleges, could be used to make an improvised explosive device.

FBI also found a personal journal belonging to Aldawsari in which he said that he had planned to commit an attack inside the United States for years and that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden’s speeches.

Law enforcement officials said Thursday that the cooperation from the two companies was crucial to cracking the case.


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