Home Grown Terrorists of Our Own

A couple of gents from the American home of Hezbollah, Dearborn, MI (or Dearbornistan as it is now starting to be known) have been arrested for activities designed to support terrorism:

Two men were charged Wednesday with money laundering in support of terrorism after authorities said they found airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints in their car.

Deputies stopped Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, 20, both of Dearborn, Mich., on a traffic violation Tuesday and found the flight documents along with $11,000 cash and 12 phones in their car, Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks said.

It wasn't clear what significance the airline information might have. Assistant County Prosecutor Susan Vessels declined to comment on whether the manifests were for upcoming flights or those that already flown. She also would not give the origin or destination of the flight or flights.

FBI spokesman Mike Brooks in Cincinnati said his office was notified about the arrests and had an agent investigating.

Abulhassan and Houssaiky admitted buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio, said sheriff's Maj. John Winstanley. They sold the phones to someone in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, Winstanley said.

Vessels declined to say how the phones, cash or flight information involved terrorism.

Investigators going through the car after the pair were pulled over in Marietta also found a map that showed locations of Wal-Mart stores from Ohio through Kentucky, Tennessee and into North and South Carolina, Vessels said.

Why'd they want so many phones? One expert I heard on the radio stated that the bad guys take the chips out of the phones and use them as detonators in bombs.

Related Dearborn post here.