July 28, 2004

Al-Qaida Suspect Arrested in Texas

A South African woman picked up in Texas almost 10 days ago may turn out to be a key, high-level al-Qaida operative.

Her name is Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19. She was headed to New York.

Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas, tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns.

"In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States," says Flores.

Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to London. Six days later, Ahmed traveled from London to Mexico City before attempting to travel from McAllen to New York.

Government sources tell FederalNewsRadio.com that capturing this woman could be comparable to the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. It was revealed in court Tuesday that she was on a watch list and had entered the U.S. possibly as many as 250 times.

Tuesday, the South African government issued a warning that al-Qaida militants and other terrorists traveling through Europe had obtained South African passports, and authorities believe they got them from crime syndicates operating inside the government agency that issues the documents.

Wow! Good work on the part of Texas authorities!
I hope they're on the lookout of the other members of her cell, because you know she's not alone...
Do we need any more arguments for closing our borders? I think not!
I'm fully expecting President Bush to present a strong proposal for this as part of his re-election campaign because he's wise and we can't win the WOT or protect the homeland from attack if our borders remain so porous!
I think that this is what the President means when he talks about making changes based on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, because they cited the open Canadian and Mexican borders as a huge problem and now we have the nabbing of this key woman operative!
Keep in mind that the Millenium bomber was also caught trying to enter the country by another on-her-toes US border guard!
Obviously, we have some sharp people working the problem, but the fact that this woman confessed to entering the country 250 times with no problem before her arrest is chilling.
I'm thinking we need to take a clue from the Israelis and build a terror fence on both the North and the South and make sure it's patrolled by the National Guard or armed drones or something or somebody who means business about stopping those who attempt entry illegally!
(Don't hold your breath waiting for the Dims to address this problem of our national security at their DonkeyCon, because they won't!
To them, illegals are more voters for them, even if they're jihadi killers.)