Another day, another homegrown terror plot broken up. Shopping malls are an easy, soft target for Islamic terrorists. It doesn't take a genius to walk into a mall, yell "Allahu Akhbar" and start firing. From CBN News:
A 27-year-old Massachusetts man has been charged with conspiring with others to carry out terror attacks against shoppers in U.S. malls and against U.S. military in Iraq.
Authorities in Boston say Tarek Mehanna (TEH'-rek meh-HAH'-nah) of Sudbury sought training in terrorist training camps and worked with others from 2001 to May 2008 on the conspiracy "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" people in foreign countries and to kill prominent U.S. politicians.
Federal prosecutors say Mehanna and his conspirators tried to get automatic weapons for a mall attack, but their plans were foiled when they could not get the weapons.
This isn't the first time Mehanna has been detained on terrorism-related charges. In November 2008, he was arrested and charged with lying to investigators about the whereabouts of convicted terrorist Daniel Maldonado. Mehanna had been in contact with Maldonado, who trained with al Qaeda members in Somalia.
The breakup of the Mehanna cell marks the sixth major terror plot that has been thwarted on U.S. soil in the past five months alone. A seventh plot proved successful, when an Islamic jihadist shot and killed a U.S. military recruiter in Arkansas in May. And U.S. officials say Somali-Mmericans continue to travel to Somalia to join the jihad there. What they do if--and when--they return to the U.S. is the big question.