Manufacturing a Threat: How the FBI Inflates Domestic “Terrorism”

By Joe from The Gaslight Hour

On September 11th, 2001, Al Qaeda, an Islamic Sunni extremist group, coordinated four attacks that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and the destruction of multiple iconic American landmarks. In the aftermath, most Americans did not understand the history of Al Qaeda, Islam, or the United States in the Middle East. The neoconservative George W Bush administration took advantage of the crisis, using it to invade two countries and expand the surveillance powers of various American three-letter agencies. An expansion of power that has gone less commented upon is the transformation of the FBI into a domestic version of the CIA.

Trevor Aaronson is the primary scholar to have investigated the post 9/11 FBI in his book The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. He took advantage of data released by then-Attorney General Eric Holder on “terrorism” cases prosecuted by the Justice Department. In the 10 years of data Aaronson had access to, there were 508 people given Terrorism related charges. Of that 508, 193 of the charges were either immigration violations or charges of making false statements. Overall, 243 were targeted through an informant, 158 were caught in stings, and 49 had encountered an agent provocateur. Aaronson claims he can count on one hand the number of actual terrorists who posed an immediate and direct threat to the United States in the data Holder provided.

Aaronson also found that as of the time of his research, the FBI employed ten times as many informants as it did during the peak of J. Edgar Hoover’s reign. The purpose of these informants was to to find “lone wolf” attackers before they attained the resources and contacts to engage in terroristic plots. The problem was that almost none of the people targeted by the FBI had the ability or resources to engage in such plots. In fact, not only was one out of every three operations led by an FBI informant, but they also provided all of the weapons, money, and transportation¹.

In a review of Aaronson’s book by a former FBI Agent, Michael German, in Reason Magazine, German stated:

“Prior to September 11, 2001, if an agent had suggested opening a terrorism case against someone who was not a member of a terrorist group, who had not attempted to acquire weapons, and who didn’t have the means to obtain them, he would have been gently encouraged to look for a more serious threat. An agent who suggested giving such a person a stinger missile or a car full of military-grade plastic explosives would have been sent to counseling.²”

Shahawar Matin Siraj

One of the more egregious cases was the case of Shahawar Matin Siraj. He was a 22-year-old Pakistani-American from the Ismaili sect of Islam, which is generally considered to be a more secular than average sect. A Court psychologist described Siraj as having impaired critical thinking and analytical skills, and diminished judgment. His sister said that “Every day he would watch cartoons [and] play video games, Pokémon in particular.”

Siraj worked at his uncle’s bookstore in Brooklyn. Osama Eldawoody, a 50-year-old FBI informant posing as a terminally ill nuclear engineer, visited the bookstore and befriended Siraj. Over a long period of time, Eldawoody showed Siraj pictures of Abu Ghraib and referred him to websites that showed supposed atrocities of American soldiers in Iraq. During this period, Eldawoody convinced Siraj that it is the duty of a true believer in Islam to commit Jihad.

Eventually, Siraj suggested placing a bomb in the 34th Street subway station³. Eldawoody agreed to assist in the plot and provided Siraj with a backpack supposedly full of explosives. At the last minute, Siraj said on tape, “Wait a minute. I don’t really want to do this. I don’t want anybody to get killed. I don’t want to be the one that’s involved in placing a bomb any place. I think I better check with my mother before I go any further with this plot⁴.” Siraj was arrested five days later on August 27th, 2004⁵. Eldawoody was paid $100,000 for his work⁶.

After Siraj was arrested, his first request was for access to Pokemon⁷. On January 8th, 2007, he was sentenced to thirty years in prison for his part in the conspiracy to bomb the subway station⁸.

FBI Expanding its Priorities

Muslims are not the only group to be targeted with these sorts of tactics. In fact, on September 17th, 2020, current FBI director, Chris Wray, stated before congress:

“We last year elevated racially-motivated violent extremism to be a national threat priority commensurate with a homegrown violent extremists [sic]. That’s the Jihadist-inspired people here and with ISIS.”

Representative Slotkin asked Wray a follow-up question: “What you’re saying is the level of threat from domestic terrorists across the board regardless of ideology is at the same level as homegrown terrorists that have connections to a foreign terrorist organization?”

Wray responded in the affirmative. “We’re treating it as a commensurate priority in terms of warranting our intention and resources, yeah⁹.”

This seemingly small exchange takes on a more disturbing connotation in light of the information outlined above. Like the Patriot Act, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the odious security practices at airports, the expansion of the FBI is here to stay. And now, the FBI has declared its intention to use the kind of techniques it sharpened on the Muslim community on the rest of the country. There are reasons to believe they have already begun doing so.

Michael Solomon and Benjamin Teeter

Micheal Solomon and Benjamin Teeter are “Boogaloo Boys” who are accused of providing firearm parts to what they believed to be members of Hamas. These “Hamas” members were an FBI informant and an undercover agent.

Solomon and Teeter appear to be bumbling left-libertarian market anarchist rednecks. Their financial resources seem to have been limited, and they weren’t particularly bright.

The informant first contacted Soloman through Facebook messenger. The informant claimed to be a member of Hamas who shared Soloman’s anti-US government viewpoints.

Solomon and Teeter seemed to hope to become mercenaries for Hamas, and in that future role, they proposed bombing various courthouses, shooting members of the media, massacring the members of a white supremacist organization in North Carolina at their headquarters, and shooting senators among other deranged fantasies.

By the time of their arrest, they gave the informants five suppressors and a drop-in auto sear. That was more than enough to be arrested and charged on August 29th, 2020¹⁰.

A Hamas member gave a statement to Trevor Aaronson at The Intercept disavowing the operation:

“Maybe this is for internal domestic reasons — to create such connections and to attract more voters from the right and the Zionist lobbyist to support the current administration, but this should not come at the expense of our just struggle against oppression, apartheid, and occupation¹¹.”

What Now?

If you are in any sort of dissident group, you should act like the FBI is targeting you. Don’t mouth off publicly about all the illegal stuff you want to do or are planning to do. If someone is encouraging you to take illegal actions, especially violent illegal action, just assume they’re a Fed. If they offer to provide you resources for such actions, doubly assume they’re a Fed, and act accordingly. If you know someone ideologically adjacent to you with mental illness, and you have the time, perhaps try to get involved in their life before an FBI informant does. The positive takeaway is that most of these operations aren’t sophisticated, and are easy to see through if you use your brain, so use it.

Plugs

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Citations:

1. [Introduction]. (2018). In 990797725 765885827 T. Aaronson (Author), The terror factory: Inside the FBI’s manufactured war on terrorism. New York, NY: Ig Publishing.
2. German, M. (2013, March 15). Manufacturing Terrorists. Reason.Com. https://reason.com/2013/03/15/manufacturing-terrorists/ archive
3. Human Rights Watch (Organization), & Human Rights Institute (Columbia University. School of Law) (Eds.). (2014). Illusion of justice: Human rights abuses in US terrorism prosecutions. Human Rights Watch : Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute.
4. Police Entrapment in Terror Case? NYC Subway Bomb Plotter Says He Was Set Up by Paid NYPD Informant. (n.d.). Democracy Now! Retrieved October 17, 2020, from http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/10/police_entrapment_in_terror_case_nyc archive
5. Rashbaum, W. K. (2007, January 9). Man Gets 30 Years in Subway Bomb Plot (Published 2007). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/nyregion/09plot.html archive
6. Aaronson, T. (2013).1:Terror Traps. The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. Ig Publishing, Incorporated.
7. Human Rights Watch (Organization), & Human Rights Institute (Columbia University. School of Law) (Eds.). (2014). Illusion of justice: Human rights abuses in US terrorism prosecutions. Human Rights Watch : Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute.
8. Rashbaum, W. K. (2007, January 9). Man Gets 30 Years in Subway Bomb Plot (Published 2007). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/nyregion/09plot.html archive
9. House Homeland Security Hearing Chris Wray Testimony Transcript September 17: FBI Director Testifies. (n.d.). Rev. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/house-homeland-security-hearing-transcript-september-17-fbi-director-testifies archive
10. https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1313661/download Affadvit
11. Aaronson, T. (2020, September 10). FBI’s “Hamas” Sting Against Boogaloo Boys Was So Absurd That Even Hamas Spoke Out Against It. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2020/09/10/fbi-sting-boogaloo-hamas/ archive