Howdy, Neighbor!

I saw this at Eddie D's and LGF, but the New York Times story Charles links to is crap. Here's the good stuff:

Federal authorities swooped into Sunnyvale Thursday morning arresting Rahmat Abdhir, 43, aka "Sean Kasem," for helping his younger brother do some of his bloody work from here.

The elder Abdhir is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, providing material to terrorists, contributing goods and services to a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (his brother), and false statements, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Using false names, Rahmat Abdhir allegedly sent his sibling about $10,000 for guns, coded e-mails helping him avoid capture, news stories of his bloody exploits and finally a care package filled with chocolate, a rifle scope and ammo, according to the indictment.

More brilliant terrorist fieldcraft:

And just last month, according to the indictment, "Sean" sent his brother a package that included a rifle scope, manuals for shooting assault rifles, Fruit of the Loom briefs and some bite-size Snickers candy bars.

The package, according to the indictment, had a San Jose return address.

The DOJ press release is here. Note that the San Jose guy was allegedly monitoring the internet news for actionable intelligence--as the Merc puts it, "creating an electronic clip file of news stories from the United States, news stories that told of troop movements and U.S. spy planes. He was sending these by e-mail to his brother, the indictment alleges."

I'll keep an eye on this one.

PS An Al-Qaeda/ Philippines/ Bay Area connection? I've heard that song before:

In December 1, 1994, Khalifa met Mohamed Loay Bayazid, the president of Benevolence International Foundation, in the United States. Khalifa and Bayazid were arrested in December 14, 1994 in Mountain View, California on charges related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Khalifa was planning to fly to the Philippines.

When the FBI looked inside Khalifa's luggage, they found manuals in Arabic on training terrorists, which covered subjects such as bomb-making and other violent activities. Khalifa claims that his possession of the materials was innocent. They also found a personal organizer with several contacts. One phone number was for Wali Khan Amin Shah, a member of the Manila cell, which was plotting Operation Bojinka at the time. There was also a listing for an unknown man, who might have been Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Khalifa was placed in solitary confinement and the contents of his luggage were logged and edited.

UPDATE: Rahmat Abdihr was denied bail by that rarest of men: a sensible California judge.