More on the Terrorist Suspects Arrested in Ohio

August 10, 2006 10:14 AM

Well it took some searching to find more detailed coverage of the arrests in Marietta on Tuesday. It looks like most news reports are going with the shorted version an AP story. We found the full version via the Akron Beacon Journal's Ohio.com. As most people know by now, two suspects were arrested yesterday following a traffic stop in Marietta. They had 12 cell phones, $11,000 in cash, flight manifests, and airport security information. The investigation is being handled by the FBI office in Cincinnati.

After a preliminary hearing yesterday, the suspects identified themselves as Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, 20, of Dearborn, Michigan. One is a student at the University of Michigan, and the other could only get into Wayne State. They were on a cell phone buying tour of Wal-Marts of Appalachia, apparently:

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, Winstanley said....
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.

Don't you remember those fun college days when YOU got to road trip with $11,000 in cash? And spent it buying cell phones at different Wal-Marts? Heedy days. Heedy indeed.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin reminds us of this story, reported by ABC News in January:

Federal agents have launched an investigation into a surge in the purchase of large quantities of disposable cell phones by individuals from the Middle East and Pakistan, ABC News has learned.
The phones -- which do not require purchasers to sign a contract or have a credit card -- have many legitimate uses, and are popular with people who have bad credit or for use as emergency phones tucked away in glove compartments or tackle boxes. But since they can be difficult or impossible to track, law enforcement officials say the phones are widely used by criminal gangs and terrorists.
"There's very little audit trail assigned to this phone. One can walk in, purchase it in cash, you don't have to put down a credit card, buy any amount of minutes to it, and you don't, frankly, know who bought this," said Jack Cloonan, a former FBI official who is now an ABC News consultant.
Law enforcement officials say the phones were used to detonate the bombs terrorists used in the Madrid train attacks in March 2004.