Goose Creek Two Update

H/T Michelle Malkin Goose Creek Two update: Judge denies Megahed bail request:

Megahed, 21, was arrested Aug. 4 in South Carolina along with fellow USF student Ahmed Mohamed, 26, after deputies found explosives in the trunk of the car in which the two men were riding, authorities said. Mohamed was driving the care, which was registered to Megahed's brother.

Mohamed has waived his right to a bail hearing. Both defendants are Egyptian nationals. Megahed is a legal, permanent U.S. resident, and Mohamed has a student visa.

Both are charged with illegally transporting explosives. Mohamed also is charged with trying to help terrorists by teaching or demonstrating the use of explosives. Authorities say Mohamed posted a video to the Web site YouTube in which he showed how to use a remote-controlled toy to detonate a bomb.

"The evidence fails to establish or even suggest any innocent or wholesome explanation for the events that led to Megahed's arrest," Merryday wrote.

"Guns, explosives, fuses, canisters of gasoline, ammunition, welding equipment, GPS devices, all-night interstate drives to an unstated and indeterminate destination, stops to check gun prices and availability, and computers with a recent history of visits to sites that feature the advocates and the means of violence are not attributes that a disinterested but cautious observer associates with a safe and tranquil citizen of the community," the judge said.

"Rather, a person about whom these attributes are discovered is a person whose means, motive and degree of determination are unknown and unpredictable and who is highly suspicious and threatening."

Source TBO.com.

All my previous Goose Creek Two posts here. Nice summary of arrest events here.

The Goose Creek Two: Bomb video, secret signals?

The arrest of a couple of young men near Goose Creek, SC, takes on different spin with news of a video by one of them demonstrating how to make a bomb:

In a 12-minute video posted on YouTube, an Egyptian man wearing a white shirt, khaki pants and rubber gloves explains in Arabic how to turn a toy boat into a bomb.

His name is Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, and last month he was arrested in Goose Creek after authorities found four PVC pipes containing a mixture of potassium nitrate, kitty litter and sugar in his car's trunk.

Mohamed told FBI agents he made the video to teach "those persons in Arabic countries to defend themselves against the infidels invading their countries," according to federal court documents released late Tuesday.

Specifically, he told the FBI "the technology which he demonstrated in the tape was to be used against those who fought for the United States."
***
Mohamed and Megahed, a 21-year-old University of South Florida engineering student, were stopped for speeding Aug. 4on S.C. 176 in Goose Creek.

They told deputies they were traveling to North Carolina for a vacation.Berkeley County sheriff's deputies saw one of the men disconnect some wires from a laptop computer and became suspicious.

In the back of the patrol car on the way to jail on charges of possession of an explosive device, the two whispered in their native Arabic while a hidden recorder taped their conversation, according to court documents:

"Did you tell them there is something in them?" Mohamed asked, an apparent reference to the PVC pipes.

"Water," Megahed said.

"Water! Right? The black water is in the Pepsi."

A few seconds pass in silence. Mohamed speaks again.

"Did you tell them about the benzene (gasoline)?"

"I have nothing to do with it. I do the fireworks and so... so... so... that is it."

But the pipes weren't fireworks.

An examination by the FBI's explosives unit found the materials in the PVC pipes fit the legal definition of an "explosive."

After examining Mohamed's laptop computer, which was in the 2000 Toyota Camry that was stopped in Goose Creek, agents found an electronic folder titled "Bomb Shock." The folder contained several computer files about explosives, including TNT and C-4, a military-grade plastic explosive.

They also found the 12-minute video on the laptop. Someone had uploaded the video onto YouTube, a video-sharing Web site. It could be found on YouTube by entering a complicated 14-word search term, which included the words "martyrdooms" and "suiciders."

Two days after the traffic stop, FBI agents found a remote-controlled toy boat, still in its box, and a partially dismantled digital watch in Megahed's Tampa, Fla., home, where he lived with his parents. Authorities said in court documents they believe the two items were the beginnings of a homemade bomb.

Bail has been denied to one of the young men:

The judge says Youssef Megahed is potentially dangerous and a flight risk.

Prosecutors argued Megahed has a fascination with firearms.

They say he even stopped at a Wal-Mart to try to buy rifles. But Megahed's attorney says his client's interest in guns is innocent.

He also says Megahed didn't know about the explosives in the trunk of the car.

Megahed's brother, in what he asserts was a joke, was caught on video tape making what appear to be signals, though it appears his signals perhaps could not have been seen by his brother:

he federal government says a tape of Yousef Megahed's brother Yahia shows him using secret code through facial movements and then sign language to communicate with Megahed. The government told a federal judge, that's why Megahed is a danger to the community

And when the government first played that tape of what it said was Megahed's brother sending secret signals to him when he was talking to him while he was in jail it looked as if it had a real smoking gun. Unfortunately for the government at the time the tape was made, Megahed was in his cell and couldn't see it and Megahed's brother says he was just seeing himself on camera and making faces because he was bored.

Quite a sense of humor.

Part of the video availabe here.

Ha. Ha.

Updater on the "Goose Creek Two"

Visit Curt at Flopping Aces here and here for updates in the Goose Creek, South Carolina "students" with explosives case as law enforcement and the courts meet some of the challenges posed by this matter and the rule of law in dealing with potential terrorists.

Prior posts on these alleged "homemade fireworks" wannabes here and links therein.

Lawfare, anyone?

For the convenience of the court, I have added pictures of a common firework and a pipe bomb. Can you tell which is which?

The Goose Creek Two: Not quite "babes in the woods?"

Fred Fry introduced me to the "Goose Creek Two" as set out in this post from early August. Fred's post has maps and more on the unlikelihood of this being a "whoops" adventure of two college kids.

Now, with a hat tip to The Counterterrorism Blog, we learn more about these not so innocent sounding University of South Florida students at Indicted USF Student has Terror Past in Egypt:

Two Egyptian students enrolled at the University of South Florida have been indicted for carrying explosive materials across states lines. One of the defendants also is charged with teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

According to officials familiar with the case, Mohamed has been arrested previously in Egypt on terrorism-related charges. He is said to have produced an Internet video showing how to build a remote-controlled car bomb.

Mohamed and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, also an engineering student, were stopped for speeding Aug. 4 in Goose Creek, S.C., where they have been held on state charges. Police found pipe bombs in their car near a Navy base in South Carolina where enemy combatants have been held. They have been held in a South Carolina jail while the FBI continued to investigate whether there was a terrorism link.

The men reportedly made police officer suspicious during a traffic stop when one of them tried to quickly put away a laptop computer. The computer was seized.

Stratfor coverage of the arrest here:

The deputy, however, concluded that the trunk contained more than a few fireworks, and called for backup. The items discovered inside the vehicle include potassium nitrate, sugar, gasoline and PVC pipe. Also found were so-called "hobby rocket igniters" and "hobby fuse," materials that can be used to make both model rockets and pipe bombs. A bomb squad summoned to the scene reportedly performed an operation to break apart, or "disrupt," one section of PVC pipe, which authorities said contained a "suspicious substance."
***
Potassium nitrate (or saltpeter) is the oxidizer used in the manufacture of black powder. When potassium nitrate is mixed with sugar and confined -- as in a PVC or metal pipe, thermos bottle or tin can, for instance -- it will function as a low explosive. Indeed, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) manufactured from potassium nitrate are common in many parts of the world. Hobby fuses and rocket igniters could be used to activate such a device.

Potassium nitrate and sugar, however, also can be used as a rocket propellant -- so it is possible the two men intended to make and launch a homemade rocket. The major difference between a bomb and a rocket is the configuration of the PVC pipe. If the pipe was sealed only at one end it might have been intended for use as a rocket (or it was an incomplete IED.) If the PVC pipe was sealed at both ends, it clearly was intended to be an IED. Under the law, however, either construction could be considered a pipe bomb, depending on the details.

Another potentially incriminating item in this case is the gasoline can found in the trunk of the car. Gasoline, which has no application in model rocketry, can be combined with the other materials seized to create an explosive-actuated incendiary device -- which can be more destructive than a pipe bomb alone. Of course, it is possible the men were simply transporting a can of gasoline for innocuous reasons, though it is dangerous to transport gasoline in close proximity to incendiary mixtures, especially in the heat of the South.

Image and information on pipe bomb and other improvised explosive devices from here - an Oregon State Police website.