I was rather surprised when I looked up some weeks ago at the TV screen at the gym and saw the headline for Fox News Channel’s coverage — which was rather extended — of the conviction of Adis Medunjanin: “Bosnian-born Immigrant Convicted of Planning to Attack NYC Subways.”Not only was “Bosnian” unabashedly specified (as opposed to the favored, but by now busted, “former Yugoslav“), but it was the first friggin’ word. As I’ve been saying a lot lately, it seems like more and more people in the West are increasingly getting fed up with our Balkan clients, and are covering for them less and less.

If I recall correctly, I think the specific Fox show was Sean Hannity’s. His guest expert was reporter Judith Miller, but the sound wasn’t on and so I had no idea what she was saying. I can’t imagine it was at all specific to terror from the Balkans or its Western-sponsored evolution. More likely it was some generic stuff about terrorism in general. (Did anyone catch it?)

For reference purposes, I’ll just paste two bits of coverage — which even mention the “non-existent” terror training camps of Bosnia.

Daily: Terrorist attack on U.S. planned in Bosnia (Tanjug, May 4)

BANJA LUKA — A probe into a planned terrorist attack on New York shows that a part of the training network was located in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a Banja Luka-based daily says.

According to Glas Srpske, the training and preparation of the attack were performed within global terrorist network’s “El Mujahideen” detachment in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Naturalized Bosniak Adis Medunjanin aka Muhamed is in the U.S. standing trial for planning attacks on targets in the U.S. and Great Britain. Aside from him, Najibullah Zazi, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah aka Ahmad are also charged.

El Shukrijumah is an “El Mujahideen” member and he is on the run.

According to the indictment, El Shukrijumah is one of the leaders of al-Qaeda’s “foreign operations” which include attacks on the U.S. and other western countries.

El Shukrijumah between September and December 2008 in Pakistan recruited Medunjanin and Ahmedzay to perform a suicide attack on New York.

FBI placed El Shukrijumah on the list of the world’s most wanted terrorists on July 8, 2010 after the authorities exposed the terrorists’ plans to attack New York’s subway and Time Square.

El Shukrijumah also took part in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. [No kidding?!]

The daily writes that he was close to Abdu Ali Sharqawi, another member of the “El Mujahideen” detachment in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The U.S. intelligence services believe he is a high-ranked al-Qaeda member who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

New York man convicted in subway bomb plot (Sydney Morning Herald, May 2)

A New York man has been convicted of plotting an aborted suicide mission against New York City subways in 2009 - a case that featured the first-time testimony from admitted homegrown terrorists about al-Qaeda’s fixation with pulling off another attack on America soil.

A jury found Adis Medunjanin guilty of all counts for his role in a terror plot that federal authorities say was one of the closest calls since September 11, 2001.
…
Medunjanin could be ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison when he is sentenced September 7.

The defence admitted that the Bosnian-born Medunjanin wanted to fight for the Taliban, but they insisted he never agreed to spread death and destruction in the city where his family put down roots.

Medunjanin, 27, went overseas to fulfill a “romantic version of jihad. … His plan and intent was to join the Taliban and stand up for what he believes in,” defence lawyer Robert Gottlieb said in his closing. “That was his purpose.”

[Gottlieb? Really?]

The government’s case was built on the testimony of four men: two other radicalised Muslim men from Queens who pleaded guilty in the subway plot, a British would-be shoe bomber and a man originally from Long Island who gave al-Qaeda pointers on how best to attack a Walmart store.

Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, both former high school classmates of Medunjanin, told jurors that the scheme unfolded after the trio travelled to Pakistan in 2008 to avenge the US invasion of Afghanistan.

While receiving terror training at outposts in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan, al-Qaeda operatives encouraged the American recruits to return home for a suicide-bombing mission intended to spread panic and cripple the economy. Among the targets considered were New York Stock Exchange, Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, the men testified.

In a later meeting in New York, the plotters decided to strap on bombs and blow themselves up at rush hour on Manhattan subway lines because the transit system is “the heart of everything in New York City,” Zazi said.

Zazi told jurors how he learned to distil explosives ingredients from nail polish remover, hydrogen peroxide and other products sold at beauty supply stores. When leaving Pakistan, he relocated to Colorado, where he perfected a homemade detonator in a hotel room and set out for New York City by car around the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The plot - financed in part by $US50,000 ($48,000) in credit card charges - was abandoned after Zazi noticed that everywhere he drove in New York, a car followed.

“I think law enforcement is on us,” he recalled telling Ahmedzay. Later, he said he told Medunjanin in a text message, “We are done.”

The other convicted terrorists were called as witnesses to give a rare glimpse into al-Qaeda’s training methods and the mindset of its leadership.
…
Bryant Neal Vinas, of Patchogue on Long Island, testified that he went to Pakistan in 2007 and later joined al-Qaeda forces in an attack against American soldiers. […]

Adis Medunjanin Convicted Of Plotting To Attack NYC Subways (May 1)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – A New York man was convicted Tuesday of plotting an aborted suicide mission against New York City subways in 2009 — a case that featured the first-time testimony from admitted homegrown terrorists about al Qaeda’s fixation with pulling off another attack on American soil.

A jury found Adis Medunjanin guilty of all counts for his role in a terror plot that federal authorities say was one of the closest calls since Sept. 11, 2001.

There was no reaction from the defendant at the reading of the verdict. Medunjanin‘s family, refugees from Bosnia who’d literally been saved from persecution there by this country, [Um, MAYBE NOT?] also sat silently, in contrast to almost constant tears during the trial proceedings, CBS 2′s Don Dahler reported.

WCBS 880′s Irene Cornell With More On The Story

Testifying against Medunjanin was Najibullah Zazi, the confessed ring leader and bomb maker, and Zarein Ahmedzay, the New York cabbie whose job was to pick out their terror targets.

Prosecutors said Zazi and Medunjanin were friends who met as students in Flushing High School and became more and more radicalized by listening to lectures by radical Islamists. They eventually plotted to kill as many New Yorkers as possible by setting off bomb vests inside subways during rush hour, prosecutors said.
…
The taxi driver, Ahmedzay, testified that even though Medunjanin was eventually kept out of the planning and preparation for the terror attacks, he always planned to participate. Ahmedzay said the group should carry out the operation during the month of Ramadan, Dahler reported.

[Now that’s really low. That’s the month that the West shows reverence for the sacred Islamic holiday, protecting their mosques and holding our fire in Muslim countries where we’re engaged — and they have the nerve to attack America during its holiest month.]
…
“Targets they looked at, the Stock Exchange, Grand Central, landmarks, but they settled on the New York subway system around the 9/11 anniversary in January of 2009,” [CBS’s John] Miller said.

Zazi testified that Medunjanin shared his views back then that “America is oppressing Muslims in Afghanistan” and that it was their duty to join the jihad and kill Americans.

However, defense attorneys said their client never intended to kill anyone on American soil.

New York man convicted in subway suicide bomb plot (Reuters, May 2)

A federal jury found a Bosnian-born U.S. citizen guilty on Tuesday of planning a coordinated suicide bomb attack on New York City subways in 2009 at the behest of senior al Qaeda operatives.

Adis Medunjanin, 28, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison following his conviction on all charges, including conspiring to carry out a suicide attack on American soil, receiving military training from al Qaeda and plotting to kill U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.

Medunjanin’s accused co-conspirator Najibullah Zazi was arrested in September 2009, just days before Medunjanin and a third member of the plot, Zarein Ahmedzay, were prepared to carry out what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called “one of the most serious terrorist threats” to the United States since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Prosecutors had argued Medunjanin was “ready and willing to sacrifice himself to kill” at the command of al Qaeda, saying he committed to carrying out a suicide attack on American soil, a mission given to him by al Qaeda operatives he met in Pakistan.

“What he was willing to do was to strap a suicide bomb to himself, walk into a New York City subway and blow it up,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Berit Berger said in closing arguments last week at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York. […]

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