I have previously noted the case of the men arrested in a suspected terror plot in Michigan. At the time I noted that the Mackinac bridge was not a sensible target. Now it seems it may not have been terrorism after all. Defense attorneys outraged as terror case switches to fraud.
Fraud seems the more likely scenario here. Logistically, to use a thousand cell phones to blow up a bridge means you'd have to wife each of them with a charge. That's very labor intensive and increases the risk of getting caught to nearly 100%. It's also a poor way to blow up a bridge. Bridges have stress points designed to carry the load in the event of failures elsewhere. You need to destroy these abutments if you hope to bring it down. Numerous small charges are not going to be effective. You need something on the order of a truck bomb to do that.
The investigators were right to think that two Palestinian males with a thousand phones might be involved in terrorism. That they announced it before the facts were in makes them look rash and might hurt the case. It also hurts the efforts to take terrorism plot allegations seriously.
Fraud seems the more likely scenario here. Logistically, to use a thousand cell phones to blow up a bridge means you'd have to wife each of them with a charge. That's very labor intensive and increases the risk of getting caught to nearly 100%. It's also a poor way to blow up a bridge. Bridges have stress points designed to carry the load in the event of failures elsewhere. You need to destroy these abutments if you hope to bring it down. Numerous small charges are not going to be effective. You need something on the order of a truck bomb to do that.
The investigators were right to think that two Palestinian males with a thousand phones might be involved in terrorism. That they announced it before the facts were in makes them look rash and might hurt the case. It also hurts the efforts to take terrorism plot allegations seriously.
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