By Jamie Stengle ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: 8:15 p.m. Saturday, July 30, 2011
KILLEEN — Intelligence reports and high-tech tracking devices weren't what saved Fort Hood troops from what the Army believes was a massacre plot. It was the keen eye of a Killeen gun shop clerk who helped authorities find an AWOL soldier who police say had stashed bomb-making material in his nearby motel room.
Earlier this year in Lubbock, a shipping company that told the FBI about a suspicious order for a chemical explosive foiled what was believed to be a plot to blow up former President George W. Bush's home in Dallas.
The enduring lesson for a post-9/11 world is that America's workforce plays a crucial role in preventing terrorist attacks.
"A vigilant public and informed local law enforcement make it much more complicated for people wishing to carry out attacks to do so," said John Cohen, principal deputy counterterrorism adviser at the Homeland Security Department.
Federal and local law enforcement agencies have established programs over the past decade that encourage the public to report suspicious activity, and tips from businesses have led to multiple high-profile arrests.
Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, 21, who went absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., early this month, was arrested Wednesday at a motel outside Fort Hood. Police said he was perhaps only a day away from unleashing bombs in a restaurant frequented by soldiers and attacking the Army post.
But Guns Galore employee Greg Ebert became suspicious after the soldier acted oddly while purchasing gunpowder, shotgun ammunition and a semiautomatic pistol magazine. After Ebert's call to police, the soldier's arrest was a proud moment for employees of the store — the same place Maj. Nidal Hasan bought a pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting spree two years ago.
Store clerk Dave Newby said that Hasan's purchase, while legal, had devastated store workers and put everyone on higher alert.
"I think we all changed," he said. "It was terrible. We thought about coulda, shoulda, woulda."
Ebert noted that while there was "nothing extraordinary" about Abdo, he saw just enough to make him suspicious.
The retired police officer said Abdo arrived at the gun shop in a taxi — unusual for Killeen — and bought 6 pounds of smokeless gunpowder, though he asked what it was. Abdo paid in cash, and he didn't bother to collect his change or a receipt before returning to the waiting taxi.
"Now, he hasn't done anything unlawful — it doesn't prevent me from being curious," Ebert said.
Federal authorities said actions like Ebert's can keep America safe.
"The willingness of an individual to contact law enforcement about an event or incident that may be indicative of a possible threat is vital to our mission," FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said. "It may turn out not to be a threat, but at least we have the opportunity to check it out."
Other business tips have been credited with preventing terrorist disasters.
A Circuit City store clerk in New Jersey told police in 2006 that customers asked him to make a DVD from video footage of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad. The FBI tracked six men, now known as the Fort Dix Six, who plotted to kill soldiers in a raid at the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey.
Earlier this year, two companies — Carolina Biological Supply Co. in North Carolina and Con-way Freight in Lubbock — contacted federal and local authorities about suspicions each had regarding a purchase by Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, who has been charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He is scheduled for trial later this year.
Federal authorities said Aldawsari bought explosive materials online and planned to hide them inside dolls and baby carriages to blow up dams, nuclear plants and Bush's home.
Aldawsari, a former Texas Tech University chemical engineering student from Saudi Arabia, was arrested after the North Carolina company reported $435 in suspicious purchases to the FBI.
The freight company notified Lubbock police and the FBI with similar suspicions because it appeared the order wasn't intended for commercial use. Con-way Freight spokesman Gary Frantz said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the company has worked with local, state and federal authorities to develop training for employees to participate in at least once a year.
"I think we can be a force multiplier, which is a term often used by law enforcement, where private industry serves as additional eyes and ears to help authorities to uncover these activities to protect the public," Frantz said.
Carolina Biological Supply spokesman Keith Barker said his company has procedures to closely monitor orders involving "chemicals of a high degree of hazard."
"We've taken it upon ourselves to be vigilant," he said.
