Alleged Kansas Bomber Wanted to Be 'Obedient Slave of Allah'
IPT — 12/13/2013 — An FBI sting has led to the arrest of a Wichita, Kan. man who thought he was about to die in a suicide car bombing that targeted a terminal at the city's Mid-Continent Airport.
Terry Lee Loewen, 58, worked at the airport as an avionics technician. This gave him access to airport grounds. He was arrested before dawn Friday after he tried to open a security gate and get on the tarmac, the Kansas City Star reports.
According to a three-count complaint, Loewen discussed his view of faith as a Muslim. That included expressing "his desire to engage in violent jihad on behalf of al Qaeda" during an online conversation with someone whom, unbeknownst to him, was an FBI employee.
"I don't understand how you can read the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Prophet (saw) and not understand that jihad and the implementation of Sharia is absolutely demanded of all the Muslim Ummah," Loewen allegedly wrote Aug. 5.
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Wichita jihadi wanted to be "martyred in the path of Allah" by causing "maximum carnage + death" at airport
JihadWatch — 12/14/2013 — The imam at the local mosque says nobody there knew Loewen, and so that's that: they are thus neatly excused from having to answer any potentially uncomfortable questions about where he got his ideas about jihad. But the larger question remains: where did Loewen get his views of Islam ("the Internet," we're told), and what is the relation of his understanding of Islam to what we're told is the genuine article? Why do so many Muslims continue to misunderstand Islam in this way? What is the imam of the Wichita mosque, or any mosque, doing to make sure that no more Muslims come under the sway of this lethal understanding of Islam that he ostensibly rejects?
"Man Arrested in Wichita Airport Bomb Plot," by Andrew Grossman for the Wall Street Journal, December 13 (thanks to Kenneth):
Authorities on Friday arrested a 58-year-old man they accused of trying to commit a suicide bombing at a Kansas airport.
Terry L. Loewen, an avionics technician who worked at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, was arrested Friday morning after he tried to use his airport access card to drive onto the tarmac and set off what he thought was a bomb near the terminals, according to a complaint filed in federal court Friday...
Mr. Loewen told the FBI employee he had been inspired by the work of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, the AQAP leader killed in a drone attack in September 2011, the complaint said. Mr. Awlaki has been cited as an inspiration by others who attempted or committed attacks in the U.S., including the 2009 Fort Hood shooter and the alleged Boston Marathon bombers.
"By the time you read this I will—if everything went as planned—have been martyred in the path of Allah," Mr. Loewen allegedly wrote in a letter cited in the complaint. The letter was left for his wife, according to a person close to the investigation. "There will have been an event at the airport which I am responsible for. The operation was timed to cause maximum carnage + death."Much more here.
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Feds say they disrupted suicide bomb plot by worker at Wichita airport
Pete Williams for NBC News, 12/13/2013
"I have become 'radicalized' in the strongest sense of the word, and I don't feel Allah wants me any other way." — Terry Lee Loewen
A 58-year-old airport worker was charged Friday with allegedly planning a suicide bombing at a passenger terminal at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in Kansas.
The suspect, Terry Lee Loewen, an avionics technician who lives in Wichita, was arrested earlier in the day as he attempted to use his security pass to drive a vehicle that he thought contained explosives onto the tarmac at the airport, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Wichita. In fact, the car contained only dummy explosives...
Investigators tell NBC News that Loewen has been under scrutiny since August, when he began having an online exchange with someone he thought was a like-minded individual but who turned out to be an FBI employee.
"Let me preface the bottom line by saying I have become 'radicalized' in the strongest sense of the word, and I don't feel Allah wants me any other way," he said in one message, according to the complaint...
