Following the massive wildfires in Southern California that left dozens homeless and the revelation that atleast one of the fires was deliberate officials are now starting to wonder if the incident could have been terrorist related.
Homelandsecurityus.com: “Within the last 90 days, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued warnings to fire stations across California about incidents of “covert photography and surveillance of fire response stations” observed at various stations in rural areas of the state. Several incidents were reportedly being conducted by men who appeared to be Middle Eastern in appearance, taking photographs of fire stations located primarily north of the greater Los Angeles area.
According to fire officials and information contained in the DHS/FBI bulletins, the actions of those taking the photographs were suspicious and did not appear to have any legitimate purpose. The Northeast Intelligence Network has provided numerous cases of such surveillance across the U.S. With the onset of the current California wildfires, however, at least two of which were intentionally set “by individuals who knew exactly what they were doing.” Such surveillance presents itself as more ominous and sinister in the context of the events, from the acts of attempted covert surveillance to the fires themselves. Although at least two suspects of two of the several fires have been identified and in at least one case, shot and killed by authorities while in the act of arson, others have yet to be identified.”
It’s interesting that there have even been recorded incidents of suspicious activity nearby in Tuolumne County. Could this happen right here in Yosemite? What do you think?
Photo by Edie Howe-Byrne via Flickr.
Comments
3 responses to “Yosemite Possible Target for Terrorists?”
Anything is possible, but I hope that this is not the case! Why can’t we all live in peace?
Interesting. Somewhat around the time period of the linked article – Sunday 9/30/07, to be precise – I spent the evening at the Little Yosemite camp. Well after dark, maybe 9-10 PM, a large, very loud group of guys rolled into camp via the Half Dome trail. The loudest, most obnoxious people I’d encountered all summer – worse even than the Cell Phone Lady who terrorizes Ahwahnee Meadow on moonlit nights.
Not only were these guys aggressively yelling at the top of their lungs, but there was all sorts of whistling going on. Couldn’t understand them nor make out the language – my guess was Arabic or some sort of French.
I was awake, they didn’t bother me too much, but I was temped to say something to them on behalf of the rest of the camp, who must have been awakened by the racket. But they sounded a little too aggressive, so I figued not. They hung out around the WC for a while, wandered around noisily, and fortunately, finally left.
When I got back home, I joked that as well as Al Qaeda in Afganistan and Al Qaeda in Iraq, we’ve now got a new chapter to look out for: Al Qaeda in Yosemite. Yikes!
The next weekend we parked up at Hetch Hetchy. Didn’t read the placard they gave us until we got off the trail. Then I realized, yeah – that dam could be certainly be a target. They are serious about that stuff.
I assure you the ones you have to fear are very quiet and much closer to your own nationality than you think. There are also very few of them.