Commenter DP111 has left us a link to Patrick Briley’s account of the Oklahoma University explosion. Mr. Briley has information that I’ve not seen elsewhere. If anyone can answer some of the questions that arise from this information, it would shed light on a very dark subject.
Mr. Briley says:
| Hinrichs dropped out of OU after 2002. From 2003 until he re-enrolled at OU in the spring of 2005, the whereabouts of Joel Hinrichs is still unaccounted for by the FBI according to news reports by KWTV. |
Questions:
Does anyone know how old Mr. Hinrichs was?
What year was he in when he left school in 2002?
What year of college was he in when he re-entered OU in 2005?
To which graduating class did he belong?
Mr. Briley, an independent investigator who has researched the Oklahoma City bombings, has other information, not all of it of equal value. For example, he says:
| After he returned Hinrichs registered his car for only nine months until February 2006. |
This time frame isn’t unusual. Lots of people don’t pay a full year’s car insurance, particularly students.
Then Mr. Briley asks, without any back-up evidence—
| During the time he was unaccounted for at OU, was Hinrichs being recruited, indoctrinated and taught about explosives by Islamic terrorists in US or foreign training camps? |
Questions:
How would we go about finding out that information?
Given what we know now about the extent of US jihad-training camps, how unreasonable is Mr. Briley’s query?
Further, Mr. Briley repeats information that originally made reasonable people wonder what was going on:
| When he returned to OU in spring 2005 Hinrichs suddenly took on Pakistani [name redacted] and other Islamic students as his roommates, started visiting the OU mosque, and grew a full beard, the symbol of new Islamic convert. |
The beard can’t be denied, nor can the roommate. But the mosque says Hinrichs was not a visitor. How reliable is the mosque?
Then it gets interesting:
| On the night of Hinrichs’ death, the FBI picked up and interrogated [name redacted] and OU Arabic instructor Hossam Barakat who were attending a party together. |
Is this true? Your roommate blows himself up and you go to a party? Say what?
| But after the Parkview apartments were cleared of explosives [roommate] was allowed to return to the apartment he shared with Hinrichs. Barakat was also released. | |
| KWTV did a follow up story at 6 pm on October 5, 2005 revealing that [roommate] had a one-way ticket for Algeria that had been purchased shortly before the bombing of Hinrichs at OU. Within hours of the story the FBI contacted KWTV and told the station they were headed in the wrong direction and KWTV management decided did not to re-air the broadcast at 10 pm. | |
| By October 7, 2005 the FBI was back on the phone telling KWTV to back away from reporting stories of the involvement of the Norman Islamic mosque and Hinrichs’ Pakistani roommate [name redacted]. Yet the FBI also told KWTV that the FBI had lost track of [roommate]! |
Questions:
Does that mean [roommate] used his one way ticket and went to Algeria?
If so, how difficult is that to check?
Mr. Briley’s delving gets too interesting for comfort at this point. Remember Hinrichs’ address was the Parkview Apartments. Well, guess who some of the previous tenants had been?
| 9/11 hijackers Al Shehhi, Al Hazmi, AlAttas as well as Zacharias Moussaoui and FBI informant Melvin Lattimore (his Muslim name is Menepta) all stayed in the Parkview apartments and had been in the Norman mosque across the street. |
Mt. Briley says the FBI was aware of this when they pressured KWTV’s investigation.
Here is another tidbit from Mr. Briley, demonstrating that OU has a history of terrorist-like students:
| In the fall of 2001 the FBI also investigated and the DOJ tried to prosecute an OU Pakistani student Haider who attended the Norman mosque. Haidar had sent anthrax threats to a woman and claimed allegiance to Bin Laden. During the incident Haidar was given a job at the Parkview apartments by OU President David Boren. |
It’s getting murkier by the moment, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s not over:
| Boren was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and was extremely close to CIA director George Tenet. Boren and Tenet were eating breakfast together on the morning of 9/11. OU had a sudden visit on August 2001 by Boren’s close friend and CIA agent David Edger. Edger had been tracking Atta, Alshehhi and fellow 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah in Germany for over three years. Jarrah’s ticket on the PA flight was purchased at OU’s library while Edger was at OU. |
Do you have the stomach for more? Here’s my last snip, though certainly not the last of Mr. Briley’s information — e.g., CAIR connections, who owns and controls the mosque in Norman, the FBI connections there, the pressure on local media to lay off, etc., ad nauseam. The clip:
| I reported on September 20, 2005 before the OU bombing on the sudden DOJ dispatch of and swearing in of John Richter as “acting” US attorney for Western Oklahoma on September 6, 2005 New Police State Terror Pretext Mission for DOJ Official? Richter had recently served as the assistant Attorney General for the DOJ Criminal division. Richter is an expert on using wiretaps in terrorism cases. The DOJ sent Richter to OK because the FBI and DOJ had learned of a new terror threat emanating out of Oklahoma and likely from the previous hot bed of Islamic terrorism, the Norman mosque and Parkview apartments. |
That could be coincidence, I guess, but Mr. Richter was sent out there only a few weeks after they’d sworn in another guy.
Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the accuracy of all this information, but the connections Mr. Briley draws are disturbing. We haven’t even begun to list all of them here, and suggest you read his full accounts. Like others, we feel browbeaten if we bring up questions which no officials are willing to answer truthfully and fully. How can we trust officials who perform the usual — and by now very tiresome — “nothing to see here, move along” routine?
If anybody can refute Mr. Briley’s assertions, bring, as they say, it on.
I saw the Briley article yesterday when a fellow blogger sent me the link. Briley raises some serious questions, doesn’t it?
Briley’s article states The bomb that killed Hinrichs was also laced with nails and other shrapnel material.
Not a typical suicide due to depression!
It just feels like too many coincidences. A sting operation on Islamists that has gone awry because of nutcake wannabee Islamist blows himself up.
btw Bush, at his Ramadan dinner, said the White House now has an official Koran, to much applause. Too bad he doesn’t want to read it. He used that same old taqiyya verse 5:32 with its omissions that everyone ragged about from his speech a week ago. His speech was a love letter to American Muslims. He has come so little in understanding Islam in 4 years and now he only has 3 more years to get it right. Not hopeful.
I have emailed the author of the article and encouraged him to come here to your blog and comment.
Let’s hope that he can answer these very well thought out and constructive questions.
Hat tip to AOW for passing this tip along the blogline!
On Bush – He listens to the wrong people when it comes to Islamism. I liken his understanding of Islam to an ADHD nutcase swinging a bag of potatoes around his head, continuously slamming the bag into his forehead, and repeating the process over and over again.
– This from a conservative who is angry over the way that our government is handling the Islamist problem with kid gloves and is afraid of repercussions.
The pandering must cease.
Whoa. David Boren had CIA connections? That’s weird. Not indicative of some greater evil, but weird.
Also, (and this is pure, un-cut, Colombian speculation on my part), but the nature of FBI’s calls to KWTV COULD indicate that they’re trying not to spook any individual(s) still at large. Simply conjecture.
In regards to the 9/11 hijackers who lived in the Parkview Apartments before Hinrichs: This is news to me (should I be embarrassed?) but one of the names doesn’t match. I recognize al-Shehhi, (Marwan, not one of the three al-Shehri brothers. Spelling is critical.), and one of the al-Hazmis (there were two) and I’m GUESSING al-Attas is actually Mohammed Atta. Is this correct?
I too thought it was a very intriguing article, but couldn’t help but be confused by the repeated references to the connection to both Bush Presidencies while almost entirely leaving out the Clinton Presidency. At least directly. Those years being the most recently active to date, (in the Jihad) the omission of doings or rather lack of doings by his administration is disturbing to say the least. That’s all without mentioning the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building and some legitimate questions about those involved that remain. As someone said earlier: “too many conicidences.”
I am not happy with the governments approach to the entire Islamic terrorism issue prior to or since 9-11; from our failure to name the enemy to the failure of the President and his underlings to fully understand the depth and complexity of the enemy. Even to understand and truly believe what they are telling us, which is: “Death To America.”
Overall, the Patrick Briley article was quite good and brought up many good points and questions. It’s a positive if for no other reason than that.
Additional data re OU incident, from people I know who were around there:
1) Cell service in the vicinity of OU stadium was interrupted several minutes BEFORE the blast, and not restored until well after
2) there’s word that Hinrichs was under surveillance before he blew himself up
I’m speculating that his tail did not realize what Joel Hinrichs had in his backpack, until Joel cut and ran upon being asked to submit his backpack to search prior to being admitted to the stadium
I’m speculating that, if in fact he was being tailed, the FBI does not want it to come out that it allowed Joel to come very close to blowing up a whole bunch of people.
We keep hearing this story about nails being used in the bomb. It is my understanding that he blew himself up next to a tree. Does the tree have nails in it? If so, then why hasn’t a blogger gone and taken pictures of the nails?
Maybe the FBI removed all the nails.
Has anyone denied the story about the nails?
Those are my questions to add to Baron’s list.
Now, here’s some other info. The book American Jihad, by Steven Emerson, begins with Emerson in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Christmas morning. He sees that there are big goings-on at the convention center, so he mosies on over and goes in to find an Islamic convention of some sort.
It was at this convention that he became aware of the American Jihad. He found tables littered with tracts espousing the destruction of America.
It seems that the Jihad has deep roots in Oklahoma.
I’ve got the video “American Jihad” on VHS, which I believe is the only place it’s available. (Amazon)
I lived in Oklahoma City from 1991-1995 and am to this day in complete disbelief that this was happening right in front of me. It’s not as if I could have done anything, but it’s chilling to think that the Jihad is operating strong right in the middle of America and elsewhere.
Excuse me, the actual title is “Terrorists Among Us – Jihad in America”
Shows video from the meeting(s).n
Guys–
I can’t answer your questions because I don’t know. There was one blogger who lives in the area who reported seeing “bits of bio mass” on the tree next to where the student blew himself up. I believe this guy is either in pre-med or medical school and within walking distance from the blast site. He also mentioned some metal pieces, but I don’t recall any detailed description. Unfortunately, I didn’t save his URL and can’t find it now.
I agree with those who take Bush to task for his seemingly insouciant demeanor when it comes to Muslims. It’s maddening. But it’s also political. Beyond that lies conjecture and the long wait for history to sort things out.
Before I posted on this, I tried to find other info on Mr. Briley. I spent about a half hour looking around but the only critique I could find was from a moonbat site, no credible complaints. And he has been doing this for a long time. Whether or not he brackets the Clinton administration would an interesting connection to follow.
CONJECTURE: maybe he’s more interested in Bush pere and fils than in whatever Clinton failed to do. One could say that Clinton’s sins were ones of omission mostly (not counting those of emission, but that’s a whole ‘nother problem).
The whole thing is compelling. The less the authorities say, the more driven are Americans to find out what’s going on. Will we get lots of things wrong in the process? No doubt. But it’s like kids trying to decipher what the hell their parents are saying when the latter revert to using Pig Latin infrontofthechildren. It simply makes us more adamant to find out what’s going on.
I no longer buy the we-know-best line. That one got tossed as I watched the Towers fall. And we’re-looking-out-for-you has been eroding for years. Maybe since the seamless facade of the FBI began to crack a few decades ago.
While I’m still glad it’s Bush and not Kerry sitting in the Oval Office, I become less enamored and less admiring every day.
This war has a Middle Eastern front and a home front. I see hope and change in the Middle East despite huge obstacles and mistakes. But the home front concerns me deeply. If I could divide Bush in half, keeping the foreign security side and jettisoning the part that deals with domestic issues, I’d do it in a heart beat.