Large quantity of cellphones bought raises red flags, Lebanon police notify the FBI

This alert was issued earlier this year.

22 January 2015

Terrorists Encouraging Use of Propane Cylinders as Improvised Explosive Devices (U//FOUO)

Since the May 2010 publication of the Roll Call Release “Terrorist Use of Propane Cylinders,” terrorists have continued to advocate the use of propane cylinders in building improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Throughout 2014, al-Qa‘ida-inspired violent extremists posted on the Internet English-language instructions for building and using propane IEDs and encouraged attacks in the United States. The posts recommended military, commercial, and financial sector targets, major metropolitan areas, and mass gatherings.

info.publicintelligence.net...

originally posted by: whatnext21
How much would a purchase of this size cost, and was this visa, master card or cash?

You can get cheap cellphones for £10/$10. Top range range ones go for £500/$500. Data plan costs extra as well.

originally posted by: SPECULUM

originally posted by: Winterpain
a reply to: SPECULUM


I just mentioned we seen this in the Kirksville to Columbia area as well.. that is right between STL & KC... near Joplin... they hit the state...

believe our walmart reported... but that could be rumor... who knows

Crazy ain't it? seems they are tooling up for some Mischief

I remember when "tooling" up meant grabbing bats, pipes and knives. I was once at a party and completely out my head and wandered down the lane a bit and came across 3 wagons of coppers and 2 coppers out front and one said to the other "Are you boys tooled up"?. I kept walking and behind the vans I saw about 30 coppers in full riot gear. (Yea, that night didn't end well but these were the acid house party days of the late 80s) I guess the world has gotten so soft in this decade in the US that "tooling up" now means buying phones in bulk.

I'm from the area too, so I want to add my two cents.

One of the incidents happened in Ava on Saturday. I lived in Ava most of my adult life, and I still shop there fairly often. Usually at Walmart. I can say with certainty that the Ava Walmart wasn't running any phone sales this past Saturday.

Here's a little info about Ava: it's tiny. It has a population of less than 3,000. It's not on the way to anywhere. It's literally in the middle of nowhere. The nearest towns (half an hour away) are even smaller. The closest place of any size is Springfield, and THAT'S about an hour away.

No one just happens to come to Ava, or stops in as they're going to somewhere else. And though Ava has 4 convenience stores, they're not the kind of places that someone's gonna run out to Walmart and buy cell phones to stock. They're all big chains. There are two Casey's, a Signal, and a Murphy's attached to Walmart.

There are also Walmarts much, much closer to every single town in the area.

The Ava police say "a man of middle eastern descent" tried to purchase 60 phones. He was from Michigan. Now, I might take with a grain of salt the ability of Ava police to accurately identify a "person of middle eastern descent," but it's INCREDIBLY suspicious for this to have happened. If it were someone more local, I'd think it was meth-related. But Michigan?

The whole "buying them to restock a cell store or convenience store" doesn't fit here. Because there ARE no cell stores closer than Springfield, and the couple convenience stores that sell phones 1)don't sell the same brands that Walmart does and 2) still have phones that have been sitting there for 2-3 years gathering dust, because people go buy them...at Walmart, where they're cheaper. And quite frankly, 60 phones would nearly wipe out this Walmart's stock, lol.

Now, I'm not screaming "terrorists" or Muslim-bashing here. I have no idea what's going on. But in the 15 years or so this store has been open, I've never, EVER heard of anything like this.

Local news link

originally posted by: Deny Arrogance
This alert was issued earlier this year.

22 January 2015

Terrorists Encouraging Use of Propane Cylinders as Improvised Explosive Devices (U//FOUO)

Since the May 2010 publication of the Roll Call Release “Terrorist Use of Propane Cylinders,” terrorists have continued to advocate the use of propane cylinders in building improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Throughout 2014, al-Qa‘ida-inspired violent extremists posted on the Internet English-language instructions for building and using propane IEDs and encouraged attacks in the United States. The posts recommended military, commercial, and financial sector targets, major metropolitan areas, and mass gatherings.

info.publicintelligence.net...

Hopefully they'll blow themselves up before anyone get hurt...

originally posted by: riiver
I'm from the area too, so I want to add my two cents.

One of the incidents happened in Ava on Saturday. I lived in Ava most of my adult life, and I still shop there fairly often. Usually at Walmart. I can say with certainty that the Ava Walmart wasn't running any phone sales this past Saturday.

Here's a little info about Ava: it's tiny. It has a population of less than 3,000. It's not on the way to anywhere. It's literally in the middle of nowhere. The nearest towns (half an hour away) are even smaller. The closest place of any size is Springfield, and THAT'S about an hour away.

No one just happens to come to Ava, or stops in as they're going to somewhere else. And though Ava has 4 convenience stores, they're not the kind of places that someone's gonna run out to Walmart and buy cell phones to stock. They're all big chains. There are two Casey's, a Signal, and a Murphy's attached to Walmart.

There are also Walmarts much, much closer to every single town in the area.

The Ava police say "a man of middle eastern descent" tried to purchase 60 phones. He was from Michigan. Now, I might take with a grain of salt the ability of Ava police to accurately identify a "person of middle eastern descent," but it's INCREDIBLY suspicious for this to have happened. If it were someone more local, I'd think it was meth-related. But Michigan?

The whole "buying them to restock a cell store or convenience store" doesn't fit here. Because there ARE no cell stores closer than Springfield, and the couple convenience stores that sell phones 1)don't sell the same brands that Walmart does and 2) still have phones that have been sitting there for 2-3 years gathering dust, because people go buy them...at Walmart, where they're cheaper. And quite frankly, 60 phones would nearly wipe out this Walmart's stock, lol.

Now, I'm not screaming "terrorists" or Muslim-bashing here. I have no idea what's going on. But in the 15 years or so this store has been open, I've never, EVER heard of anything like this.

Local news link

Mischief I Say

I live in an area that has 1000 miles of inland waterways. Some years ago we would hear very large explosions with deep strong concussion low hertz effects. Very powerful explosions, way out in the boonies. I dont think they ever discovered the source, but what they thought was, that someone was filling a waterbed mattress with a mixture of flamible gas such as Acetyline and oxygen, then floating them out on the water before lighting them by remote control. It goes off like dynamite. Propane would do the same mixed with oxygen. I weld and I also fill lift truck tanks with Propane. The propane comes out cold and seems to settle low, and hang in the air for awhile. I dont know what the oxygen does, as it is odorless. Any oxygen tanks missing?

I work and live less than a mile from Whiteman Air Force Base. I am a government contractor for the Air Force and have many friends who are active duty. A friend of mine who works in Security Forces on Whiteman informed me that propane tanks have been stolen out of yards in the town around the base, two Muslim men were caught at the neighboring state park after hours, and suspicious vehicles have been parked near the base gates in the last few days. Whiteman would be a large target. We house the B2 Stealth Bombers and there are also several drone pilots on the base.

I'm not screaming terrorism, just a lot of isolated events giving me a bad feeling that something big is about to go down in Missouri.

a reply to: SPECULUM

Common people, terrorist act in Missouri? And with propane gas?

a reply to: bjarneorn
Having lived in inner city KCMO, I'm thinking a more likely explanation for the propane thefts in Lee's Summit etc is ghetto folks who've had their gas turned off resorting to the bbq grill for cooking. Not sarcasm. Saw co-workers do some crazy # for heat and cooking while I lived there. One woman had no water for 3 months, another had no gas all winter, blah blah. Solutions can be very creative.

a reply to: bjarneorn

A man started his dryer to do his laundry and ignited gas from a leaky propane line causing an explosion that blew out a wall and several windows of his home.

Leaky corroded propane pipes in a BP refinery caused an explosion which killed 15 people.

Two men were injured by flying shrapnel when a propane tank exploded in an Arizona plant.

A couple complaining about a gas smell in their house were told to turn off the gas detector as it was "too sensitive". The gas explosion a few days later killed the husband and burned the wife over more than 50 percent of her body.

My phone won't let me use ATS correctly for some reason, so here is the link. www.lawyersandsettlements.com... w.google.com%2F#.VmujrIpOKnN



Propane gas can do a lot of damage.

a reply to: UnBreakable

Damned if you do...damned (like the neighbor in San Bernadino) if you don't.

I have read elsewhere that the purchases were in cash...so they raises flags as well.

Now from working in retail (including management and inventory control) I know that training of employees does not extend to "what to do if a customer wants to buy out the entire stock of (fill in name of product). I would imagine that the overnight shift at WalMart would be seaonsal help--not very experienced, but kudos for them calling out the sale to LEOs.

As others have said, this could be convenience/gas store owners restocking; or foreign nationals here taking advantage of a great low price and sending phones "back home" on the cheap.

Or...it could be a rouse to see if they could be DENIED the sale (and then she the very deep pockets of WalMart for discrimination. Think ClockBoy.

Worst case would be truly an "in your face-try and stop us" Jihadi move. On the pulse side, no retailer ru s as much video (inside stores and in parking lots) as does Walmart, so they would have both purchasers images as well as their vehicles and license plates.

My spidey sense tell me this sounds bad (on the heels of SB). Glad to learn tho that the Feds are investigating and that the public has been made aware.

The mere fact that so much "information" has been released about these events makes one (me) speculate that they (FBI) are merely establishing a plausible-deniability trail so that when some # DOES go down, everyone can say "SEE - I TOLD YOU SO!"

i just skimmed the thread but did anyone else see the local news report from one of the small Missouri towns about a stranger being caught on a deer cam and a few miles up the road seen trespassing on private property and when approached he came out of the woods screaming (he didn't speak English), flailing his arms and making fists?

originally posted by: Glinda
a reply to: UnBreakable

Damned if you do...damned (like the neighbor in San Bernadino) if you don't.

I remember that thread with the neighbor and ATS members were saying the lady should have said something because NO ONE would EVER claim it was racist ... yet here we are ...

a reply to: spamray

Recording and saving the news story from your local tv stations web page, would be a good idea. Sometimes stories like that go "down the memory hole."

This story really needs to be watched and I hope (and the other MO locals) can keep chronicling what's happening.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

And yet the school district in TX is being sued for "saying something" (per the district protocol and alerting authorizes); and the US "top cop"'Atty. General Loretta Lynch basically said (at a Muslim conference) call the Justice Dept if someone says "something" anti-Islamic to you or your children (maybe like small town LEOs asking "so why are you gentlemen purchasing 60 cell phones in the middle of the night?")

I'll say it again...kudos to the Walmart staff for "saying something."

a reply to: Glinda
Good idea. Think I'll go "save page as..." to my hard drive.

originally posted by: Glinda
a reply to: spamray

Recording and saving the news story from your local tv stations web page, would be a good idea. Sometimes stories like that go "down the memory hole."

This story really needs to be watched and I hope (and the other MO locals) can keep chronicling what's happening.

Here's a link for anyone interested in reading about it.

Viral Trail Cam

a reply to: visitedbythem

..filling a waterbed mattress with a mixture of flamible gas such as Acetyline and oxygen,...
[/quote

If you tried to mix acetylene or propane with oxygen in a container... boom ! , no spark needed.
Oxygen only mixes with the fuel in the torch head.