The Columbus Dispatch August 12, 2006
Terrorists have many uses for cell phones
Marietta arrests have officials speculating
By Randy Ludlow
When two men were charged with terrorism-related crimes after buying cell phones in Marietta, authorities worried about the phones potentially being used to detonate bombs.
After all, cell phones have been used to set off roadside bombs planted by insurgents in Iraq, as well as explosive devices manufactured by other terrorists.
But the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are as concerned about phones being resold to finance criminal or terrorist operations, said Kirk Whitworth, Homeland Security spokesman.
Cell phones that can be bought for $20 in the U.S. can bring $200 to $300 in China and Iraq, said Rich Rawlins, deputy director of the Ohio Division of Homeland Security.
The phones also can be reconfigured, by those with the know-how, to make an unlimited amount of free calls from a phone that is difficult to trace, Rawlins said.
The pair of 20-year-olds arrested in Marietta — Osama Abulhassan and Ali Houssaiky, both of Dearborn, Mich. — said they had bought more than 600 cell phones for a man in their hometown who resells them.
Rolf Baumgartel, a Marietta lawyer representing Houssaiky, told a judge on Thursday that the FBI has investigated the two men’s employer and cleared him of ties to terrorism.
An FBI spokeswoman in Detroit said she could not confirm the lawyer’s remarks, and the FBI agent to whom Baumgartel said he spoke has not returned telephone calls.
Washington County prosecutors charged Abulhassan and Houssaiky with money-laundering to support terrorism and soliciting or providing support for an act of terrorism. They also were charged with falsification for giving false names while buying three phones from a RadioShack.
They remained in jail late yesterday afternoon on $201,000 bonds.
Authorities said they found nearly $11,000, a dozen cell phones, instructions on retrieving computerized passenger and baggage information from Royal Jordanian Airlines and airlineflight manifests in the car owned by Houssaiky’s mother.
The lawyers said the airline-related items belonged to Houssaiky’s mother, who works for a ground-support company at a Detroit airport. As first-generation Lebanese-Americans, the men are victims of racial profiling, the lawyers say.
Rawlins said suspicious bulk purchases of cell phones occur across the state periodically.
"There’s nothing illegal about buying phones," he said.
Cell phones form part of some roadside bombs targeting U.S. troops in Iraq, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a research group based in Washington.
"The phone generates an electrical current when it rings and it can either play an annoying piece of music or be introduced into the fuse of a bomb to detonate it," he said.
Cell-phone frequencies are easily blocked by electronic jammers used by most U.S. military convoys as they traverse dangerous roads in Iraq, Pike said.
Unfortunately, there are not enough jammers to go around, and bombers often wait for a group of soldiers or Marines on foot or a lone vehicle before calling and detonating bombs, he said.
© Copyright 2006, The Columbus Dispatch
