Federal officials break up alleged bombing plot in Chicago area

I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is the sort of law enforcement Homeland Security money should be funding and not the silly armed-guards-at-airports type displays. This is how terrorism is thwarted. And don't even suggest illegal NSA spying was necessary. Legal wire taps would have been very easy to obtain and I suspect were in this case.

A Muslim convert who talked about his desire to wage jihad against civilians was charged Friday in a plot to set off hand grenades at a shopping mall at the height of the Christmas rush, authorities said.
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Investigators said Derrick Shareef, 22, an American citizen from Rockford, was acting alone and never actually obtained any grenades. He was arrested Wednesday when he met with an undercover agent in a parking lot to trade a set of stereo speakers for four hand grenades and a gun, authorities said.

"He fixed on a day of December 22nd on Friday ... because it was the Friday before Christmas and thought that would be the highest concentration of shoppers that he could kill and injure," said Robert Grant, the agent in charge of the Chicago
FBI office.

Authorities said Shareef had been under investigation since September, when he told an acquaintance that "he wanted to commit acts of violent jihad against targets in the United States as well as commit other crimes."

The acquaintance immediately informed the FBI, officials said.

While we're on the subject...Please don't start fear mongering about this. This is one deranged* guy and he's been caught before doing any damage.

* Maybe its just me, but anyone who wants to blow up Christmas shoppers is, by my definition, deranged.

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