hammoud.jpe

Walid Phares at the Counterterrorism Blog has a fascinating post dissecting the terror plot to bomb the Holland Tunnel and other targets in New York City. One of the leaders of the plot was a Lebanese national, Assem Hammoud, who also used the name of Amir Andalousi.

More information has transpired about one of the designated participants in the alleged plot, which according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was to bomb the Holland Tunnel, connecting New Jersey with Manhattan, with the ostensible goal of flooding the financial district of Manhattan. Details of the plot were published in the New York Daily News today.

Sources in Lebanon revealed that a key figure in the plot was a Lebanese national, who had been arrested in Lebanon on April 27, 2006 upon the request of US authorities. His real name is Assem Hammoud, who also used the name of Amir Andalousi. The sources said he is a computer science professor. He is apparently the only Lebanese among the eight suspects, who are from six or seven countries. It is understood that Hammoud was close or part of the Zarqawi group.

While Hammoud’s mother claims he couldn’t be a jihadist because he is a womanizer, Walid Phares also has this interesting post…….

The hint is clear: The man is a womanizer and thus he doesn’t sound very Jihadi. The article starts with an interview with his mother Dr Nabila Qotb. She shows her pictures of her son “with quasi naked women” in Italy, Holland, Belgium, elsewhere in Europe, “but not in the United States,” repeated the lady. “He drinks alcohol, dances, goes out, rarely goes to the Mosque, collects old cars, has a Canadian girlfriend, and was about to start teaching economics at a local university in Lebanon.”

Expect all these arguments to resurface in court. Amir Andalousi will be portrayed by his lawyers as a Casanova, nothing to do with Jihad. But then consider the other two pieces of information. One, the family claims they came from Andalusia, where they were “emirs.” When I advanced my thesis that something personal out there warranted the nom de guerre linked to Spain it was 20 hours before this article appears in today’s Beirut press.

But the desire to identify with Andalous is coupled with a testimony by the doorman (or more exactly the guardian) of a near by building, known in Lebanon as Natoor. “A sudden change in his personality occurred lately” says the Natoor. “I don’t remember when exactly, but he started to wear the white dashdasha (long robe) on Fridays, started to goes to prayer, and wears it when he comes back from work.

He stopped bringing women when he visited the area.” In short the Natoor, in his 40s, has just described the “mutation” from Casanova to Islamist. “He has become a Wahabi,” whispered the guard. But the al Balad journalist questioned the Natoor’s story: “why would he says these things about Hammoud? We will know more when other witness will show up in court.

Al Qaeda made him do it?