We're lucky that criminals are such boneheads.
But there's something weird about the relationship terrorists have with rental trucks.
Some of the thugs seem to have a mental timeout when it comes to dealing with their chosen vehicles of mass destruction.
Take the case of Najibullah Zazi, "the bearded public face" of the current terrorism investigation, as the indefatigable
New York Daily News team covering the story colorfully put it last week.
Investigators are looking at seven Afghan men who tried to rent the biggest truck at a Queens U-Haul on Sept. 9, sources told the Daily News.
Why? Because they tried to rent a truck without a credit card.
"The truck rental bid failed when none of the men could produce a valid credit card. All refused to surrender the identification needed to pay cash, the manager of the Flushing U-Haul told the Daily News."
"We all feel very lucky right now," U-Haul manager Robert Larson told The News.
Then there was the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993.
The feds cracked the case after one of the conspirators actually went back to pester the truck rental agency for a refund after the van they used was destroyed in the attack.
Investigators had recovered an axle in the wreckage.
"Mohammed A. Salameh had returned three times to a Ryder Truck Rental dealer in Jersey City requesting a refund of the $400 cash deposit he had placed on a yellow Ford Econoline van that, he stated, had been stolen the night preceding the explosion.," the FBI said.
Then there's Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, whose stupidity goes to show it's not confined to Arabs.
"McVeigh was very careful in his preparations," U.S. Magistrate Ronald Howland, who presided over the first criminal proceedings for McVeigh,
told the Associated Press.
"But he made a mistake when he checked into a a motel in Junction City, Kan., where the truck that carried the ammonium-nitrate-and-fuel-oil bomb was rented using his own name instead of an alias, Howland said," according to the A.P.
Similar to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, "FBI agents traced the truck to a Junction City body shop that leased it after they recovered its vehicle identification number from the truck's rear axle, which was blown a block away from the blast," the
A.P. said.
McVeigh was convicted on federal bombing charges and executed in 2001.
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