Anarchist Arrests Mark NATO Summit

Five individuals have been arrested by Chicago police in three separate bomb-related cases during the lead-up to the recent NATO Summit.

Three men were arrested in a raid last Wednesday in connection to an alleged plot to attack President Obama’s campaign headquarters and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home, as well as police and financial institutions. The men were in possession of Molotov cocktails and instructions for making pipe bombs, according to court documents.

The suspects, who have been identified as Brian Church, 22 from Florida, Jared Chase, 27 from New Hampshire, and Brent Betterly, 24 from Massachusetts, are all self-described anarchists. The three traveled to Chicago together from Florida, where they were reportedly involved with the Occupy Movement.

Last month, five self-described anarchists with ties to the Occupy Movement were arrested in Ohio after allegedly attempting to blow up a Cleveland-area bridge “to send a message to corporations and the United States government.”

Sebastian Senakiewicz, a 24-year-old self-described anarchist, was also arrested in Chicago for making a false terroristic threat. Prosecutors said Senakiewicz was unsatisfied with the relative-calm leading up to the NATO Summit and allegedly bragged he could blow up a downtown bridge. He reportedly claimed he had access to a vehicle packed with explosives and weapons.

In fifth man, Mark Neiweem, 28, was charged with attempted possession of explosives. While charging documents do not mention targets or his motives, the charges assert that he asked other protesters for materials to construct a pipe bomb.

Neiweem is reportedly a member of the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) and frequented their online chat rooms. ABC is a national collective that aims to support and defend political prisoners and has indicated support for class war (abolishing capitalism). Some ABC “collectives” merged into a federation advocating armed self-defense through its Tactical Defense Caucus, which it hoped would organize, recruit and train anarchists in the tactical use of firearms. In his testimony before the Senate Committee on Intelligence in February of 2005, Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI, identified the federation as a potential threat to national security.

Other anarchists clashed with police at the end of an otherwise peaceful anti-war protest Sunday, leading to dozens more arrests.

Five Apparent Anarchists Arrested In Plot To Bomb Cleveland Bridge

Five Ohio men were arrested Monday night after allegedly attempting to blow up a Cleveland-area bridge “to send a message to corporations and the United States government.”

The five men, Douglas Wright, Brandon Baxter, Anthony Hayne, Connor Stevens, and Joshua Stafford, had been considering acts of violence for months, according to federal agents. Two of the men placed what they believed to be explosive devices at the bridge and tried to remotely detonate it. The devices, however, were inert and provided by the FBI as part of a sting operation.

Wright, Baxter, and Hayne have been charged with conspiracy and attempted use of explosives; charges against Stevens and Stafford are pending.

All five men were apparently involved in Occupy Cleveland protests and have been characterized by law enforcement or self-identify as anarchists. Hayne, Stafford, and Baxter list the movement as their “employer” on their Facebook pages.

In recorded conversation with the FBI, Baxter discussed the impact of blowing up a bridge. “Taking out a bridge in the business district would cost the…corporate big wigs a lot of money,” he said. Wright believed that the Occupy Movement had been coopted by “corporate American and law enforcement” and that therefore they needed new recruits from outside the movement.

The media coordinator for Occupy Cleveland denied any knowledge of the planned attack, but acknowledged that some members of the movement are acquainted with the suspects.

Baxter’s anti-capitalist views were voiced in interview last month during a protest in Cleveland against home foreclosures. “…I feel the powers that be, whoever they might be - on all levels of government and those who hold corporate power - are not listening because not enough people are actually taking a stance…”

The five men allegedly considered other targets for attack, including the local Federal Reserve Bank and law enforcement Fusion Center, before settling on the bridge. Baxter inquired into targeting the Klan or other neo-Nazi groups in Ohio, but was dissuaded when he was told they were not in Cleveland. He claimed to have previously participated in a protest against the Klan in Oakland, California.

The planned attack was allegedly timed to coincide with May Day, a celebration of International Workers Day that has been seized upon by anarchist and anti-capitalist groups around the world. May Day events around the world have often featured property destruction and arrests.

White Supremacist Dennis Mahon Found Guilty in 2004 Bombing

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A jury in Arizona found Dennis Mahon, 61, a longtime white supremacist and anti-Semite, guilty in the 2004 mail bombing that severely injured Don Logan, an African-American who was director of Scottsdale’s Diversity and Dialogue Office at the time. The jury, however, stopped short of calling the incident a hate crime.

The jury found Dennis Mahon guilty on three charges: conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosives, malicious damage of a building by means of explosives, and distribution of information related to explosives. Also charged in the case was Mahon’s twin brother Daniel, but the jury found Daniel not guilty of the one charge against him: conspiracy to damage buildings and properties.

Police originally arrested the Mahon brothers in June 2009. The arrests followed a lengthy investigation of the mail bombing, which occurred on February 26, 2004, when a box addressed to Logan exploded when he tried to open it at his Scottsdale office.

Both brothers have a long history of involvement in the white supremacist movement. Dennis Mahon held leadership positions within various white supremacist groups in the Midwest in the 1980s and 1990s, including the Ku Klux Klan and White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a now-defunct group led by well-known racist Tom Metzger. Metzger has long advocated “lone wolf” activity. According to the lone wolf model, individuals and small cells engage in activity that leave behind the fewest clues for law enforcement authorities, decreasing the chances that activists will end up getting caught. 

Dennis Mahon reportedly moved to Arizona from the Midwest in 2001 to establish WAR’s presence in the area. His brother Daniel joined him in Arizona.

Daniel Mahon was also an active white supremacist. In May 1999, according to court papers, American Airlines fired him after he violated written work rules that “prohibited threatening and intimidating behavior toward other employees and conduct detrimental to other employees and American Airlines.” Mahon was under investigation by the company for his activities related to his participation in a “Caucasian Employee Resource Group.”

ADL provided assistance to investigators throughout the lengthy case.

Underwear Bomber Asserts Terror Attacks are Driven by Hatred of Israel

At his sentencing last week, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also known as the underwear bomber and Christmas Day bomber, threatened that terror attacks would continue “until the Jews are driven out of Palestine.”

Abdulmutallab previously linked his failed 2009 attack to Israel. When he pleaded guilty in October 2011, Abdulmutallab admitted that he planned the attack “in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel and in retaliation of the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, especially in the blockage of Gaza” and “in retaliation for… Israel [sic] massacres of innocent Palestinians.”

In a video released by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 2010, apparently made as a martyrdom video for the upcoming attack, Abdulmutallab justified Al Qaeda's actions against Jews and Christians. “Brotherhood of Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula have [sic] the right to wage Jihad,” Abdulmutallab said, “because the enemy is in your land with their armies, the Jews and the Christians and their agents.” Abdulmutallab and other apparent Al Qaeda fighters are featured in the video firing automatic weapons at targets bearing the Jewish star, the British Union Jack, and the letters “UN.”

Abdulmutallab was sentenced to multiple life sentences for attempting to blow up an international flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, 2009.

Israeli Diplomats in India and Georgia Latest Targets Abroad

Update: On February 21, the Azerbaijani National Security Ministry announced it had arrested an unspecified number of individuals working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hezbollah for planning attacks against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural center.

A bombing targeting Israeli embassy personnel in India and a similar attempt in Georgia yesterday come on the heels of recent threats by Iranian officials to attack Israeli interests world-wide.

In New Delhi, a bombing of an Israeli embassy vehicle injured the wife of the Israeli Defense Attaché to India and three others as she drove to pick up her children at school. Another bomb targeting an embassy car in Tbilisi, Georgia, was found and defused before it could explode after a Georgian employee of the embassy notified police of a suspicious object attached to the car.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “Iran and its proxy Hezbollah are behind each of these attacks.” Iran’s ambassador to India called the accusation “untrue and sheer lies, like previous times” and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman reportedly said that “Israel perpetrated the terror actions to launch psychological warfare against Iran.”

Yesterday’s bombings appear to have been timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s former Operations Chief. They are the latest in a series of attacks targeting Israeli interests in 2012. On January 12, Thai authorities arrested Artis Hussein, a Swedish-Lebanese man authorities claim is a Hezbollah operative, for allegedly targeting Israeli interests in Asia. After his arrest, Hussein led authorities to a warehouse near Bangkok where over four tons of bomb making supplies were seized. 

Less than two weeks later, Azerbaijani authorities announced that they arrested at least two local men for plotting to attack the Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan and a local rabbi. Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry indicated that the men are linked to Iranian intelligence agencies and were supplied with a sniper rifle, explosives and money to carry out the attack.

Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano stressed last week that despite increased threats to Jewish and Israeli targets worldwide, there are no specific threats against targets in the United States.