ISIS Christmas terror plot targeting San Francisco's Pier 39 disrupted by FBI.

San Francisco's Pier 39. LA Times. 

A plot to commit a Christmas terror attack by an ISIS sympathizer has been disrupted by the FBI and the plotter arrested. LA Times. Everitt Aaron Jameson was arrested after communicating with an undercover FBI agent who Jameson believed was a senior ISIS figure. Jameson requested arms and explosives for a plot to target San Francisco's famous Pier 39. Jameson was a former Marine who was discharged after lying about having asthma. His plan was to use explosives to "funnel" people into the sights of his gun. Jameson worked alone and there is no reason to believe that the plot extended beyond him. 

My Comment:

This was a fairly serious terror plot that was thankfully disrupted by the FBI. Had Jameson been able to pull off his plan dozens could have died. It wasn't a bad plan, all things considered. He knew that a combined bombing/mass shooting would be extremely effective. It would also greatly delay police response and it would take a long time for them to get things under control. Using the panic of a bombing, Jameson would have had free reign to shoot people. If he did it right he would make sure that there was no escape for the people caught between his bomb(s) and his rifle.

Thankfully it seems as though Jameson was a bit of an idiot when it comes to trusting people. He should have known that operational security was the most important thing. Talking to some ISIS guy he met on the internet should have been a huge red flag for him. Had he just kept his mouth shut he probably could have pulled off some kind of attack. He might have had trouble getting explosives but he still could have easily chosen a mass shooting or vehicle ramming attack instead. 

Indeed, it seemed like he had everything he needed except a bomb. The FBI reportedly recovered firearms from his house and he could have used what he had to kill. It's unclear what those weapons were but he had guns so he could have pulled off an attack. He even had fireworks which can be rigged into explosives if you know what you are doing. Had he just gone for it without trying to contact ISIS he probably would have killed at least a few people.

I've always said that the real danger isn't from the huge terror plots that take months and years to plan. Generally speaking the bigger the plot the more likely it is for someone to screw up and for police and intelligence agencies to get a whiff of it. Once that happens your whole plot is done, but terror groups love the complexity and are always going for high impact events. The mastermind terrorists do occasionally pull something off but more often than not these plots are disrupted.

 Much more dangerous are the guys that gets a gun or rents a truck and just attacks right away on impulse, like the attacker in Melbourne yesterday. Those guys are almost impossible to detect and they always have a chance of pulling the attack off. Had Jameson been a member of the 2nd group and not the 1st he may have killed quite a few people. 

One wonders where Jameson got the guns he had. The LA Times report said he was discharged from the Marines due to lying about asthma. That could mean that he got a dishonorable or bad conduct discharge which would make him ineligible to own firearms. Still, I am no expert on military law so I don't know if lying about a medical condition is enough to get a dishonorable or bad conduct discharge. His wife seems to have some issues and if she is a felon he might be barred from having firearms in the house from that as well

Just spoke w/suspect's estranged wife's grandfather who raised her, says she is prison and that the state took the couple's two kids (p.1) pic.twitter.com/OylnbD9FvV

— Melanie Woodrow (@MelanieWoodrow) December 22, 2017

I am not surprised that Jameson was a white guy either. There are a lot of white Muslims, especially in Eastern Europe, though I doubt Jameson was one of those. He's got a western name and red hair so my guess is that he is of Irish descent. That leads me to believe that he is a convert. We shouldn't be surprised when we see white Muslims but I am guessing people still are.

Unfortunately he fit the pattern of many converts. He wanted to prove his devotion to his new religion by both killing and dying for it. For whatever reason that seems to happen fairly frequently and I don't really understand why. You would think a new convert would have doubts but it doesn't seem to work that way.

I don't think there was really all that much danger. It seems like Jameson got caught pretty early on and was left on the line for a bit before the FBI set the hook. Had he just got up one day and decided to attack the FBI would have picked him up. Once they knew who he was and what he wanted to do it was pretty much over. When that happened Jameson essentially stopped being a danger as it would take a massive failure from the FBI and local law enforcement to lose him at that point. Anything is possible though.

Still, I just said yesterday that we might have more terror attacks around Christmas. Had Jameson never contacted the undercover FBI agent I would have been right, unfortunately. And it is still very possible that we will see an attack either on Christmas or New Years. We can't count on all terrorists being swept up by undercover FBI agents...