Utah teen attempts to blow up school in the name of ISIS.

The ISIS flag. 

A teen in Utah has been arrested after attempting to blow up a school with a homemade bomb in the name of ISIS. Fox News. The teen also destroyed an American flag, raised an ISIS one and wrote "ISIS is coming" on a school wall in a separate incident at a different school. The attack occurred at Pine View School in St. George. Police were called when a smoking backpack was discovered and it was confirmed it was a bomb. The identity of the attacker has been concealed because the suspect is under the age of 18. 

My Comment:

It is extremely lucky that nobody was killed in this incident. My guess is that the attackers bomb making skills were not up to snuff. The fact that the bomb squad was able to disarm this device makes me think it wasn't very sophisticated. Making bombs is fairly difficult, especially for someone with limited resources like a teenager. It's fairly amazing that he was able to construct any bomb at all, even if it didn't work. 

That being said even a poorly made bomb could have killed people. We don't have much information about what kind of bomb was made but we do know that it was small enough to fit in a backpack. Considering some of the most devastating bombing attacks in America, including the Boston Marathon Bombing, used bombs that could fit in a backpack, we could be very lucky that this attack failed. My guess is that it was a pressure cooker bomb but it may have been a different design. 

This attack seems like it is likely a "lone wolf" attacker. I doubt he had any connection to core ISIS. For one thing core ISIS has been greatly disrupted and damaged and are barely capable of anything anymore. It's possible that he was in contact with someone overseas but I doubt he got much in the way of material support. 

That being said I bet he was radicalized by ISIS. He had ISIS material in his house and he probably got the design for the bomb from their websites. He obviously supported the terrorist group so he must have been radicalized somehow. I doubt ISIS has a huge underground community in Utah, of all places, so he probably self-radicalized with these online propaganda outlets. I don't see any other ISIS involvement other than putting out the propaganda that inspired him. 

I almost wonder if a bombing isn't the worst way to go for these terrorists. You would think if he had used any of the other techniques that ISIS tends to use, such as mass stabbings, car ramming attacks, or even mass shootings, he might have gotten some results. It just seems that there are so many things that can go wrong with a bombing. Of course if it had worked out he could have killed dozens of people so it's a trade off for sure. Thankfully it didn't work out for the attacker. 

With the various failures in the Florida school shooting that let a monster like Nikolas Cruz carry out his attack, I wonder if there weren't signs missed here? It seems as though the attacker wasn't a suspect for the vandalism and raising the ISIS flag, but there had to have been some inkling about what he was planning right? I don't want to cast blame but the fact that this attack wasn't stopped before the bomb was planted is concerning. 

This story isn't getting much coverage. With all the hysteria about school safety in the wake of the Florida mass shooting, you would think an attempt to blow up a school would be a bigger story. But I had to specifically search for this story after seeing someone mention it on social media. And the only outlets that seem to be covering it are local outlets and conservative media.

So why isn't this story being covered? Because it doesn't fit the right narrative. Instead of a deranged mass shooter, this was a presumably Muslim supporter of ISIS. He didn't use a gun and he did it in the name of religion. That's the exact opposite narrative than the one the American media wants to push...