Mosab Hassan Yousef-Terrorist Sleeper or Asylum Seeker?

Mosab Hassan Yousef was purportedly an Israeli spy who provided information on Hamas, and several bombing operations targeting Israel. He is a marked man, disowned by his father, despised by his friends and family, and wanted by Hamas. Yousef attended Hamas meetings with his father, a respected member of the organization, then secretly reported what he heard to his Israeli handlers. Because of the never-ending tension between the Israelis and the Palestinians over independence and land, this is more about war than terror, since both sides utilize tactics that fall under the ‘terror’ threshold.

Yousef is now awaiting a decision from INS on whether he’ll be granted asylum in California. He has written a tell-all book about his experiences, in an effort to obtain his 15 minutes of fame (and fortune) like Balloon Boy, Yacht-Girl, and that Baby Factory lady. The question is, is he a mole or an asset? Will he commit terror in the US?

In my view, there is no definitive way to determine what is in a man's heart or deep within his mind. I'm uncomfortable with his admission regarding driving terrorists to safe houses after a bombing operation, but I am also uncomfortable with what our law enforcement people do to entice criminal behavior from poor, under-educated citizens, right here at home. I'm thinking of the TV show Bait Car, and some of the FBI operations to create terrorist actions from people who may have otherwise not considered terror.

For example, the FBI has supplied funding, an operations base, equipment, uniforms, contacts, and even potential targets, to a loose group in Florida, more of an inept gang actually, rather than a cell. After coercing the group into formulating some sort of plan, the FBI arrested them with much fanfare as terrorists. These guys had never been out of the state of Florida, knew no real terrorists, and had no terror training, no travel abroad, no internet savvy, and precious little good sense. These guys couldn't make a soda fizzle by shaking it up, yet they supposedly plotted to make explosive devices capable of rivaling Oklahoma City. Some FBI lifer must have needed a promotion really badly.

The nature of clandestine operations is subterfuge, misdirection, and lying. We often don't know that an agent was a sleeper until after lives have been lost. The question of if/ when Yousef will be part of future terror operations are truly a conundrum. But I believe that we must do everything we can to encourage operatives like Yousef to come to our side. We monitor him closely by assigning a few agents to him instead of a desk in Nebraska, layer on all of our wireless bugging capabilities intensely at first, then less so as time goes by. If there is reason to suspect him his involvement in anything at all, we can always deport him at that time.

tnasiti speaks, all rights reserved, 2010