Muslim suspect
inspired by 9-11?

TACOMA, Wash. – Law enforcement authorities say a Muslim arrested in the D.C. serial sniper case may have been motivated by anti-American
sentiments in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to
the Seattle Times.

John Allen Muhammad

John Allen Muhammad, 41, was arrested early this morning along with Lee Malvo, 17, at a rest stop near I-70 in the vicinity of Myersville, Md., about 45 miles northwest of the nation’s capital, according to news reports.

They were found asleep inside a blue 1990 Chevy Caprice with New Jersey license plates. Police said the men offered no resistance.

Late in the day, Malvo appeared in U.S. District Court in Baltimore before Magistrate Judge James R. Vredar in a sealed courtroom. He was arraigned as a material witness. Muhammad was arraigned on an outstanding weapons warrant unrelated to the sniper case, according to published reports.

Both were known to speak sympathetically about the men who attacked the United States, the sources said. But neither man was believed to be
directly associated with the al-Qaida terrorist network.

A Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, a scope and a tripod were recovered from Muhammad’s car, reported WTOP-TV in Washington, D.C.

CNN reports the rifle recovered is a ballistics match to that used in the 13 sniper shootings.

A hole was also discovered in the car’s trunk that allowed someone to shoot from it.

A senior Bush administration official said this morning that the president was told law enforcement officials “are optimistic they have cracked” the sniper case.

Neighbors who several years ago lived near Muhammad in Tacoma, Wash., described him last night as the head of a devout Muslim family who was prone to domestic violence, according to Seattle’s KOMO-TV.

The Seattle Times reported this morning that Muhammad provided security for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March in Washington, D.C., according to Leo Dudley, a friend who lived a block from Muhammad in south Tacoma.

The police chief of Bellingham, Wash., where federal agents searched a school yesterday that Malvo attended briefly, said he has been assured by the FBI that the two men were not acting with any group.

“It appears they have acted on their own,” said Randall Carroll in a news conference this morning.

Yesterday, Fox News reported the FBI’s search of “Camp Ground Zero USA” in Marion, Ala., a training camp for U.S. law enforcement and foreign security experts with alleged terror ties. But FBI sources said later that the search had nothing to do with the sniper probe.

WorldNetDaily reported two days after the D.C.-area shootings began Oct. 2 that FBI profilers believed the case fit no regular category and could find no motive other than terrorism. The shootings, which have caused an economic slowdown in the area, started four days after al-Qaida warned the U.S. that it would strike economic targets, WND reported last Thursday. A former CIA operative told WND in a story published Saturday, that the nature of the killings and Pentagon involvement in the probe support the terrorism theory.

Williams has a police record in the Tacoma area that includes multiple criminal traffic infractions and a restraining order, the Tacoma News Tribune reported today.

In March 1999, Muhammad abducted his children and took them to the Caribbean after separating from his wife
earlier that year, KOMO said. The children, a 12-year-old son and two younger daughters, now reportedly are in protective custody in Maryland.

Malvo, Muhammad’s stepson according to some news reports, is said to be a Jamaican national. As WND has reported, quoting a veteran
FBI agent, the sniper team appeared to be new to the area
because they had left no local “imprint” with neighbors and co-workers. Also, on Oct. 4, WND
reported that a Maryland police lookout described two “Hispanic” suspects, a description repeated weeks later when witnesses other than the man who lied described
“dark-skinned” suspects in the Virginia Home Depot shooting.

As the focus of the Maryland-based sniper probe moved to the Pacific Northwest yesterday, task force head
Charles Moose announced that Muhammad, also known as
John Allen Williams, was being sought for information related to the case.

Moose told reporters last night that it should not be assumed that Muhammad “is involved in any of the shootings we are investigating,” but is wanted for federal firearms violations and may have information material to the sniper probe.

Muhammad, described as about 6 feet 1 and 180 pounds, was believed to be traveling with a juvenile and considered “armed and dangerous,” Moose said.

The Montgomery County, Md., police chief also gave a message to the sniper.

Moose said “our inability to talk has been a concern for us as well as for you,” noting several attempts to establish a connection.

“You have indicated that you wanted us to do and say certain things,” Moose said in his message to the sniper. “You asked us to say, ‘We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.’ We understand that hearing us say this is important to you.”

The solution, Moose said, “remains to call us and get a private toll free number established,” or write to a post office box address.

The police chief’s references apparently were related to a note found at the site of Saturday’s shooting near Richmond, Va., and another at Tuesday’s Montgomery County attack both of which included a demand for $10 million.

Gulf War vet

Seattle’s KOMO radio reports that Muhammad is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War.

A former soldier who says he recognized Muhammad in a photo on TV news last night said he served with Muhammad in the Army.

Randy Lyons, of Bothell, Wash., told KING-TV that he knew Muhammad as an “outstanding soldier” who had a “very pretty wife and kids.”

Alabama connection?

Fox News also reported that warrants related to the D.C. case were issued yesterday in Montgomery, Ala.

A telephone call from the sniper alerted investigators to look into a Sept. 21 fatal shooting at a liquor store in Montgomery, according to the Seattle Times.

An official said a piece of paper found at the Alabama shooting scene was traced to Malvo, who then was linked to a Tacoma house where he had been living with Muhammad.

Muhammad was based at nearby Fort Lewis, Wash., in 1994-95 and lived in a Tacoma neighborhood where a backyard search for ballistic material was conducted yesterday, according to Peggy Bellows, an editor for the Tacoma News Tribune.

Agents in Tacoma recovered two shell casings along with a tree stump with bullet holes in the backyard of a duplex, said KOMO-TV in Seattle.

The material was transported by air to Washington, D.C., according to news reports.

Lived near Canadian border

Bellingham mayor Mark Asmundson told Seattle’s KING-TV that his police department began cooperating yesterday morning with FBI agents interested in the two men, who were residents of the city, near the Canadian border, in the past year and a half.

Malvo was a student at Bellingham High School in the fall of 2001, Asmundson said.

The two men were most recently in Bellingham nine months ago.

“Being near the border, we’ve had our share of unusual characters in Bellingham,” Asmundson said.

In Tacoma, sources confirmed that the search there was related to the D.C. sniper case, according to KIRO-TV.

Fort Lewis spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Piek said the FBI had asked for help from the base, KOMO-TV reported.

The backyard search was conducted by consent of the property owner, said FBI spokesperson Melissa Mallon on the scene late yesterday afternoon. Local television news reports said the owner is not a person of interest.

“There is no immediate danger for anybody in this neighborhood,” Mallon said. “If there were, we would let people know.”

Tacoma mayor Bill Baarsma said in an interview with KING-TV in Seattle that he was called out of a meeting at about 12:30 p.m. yesterday to be met by the FBI.

“It was a day of irony for me, because I was called out of a meeting about how to cope with a terrorist attack,” he said.

Click here to read previous WND stories on the sniper attacks.