I was busy with the Boston story all day but blogmate Bruce McCain brought up the 
specter of the Mohamed Mohamud bombing tonight asking what if he had been successful. Great question.
Mohamud is now in the Federal lock up in downtown Portland awaiting sentencing next month for his plot to blow up the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at Pioneer Courthouse Square in 2010. If he’d been successful at detonating a real bomb, downtown Portland would have looked like the moonscape of lower Manhattan following the 9/11 terror attacks.
Throughout the entire trial I was often stunned at the lack of interest by Portlanders who could have been killed in the explosion at the Tree Lighting Ceremony on November 26, 2010. The only people who bothered to show up much were just a couple reporters and people who thought the bombing plot was the FBI’s doing.
Talk about peoples’ limbs being blown off, killed outright, ball bearings in the bomb? Mo Mo thought his bomb would turn fully two blocks of downtown Portland into powder.
His bomb was made up explosives and diesel fuel secured ensconced in blue 50 gallon barrels which Mohamud had moments before activated with a switch. He then dialed a cellphone–twice–to try to set off the bomb.
FBI agent, “Allahu akbar,” (God is great.) Then to Mohamud: “You ready?”
“Ready,” he says.Hussein continues to pray in Arabic: “I bear witness there is no God but God.”He hands Mohamud a cell phone and reads a number, which Mohamud dials on the keypad.The phone rings, but nothing happens.“Hang up,” Hussein orders. “How is the signal?”Mohamud says it’s fine. So Hussein says they should get out of the SUV and try it again.
The result would have been worse than the Boston Marathon explosion, worse, perhaps than the Times Square bombing, the underwear bombing or the shoe bombing.
When it came time for Portland to show up for the trial of this monster or read about the myriad posts I made about it, there was nary the sound of a cricket. Read my posts here.
Portland, this is what Mo Mo would have looked like. Only worse.
