Busted: University of Memphis student Mahmoud Maawad

Holy crap.

This is the whole story, looking for more…

Story from Memphis Commercial Appeal, but you need a membership, here is a repost at Jihadwatch

When FBI agents walked into Mahmoud Maawad's spartan apartment at 3557 Mynders # 5 on Sept. 9, they found a desk, chair, computer and a Koran.
They also found an airline pilot's uniform, a chart of Memphis International Airport, and instructional DVDs, including one called "How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act."

A federal magistrate Thursday ordered Maawad, a 29-year-old University of Memphis student from Egypt, jailed until his trial on charges of wire fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number.

"The specific facts and circumstances are scary," Asst. U.S. Atty. Steve Parker said, arguing against Maawad's release.

Since Maawad can't get a Social Security number, "he can't get a pilot's license, and can't go to flight school," Parker said. "But he wants to get behind the wheel of an aircraft."

Parker said "we don't know either way" if Maawad is a terrorist or connected to any terror groups.

U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Thomas Anderson ruled that Maawad be held without bond.

Holy crap. I wonder what else is going on. It’s this kind of thing that scares the heck out of me.



[edit on 16-9-2005 by skippytjc]

[edit on 19-9-2005 by John bull 1]

Ah maybe he was just getting ready for Halloween?


The best thing I have seen so far is the positioning of Sate police at security screening posts within the airport at Logan International in Boston. If someone looks out of the ordinary most likely these men and woman would pick up on it before all others.


[edit on 16-9-2005 by slackwarez]

what was he studying....nuclear physics? maybe he was learning to work in one of our hospitals as a doctor....can you imaging what a terrorist trained to be a doctor working in one of our hospitals could do!!

but, no fear, our fine government is looking out for us.......lol!!!
*Let's make it more difficult for students from Middle Eastern countries to gain access to the USA*....if they want to learn, there are other universities in the world they can go to!!
and if the schools can't find enough citizens to meet their enrollment desires, may I suggest they bring the cost down to a manageable level!

Mod Edit: Rephrased statement to become almost tolreable.

[edit on 16/9/2005 by Mirthful Me]

a 29 year old student from Egypt?

that alone should have raised some eyebrows.

get the arabs out of our schools

That was the most racist thing I've heard on this site for a while now. Not all Moslems are Arabs you know...

Not all Arabs are evil hijackers either... Prejudice=to prejudge. This guy seems very suspicious, no doubt, but what is the rest of the story?

a 29 year old student from Egypt?

that alone should have raised some eyebrows.

Do you know how many foreign students are in US universities?

According to the Institute of International Education, 572,509. Do you have any idea how much money that pumps into the US economy?

According to the IIE's "Open Doors" report, about 6% of the foreign students in the US come from Middle Eastern countries. If even one tenth of one percent of them were terrorists, we'd be suffering terrorist attacks here every day...

From an IIE Press release (linked above):

Students from the Middle East continued to decrease substantially, although this 9% rate of decrease in 2003/04 is slightly less than the 10% decline for 2002/03. While major decreases have been reported in the numbers of students from many Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia (down 16% to 3,521), Kuwait (down 17% to 1,846), Jordan (down 15% to 1,853), Cyprus (down 15% to 1, 562), and the United Arab Emirates (down 30% to 1,248), students from the Middle East continue to account for approximately 6% of all international students enrolled in U.S. higher education. The enrollment from the largest Middle Eastern sender, Turkey (#8 with 11,398) has remained relatively steady, with a decrease of only 2% this year. Significant declines from other Middle Eastern countries only marginally affected the overall student totals, since absolute numbers of students coming from these countries are relatively small.

Originally posted by sardion2000

get the arabs out of our schools

That was the most racist thing I've heard on this site for a while now. Not all Moslems are Arabs you know...

okay, get all the arabs, and moslems that are not the children of american citizens out of our universities...is that better?

like I said, there are other schools and universities that they can study at, we aren't depriving them of anything, and well, a few good terrorist strikes and the action could very well have saved their lives....

were we still allowing the japanese to come into the country after japan hit pearl harbor, if so (which I doubt), well, how many ended up in the concentration camps here? I would much rather they spend their time in a nice friendly country somewhere studying in their universities that well, have things really blow up, and then they face the angry mobs that would be present here. and well, don't believe that the gov't would start rounding up their people like they did in ww2.....I don't give them that much credit..free labor for them!!!

okay, get all the arabs, and moslems that are not the children of american citizens out of our universities...is that better?

That's still tens of thousands of students, who have done nothing worse to the US than place hundreds of millions of dollars into its economy, kicked out because some vanishingly tiny number of them might be a threat.

The idea is ridiculous.
It's like permanently grounding the US commercial aviation industry because some lunatics might fly airliners into buildings.

Maybe he was a wannabe pilot, but who could never amount to such, so he took to dresing like a pilot to impress the girls, then sadly went plane spotting?

I dunno, but things seem to have been taken out of perspective here. Maybe this person is innocent. Just what has he / she done that is against the law so far?

and if we get hit again, and the government decides that they should all be rounded up....even those that are native born citizens.....that idea will be 1000 times more rediculous to me....we willingly allowed them into the country, knowing danged well that many from that area of the world desire to harm us, and well, if they are later determined to be a threat to national security, oh well, either live with it, or let them go home.

we have no obligation to educate anyone other than our own citizens.....I hope you aren't claiming otherwise, the fact that they have done nothing wrong really doesn't matter much to me. nor does the money that they pump into the economy. it is the all powerful $$$ that persuades us not to tighten our borders also. it will be the all mighty $$$, and our willingness to compromise our values, security, and position in the world that will be our undoing.

what makes this guy stand out was not that he was a muslim but that he had:

They also found an airline pilot's uniform, a chart of Memphis International Airport, and instructional DVDs, including one called "How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act."

so he was not just trying to look like a pilot for halloween or for a costume party, he was trying to teach himself how to impersonate a pilot as well as learning the layout of the airport.
the evidence that has been collected would have caused any poilce officer to arrrest the man no matter what his ethnicity was! he could have been white, brown, purple with pink polka dots and believed in the great pumpkin and he would have been arrested!

This may come as a shock, but some people who are not terrorists actually want to become professional pilots. Chances are good that some of them are from Egypt. You might not realize this, but some Egyptians are actually already airline pilots!

Shocking I know. But it does, however, make operations for Egyptair somewhat less complicated.

Seriously, I'd be a lot more worried if this guy has found with jihadist pamphlets, bomb-making instructions, just about anything else...

What if they find some arab guy with a model-railroad layout in his basement, is that evidence that he's a nascent trainbomber?

Actually, it's entirely possible the guy is a nut.
I do find the fact that he had a pilot's uniform rather odd.
A copy of FS2004 might be a more useful first step towards a career as a professional pilot.

But I also don't think it's wise to jump to conclusions too soon.
There's no evidence yet, apparently, that this guy is guilty of anything more than a fascination with aviation. Something I must confess to myself.

[edit on 9/16/05 by xmotex]

This may come as a shock, but some people who are not terrorists actually want to become professional pilots.

Nothing wrong there, but why fake the funk with cheesy uniforms and instructional "how to" DVDs? do you think this guy is just a pilot wannabe or a would-be future threat?

If this guy really wanted top be a pilot, A) he would stay in Egypt and get a legal pilots liscence, or B) he would become a US resident or whatever and get an SSN so he can be a pilot here, in the US.

Don't be so naive to believe this guy is innocent...of course there is always a small percent chance that he is, but in this case, don't count on it.

Guilty, IMPO.

Originally posted by xmotex
Actually, it's entirely possible the guy is a nut.
I do find the fact that he had a pilot's uniform rather odd.
A copy of FS2004 might be a more useful first step towards a career as a professional pilot.

But I also don't think it's wise to jump to conclusions too soon.
There's no evidence yet, apparently, that this guy is guilty of anything more than a fascination with aviation. Something I must confess to myself.

[edit on 9/16/05 by xmotex]

I agree completely, xmotex. The situation sounds odd, and certainly warrants further investigation, but I'm reserving judgment until after this guy has had a fair trial. I only hope the courts follow my example.

-koji K.

Should we be incarcerating all the members of the JDL (jewish defence league) as terrorists (both in Brooklyn and nationwide, e.g. Miami and Los Angeles) because of what Dr. Rabbi Baruch Goldstein did in February 1994 in Hebron?

If you are unaware what this "orthodox" rabbi did in Hebron, while screaming verses from Deuteronomy chapter 20 and the prophet Hezekiel chapter 8 and 9 you are not alone: many Americans are kept in the dark about the "other" more covert terrorist states in the world--------the good Rabbi murdered 29 people in a Hebron Mosque on a Friday morning (before dawn) and wounded 87 more while they were doing the unthinkable, viz. "facing the east"-----and with an automatic weapon too.

And what about the IDF forces posted in the Cave of the Patriarchs? Where were all twelve of them? Oddly, perhaps, only 4 showed up for work that day....

hmmmmmmmmmm.

The fact that Rabbi Goldstein was a member of the JDL among other radical extremist racist zionist groups has not stopped the good people of Brooklyn from erecting a statue in his honour.

Funny how "terrorists" are only defined by Bush and others like him by what country they're from or what race or religion they happen to be, rather than by their actions.

Does the fact that the "old testament" condones the genocide of non-believers (read the torah: Deut. chapter 13 and Deut. chapter 20 for a taste of what I am talking about) make it acceptable to the Americans who seem blind to the finer nuances of unpointed paleo Hebrew?

That was the most racist thing I've heard on this site for a while now. Not all Moslems are Arabs you know...

I say they get al people like you out of the states.

This does seem very suspicious though.

[edit on 16-9-2005 by ekul08]

Hmm, didn't know you could just purchase a Pilots uniform. I would of thought that a pilots uniform would be pointless without the hardware and multi-levels of identification. So basically he probably just has a navy blue suit.

It's funny how if it were a white guy with a bible, he would be someone who probably just dreamed of being a pilot thou an arab with a koran makes him a terrorist.

Propaganda is so easy in America. "Terror" only works if you get scared and frightened. Relax a bit and look at things with some logic. Why would he even need a pilots uniform if you can hijack planes with boxcutters and fly for 45mins with no problems?

But yeah, lets all be scared of arab people, Big Brother will save us!

Originally posted by dawnstar

okay, get all the arabs, and moslems that are not the children of american citizens out of our universities...is that better?

no, that would also be racist.

The correct thing to do, is for a law to be passed such that people that enter a non arab country follow the same procedures and subject to the same laws as every other person in that non arab country.

This would include: Banning of all headscarves, sikh turbans, christian crosses, jewish caps, etc. items like that has no place in a non arab country. At first when this is imposed it wouldn't be banned, but restrictions would be imposed as to where and when a person can wear such controversial items. Over time once the person has integrated into society then they would just stop the practice of wearing controversial items.

Also something that I believe in would be to remove the tax emption status from religions. Regardless of what religions say or do, they still milk money out of the follower, and are hence are likely labelled as a corporation. Religion is just another slant on a corporation.

Mod Edit: Profanity Removed

[edit on 16/9/2005 by Mirthful Me]

Originally posted by websurfer
Banning of all headscarves, sikh turbans, christian crosses, jewish caps, etc. items like that has no place in a non arab country. At first when this is imposed it wouldn't be banned, but restrictions would be imposed as to where and when a person can wear such controversial items. Over time once the person has integrated into society then they would just stop the practice of wearing controversial items.

Are you kidding? People have the right to wear what they want to wear. If they want to follow Islam and wear certain clothing, they have that right to do so as long as it causes no harm to another person. This should apply to everything. People who practice violence should be punished for such things, but the banning of certain forms of clothing are not the correct way to go about that.

At any rate, I have a pilot's suit as well. And it's a Soviet one, at that. Maybe I'll be suspected of being a communist!

In all seriousness, though, this guy does sound suspicious. It's possible it's just coincidence; hopefully a proper investigation will be conducted to determine the facts.