Note To Terrorist Wannabes: Real al-Q'aeda Recruiters Don't Offer Strangers $40K

Sir Knucklehead goes into a chatroom called "OBLcrew" and starts fishing around for a jihadi-partner. Before long, he hooks up with somebody claiming to be an al-Q'aeda operative who offers him $40,000 for information.

Cool, right? Wrong!

Because when Sir Knucklehead tries to pick up the money, he finds he's walked right into a sting.

Wow! Who could have guessed?

One fellow who apparently couldn't have guessed is Michael Reynolds, of Wilkes-Barre, PA, who is now under indictment on terrorism charges. We have further details courtesy of the Philadelphia Enquirer:

Authorities say Reynolds entered a Yahoo chat room called "OBLcrew" last fall, met someone he believed to be an al-Qaeda member, then exchanged e-mail with that person privately.

Four postings from a "Michael Reynolds" were still on the Yahoo OBLcrew public chat room last night.
...
Although Reynolds believed that he had been communicating online with an al-Qaeda operative, he was, in fact, chatting with Shannen Rossmiller, a 36-year-old municipal judge who lives in Conrad, Mont., and who regularly monitors extremist Muslim Web sites, assisting the FBI.
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Thomas A. Marino, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, [...] issued a news release in which he praised the FBI for stopping Reynolds "from following through" with alleged terror acts.
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The indictment alleges that Reynolds "offered to assist al-Qaeda in engaging in acts of terrorism within the United States by... identifying targets, planning terrorist attacks, describing bomb-making methods, among other services."

Just what terrorist attacks was he planning?

"violent attacks against pipeline systems and energy facilities in an effort to reduce energy reserves, create environmental hazards, increase anxiety, and require" federal officials to spend money to protect them, the indictment said.

Reynolds was [also] charged with soliciting explosives to use to destroy natural gas pipeline facilities, [...] knowingly distributing, through the Internet, information about the construction and use of explosives, and with possession of hand grenades.
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During a pretrial hearing last year, Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Gurganus Jr. said that Reynolds planned attacks against oil refineries "as a plan to disrupt governmental function, to change the government's actions in foreign countries, and to impact on the national debate about the war."

At the time, Gurganus said said Reynolds' letters, computer drawings and e-mails spelled out his plot to detonate trucks filled with propane along the Alaska pipeline. He also allegedly planned to blow up sections of a transcontinental natural-gas pipeline that runs from the Gulf Coast through Pennsylvania to New Jersey and New York City.

Just offhand, I'd say these plans are a shade on the ambitious side, especially for somebody who claims to be a computer expert but who's not quite sharp enough use an alias when logging onto a "militant Islamic website".

What's with all these busted Al-Q'aeda wannabes? Where do all these semi-functional knucleheads come from, with their grandiose plans? They may not be very bright, but they sure are dangerous!!

Really?! What do you think really happened here?

Sir Knucklehead gets into it with the judge via email and she says "Get pictures of these buildings. Get maps of these sites. Find out how to make a bomb and post it here. When you're finished I'll get you forty thousand dollars."

So Sir Knucklehead figures: "Hey! This jihad stuff is a pretty good way to make a living!!"