Job Well Done....

You have to give kudos where they are due and while I give them to those protecting our country abroad, here are some kudos to those looking out for us here at home.

Authorities Probe Foreign Student Seeking Commercial Truck-Driving HAZMAT
License
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
By Liza Porteus

NEW YORK — Mohammed Yusef Mullawala wanted a license to
transport hazardous materials and to learn how to drive commercial tractor
trailers. There was nothing unusual about that, until he told his teacher that
he only wanted to learn how to drive forward, and he wanted to learn
fast.
That was enough to raise a red flag with Darleen Crawford, president of
the Nationwide
Tractor Trailer Driving School in Smithfield, R.I., where Mullawala took
driving classes.
Federal and state authorities are investigating why
Mullawala was seeking a commercial trucking license after his behavior raised
flags at the Rhode Island driving school. Crawford said he was also insistent on
taking the test necessary to earn a license to transport hazardous
materials.
Mullawala, a 28-year-old citizen of India who is of Pakistani
descent, is now in federal custody in Massachusetts on immigration violation
charges.
"We are still digging into his background, digging into where he
lived in Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey," Major Steven O'Donnell with the
Rhode Island State Police told FOXNews.com on Wednesday. "A lot of still doesn't
make any sense, why he would be doing what he was doing."
Crawford said Mullawala came to the school with a Rhode Island driver's
license inquiring how to obtain a commercial driver's license within a month. It
normally takes around eight weeks for a student to go through all of the
required courses before he or she obtains a permit, she said.
"We've been
doing this for quite a long time and a lot of things just didn't add up,"
Crawford said.
Crawford started documenting suspicious activity: Mullawala
lived in New York City but traveled to Rhode Island for the driving classes; he
missed his first day of classes; and he was very insistent on getting his
hazardous material transport license.
But the fact that he only seemed
interested in driving forward was the most concerning.
"We tell them from Day
One, 'you will be backing up,' 'you'll be backing up every single day,'"
Crawford said, adding that it normally takes two to three weeks of practice
backing up before drivers get road permits and learn how to drive forward, among
other things.
The situation was reminiscent of when some of the Sept. 11,
2001, hijackers told their flight-school instructor they were only interested in
how to fly planes at certain altitudes, not so much how to land or take
off.
"He was just really pushing to get out of here," Crawford said. "I've
been doing this for 30 years so you just sort of know when something doesn't
feel right."
After Mullawala took two classes, Crawford contacted Highway
Watch, which had conducted an anti-terrorism and safety program at her
school.
Jim Sutton, director of the Highway Watch's Information Sharing and Analysis Center, said
it was the "calibrated judgment" of his five-person staff of former military,
national intelligence and security officers that caused them to pass Mullawala's
information on to federal authorities.
"Over a period of time, you learn that
certain indicators are very valid, that they just stand out," Sutton said.
"They're so anomalous to the norm that you say to yourself, 'there is something
here. We need to pursue, we need to follow up.'"
In Mullawala's case, Sutton
said, "there was a sense of urgency he had in finishing the course."
"Well,
you don't learn those type of mechanical skills very fast," he added.
The
ISAC contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which contacted Rhode Island
state police.
A joint investigation was then launched by investigators from
the Rhode Island State Fusion Center, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force
(JTTF) in Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
Investigators learned that when Mullawala obtained his
driver's license from the Rhode Island Registry of Motor Vehicles, he gave a
false statement indicating he was a Rhode Island resident. ICE then determined
he was a citizen of India and in the United States on an expired temporary
student visa.
On Tuesday, Mullawala went to state police headquarters
thinking he was responding to another matter. He was then apprehended and turned
over to ICE.
He's being held in the federal Suffolk County detention center
in Boston until his immigration hearing in Boston, which is expected to be
sometime within the next few weeks. He will be charged with overstaying his visa
and is facing possible deportation back to India.
O'Donnell said his
department, as well as the New York and New Jersey JTTFs, are investigating
Mullawala's background and the residences he had in those three
states.
Authorities have not yet turned up the names of any other specific
individuals Mullawala may have been conspiring with.
"He didn't have family,
he did have friends," O'Donnell said, adding that authorities are trying to
track down people Mullawala was associated with in New York, where his most
recent address is located.
That address is 161 84th Road in Jamaica, Queens,
according to Rhode Island police. He also has a residence on Carpenter Street in
Providence, R.I., which he apparently hasn't lived at since 2003.
Police are
also studying a computer taken from one of Mullawala's residence, O'Donnell
said, adding that the man apparently was a computer expert. They will look at
his e-mails, as well as any Web sites he frequented. Any potential overseas
connections will be handled by the FBI and DHS, O'Donnell said, although none
have yet turned up.
An official at the New York JTTF office contacted by
FOXNews.com said he could not comment on the status of this or any ongoing
investigation.
More than 500,000 transportation workers — including
school-bus drivers to mass transit workers — call in tips as part of the Highway Watch program,
said spokesman John Willard. The Highway Watch ISAC vets the calls to determine
which ones are substantial enough to pass on to federal authorities.
"We get
a few hundred [calls] a month," Willard said. "They range from anything from
'there's a guy in his car on the side of a road' ... to 'I'm witnessing a crime'
... to 'there's this person who seems suspicious.'"
He added: "We've gotten a
few of those we believe have led to very credible investigations."
The
Highway Watch ISAC was first established by DHS in March of 2004. The original
Highway Watch was set up in 1998 as a safety program and run by the American
Trucking Association up until 2004. It added an anti-terrorism and security
training program in the spring of 2002, which almost every major trucking
company in the United States is now mandating for their drivers, Willard
said.
The course teaches drivers how to keep themselves safe by always
keeping their trucks locked, and not keeping the vehicles running when they're
not in them. It also provides various emergency contact and tipline
numbers.
But it also tells people what kinds of activity to be on the alert
for.
"Casing," for example, can include activities such as an individual
inquiring about details, of hazardous material deliveries. There was one
situation in Florida where a man was seen videotaping hazardous material
dropoffs, Willard said.
"We talk to them about how a typical terrorist act is
carried out," he added. "Terrorists typically don't wake up on Tuesday morning
and blow something up on Tuesday afternoon. It normally goes through an
extensive process of targeting, casing, etc… The first thing we do is make
drivers aware of that process."

THANK YOU!!! Great looking out!!