DHS Catches Potential Terrorist

A Pakistani Muslim, still in the country on an expired student Visa, was arrested when he tried to obtain a Hazardous Materials Commercial Drivers License but did not want to learn how to drive the big rig backwards. The driving instructor contacted a civilian anti-terror watch group, the Highway ISAC, who in turn contacted DHS. DHS arrested him and are still investigating his background. 

From FoxNews here:

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. Mullawala, a 28-year-old citizen of India who is of Pakistani descent, is now in federal custody in Massachusetts on immigration violation charges. After Mullawala took two classes, Crawford contacted Highway Watch, which had conducted an anti-terrorism and safety program at her school. Highway Watch’s Information Sharing and Analysis Center then contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which contacted Rhode Island state police. The ISAC sent an advisory out to law enforcement nationwide about the individual. 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.

This is exactly the way that the ISACs are supposed to work. Citizen volunteers do not have to worry about constraints on profiling that law enforcement workers have to. Update: Rusty at the Jawa Report has an excellent analysis on the link between this case and other terrorist activity from Queens.