The Beltway sniper attacks took place during three weeks in October 2002. Ten people were killed and three critically injured in Washington, D.C., Maryland, along Interestate 95 in Virginia. The intense speculation at the time was that a single “white man” was the perpetrator.
When the two men were apprehended it turned out that the carnage was was the work of a Black American Muslim….John Allen Muhammad and a minor Lee Boyd Malvo…Muhammad was convicted and executed in 2009, Malvo remains in prison.
During the rampage the media went into overtime with speculations. Much of the coverage of the case in the New York Times was found to be fabricated, a scandal which forced two top editors Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd to resign. Makes you think huh?
Now here are some interesting facts:
While imprisoned, Malvo wrote diatribes about Jihad “I have been accused on my mission. Allah knows I’m gonna suffer now”, he wrote. Furthermore he wrote about Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
A series of trial exhibits suggested Malvo and Muhammad were motivated by an affinity for Jihad.
Exhibit 65-006: A self-portrait of Malvo in the cross hairs of a gun scope shouting, “ALLAH AKBAR!” The word “SALAAM” scrawled vertically. A lyric from Bob Marley’s Natural Mystic “Many more will have to suffer. Many more will have to die. Don’t ask me why.”
Exhibit 65-016: A portrait of Saddam Hussein with the words “INSHALLAH” and “The Protector” surrounded by rockets.
Exhibit 65-043: Father and son portrait of Malvo and Muhammad. “We will kill them all. Jihad.”
Exhibit 65-056: A self-portrait of Malvo as sniper, lying in wait, with his rifle. “JIHAD” written in bold letters.
Exhibit 65-067: A suicide bomber labeled “Hamas” walking into a McDonald’s restaurant. Another drawing of the Twin Towers burning captioned: “85 percent chance Zionists did this.” More scrawls: “ALLAH AKBAR,” “JIHAD” and “Islam will explode.”
Exhibit 65-103: A lion accompanies chapter and verse from the Koran (Sura 2:190): “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you and slay them wherever ye catch them.”
Exhibit 65-109: Portrait of Osama bin Laden, captioned “Servant of Allah.”
Exhibit 65-117: The White House drawn in crosshairs, surrounded by missiles, with a warning: “Sep. 11 we will ensure will look like a picnic to you” and “you will bleed to death little by little.”
Exhibit 65-101: Malvo’s thought for the day: “Islam the only true guidance, the way of peace.”
At the 2006 trial of Muhammad, Malvo testified that the aim of the killing spree was to kidnap children for the purpose of extorting money from the government and to “set up a camp to train children how to terrorize cities”,with the ultimate goal being to “shut things down” across the United States.
John Allen Muhammad converted to Islam in 1985, around the same time he moved from the National Guard into the regular Army, where he was a Sgt. During the first Gulf War, Muhammad may have been involved in a fragging incident where Muhammad allegedly pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade in a crowded tent near the Iraqi border, setting a sergeant’s sleeping bag on fire. No one was injured, but Muhammad was removed from the 84th Engineering company by MPs.