After last week's embarrassing revelations by the U.S. State Department that key data had been "creatively" edited out of a year-end report that claimed to document the "success" of the War on Terror (which, had the data been included, would have instead conveyed a sharp rise in terror-related attacks), fans of terror-themed prosecutions can rest assured that Ashcroft and Co. are back in business with yesterday's announcement of the indictment of Nuradin M. Abdi, 32, in Columbus, Ohio.

The Somali native, according to the FBI's Cincinnati office, allegedly planned to blow up an unspecified Columbus-area shopping mall, and has thus been charged with misusing immigration documents, fraud, and supporting terrorist activity. Furthermore, according to WABC-TV in New York,

Authorities say they have linked Abdi with Iyman Faris who is a convicted Al-Qaeda member who tried to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.

The details of this alleged plot are being kept secret. In fact, investigators say plans to blow up a Columbus mall were in their earliest stage. They have also acknowledged they have found no bomb making materials and they don't have evidence to prove Abdi actually went for any terrorist training in Ethiopia.

Well, that's comforting, particularly in the wake of the FBI's resounding success in prosecuting University of Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz, whose work as an artist explores the politics of biotechnology, for violating the USA PATRIOT act, and Brandon Mayfield, the lawyer in Oregon who had been arrested for his supposed involvement in the Madrid commuter train bombings earlier this spring, after his fingerprints allegedly (and, more significantly, only fleetingly) matched up with those found on a bag used in connection with the attacks.

With those feats of idiocy in mind, it's likely that the FBI's evidence in the mall-bombing case likely consists of some nonsense akin to the following, e.g., this hypothetical letter to home:

Cousin Akbar! I am missing you and the family very much, but I am liking America. I am making friends, and I am even learning to speak the cool vernacular. For instance, I played miniature golf, which was quite dope. I am also planning to blow up the spot later this week at the mall...It will be hot! Smoking, even!