Last week, a 34-year-old man apparently committed an act of terrorism against the U.S. power grid when he ran his Toyota Camry through the gate of a solar energy plant just outside of Las Vegas. The driver, identified as Mohammad Mesmarian, allegedly set fire to the car after the crash in an attempt to maximize damage.
The incident occurred at approximately 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday. Mesmarian was arrested at a campground 30 miles from the incident on Thursday. He is charged with committing an act of terrorism, first-degree arson, third-degree arson, destroying or injuring real or personal property of another, and escape by a felony prisoner.
Mesmarian reportedly sat and watched the fire for 15 minutes prior to walking away from the scene. Investigators believe that the suspected terrorist siphoned gasoline from the wrecked vehicle and put the fuel on wires to the transformer in order to cause an explosion.
While no one was injured in the attack, the plant suffered “major damage,” according to police. The damage could take up to two years to repair.
In the wreckage of the vehicle, authorities found an iPhone and two laptops that they were able to connect to the suspect.
According to police, Mesmarian claimed he burned the vehicle “for the future.”
The particular power plant that Mesmarian allegedly attempted to destroy services the MGM Grand Hotel and associated facilities in Las Vegas. The company reported no power outages as a result of the attack.
Considering this is just the latest example of a terrorist attack on the U.S. energy grid, mainstream media has been incredibly silent on the issue. A Christmas Day attack on a plant near Tacoma caused a power outage for 14,000 people in Washington.
Two suspects in the Washington attack — Matthew Greenwood, 32, and Jeremy Crahan, 40 — were arrested just days before the Las Vegas attack. The two claimed it was their plan to use the resulting blackout to steal a cash register at a local business.
During 2022, over 100 physical and computerized attacks occurred on equipment that delivers power to U.S. consumers.
On December, 3, a shooting attack occurred on two electrical distribution substations in Moore County, North Carolina. Prior to that attack, the FBI had warned private power companies of threats against the electric infrastructure in the United States. The FBI warning noted that groups with “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideology” were looking to create civil disorder, leading to violence and chaos.
Over 40,000 business and residential customers were affected in the North Carolina attack, with some being without power for three days.
Politico noted that “white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other domestic extremists seeking to sow unrest have taken responsibility for other high-profile attempts to take down swaths of the grid.”
Has the Las Vegas attack been largely ignored by mainstream media because the suspect’s name is Muhammad Mesmarian — a name probably not easily tied to a “white nationalist” or “neo-Nazi” group?
One would think that the Las Vegas attack, considering it was against a “sustainable” solar power plant, would be the perfect attack to call attention to, since “climate denialists” could be blamed for the destruction of a renewable energy source.
It would seem that the U.S. power grid is under threat of a potentially large-scale terrorist incident — but the media is far more concerned with why it took the GOP several days to select a new speaker of the House.
