What was supposed to have happened in the US?

WNEM TV-5 is reporting:

(TV5) -- The three suspects are now facing two counts each of Homeland Security Terrorism charges. All three suspects are due to be arraigned August 12th.

Around 1:00am August 11th the three men purchased cell phones from the Wal-Mart store on M-81 near the corner of M-24 in Caro. Wal-Mart places a limit on the number of cell phones that can be purchased at once, that number is three. The three men allegedly bought 80 by purchasing them three at time so that an alert wouldn't be triggered by the cash register. They also paid cash.

An alert clerk grew suspicious and called Tuscola County central dispatch. The Caro Police Department sent a unit and stopped the rented van on M-81 just east of Caro. The suspects were headed towards Bad Axe on M-81 where there is another Super Wal-Mart.The three men are described as being of Palestinian descent but live in Texas. Police say the three, ages 19, 22, and 23 appear to be naturalized citizens.

Add to this the story of the missing Egyptian "exchange students".

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Six of the 11 Egyptian exchange students who failed to show up for their college program are now in custody after three additional students were arrested Thursday, the FBI said.

El Sayed Ahmed Elsayed Ibrahim, 20, and Alaa Abd El Fattah Ali El Bahnasawi, 20, were arrested at a residence in Dundalk, Md., outside Baltimore, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Chicago police arrested Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Abou El Ela, 22, at O'Hare International Airport as he was attempting to book a flight to Montana, the FBI said. Immigration agents later took El Ela into custody.

Is it a coincidence that a couple of Palestinians are caught with 1000 untraceable cell phones (which can be used to detonate bombs) and a bunch of "students" from Egypt go missing around the same time as a London based terrorist plot to blow up multiple airliners over US soil was being activated?Perhaps, but I hear that the "student" that was arrested at O'Hare came to the attention of the authorities because his behavior fit the terrorist profile so well that he could have been rehearsing for an episode of 24.

Before the exposure of the latest plane bombing plot in England I would have bet the missing “students” were another trial run designed to gather intelligence about how US authorities would respond to a group of Muslims coming into the country for some legal purpose and then going underground. Just like the groups of Muslim men boarding airplanes over the past couple of years and doing everything but wearing “I heart Osama” T-shirts to look like terrorists were done in order to gather intelligence on air carriers’ in flight security.

I now begin to think that there was some kind of terrorist operation planned for the US to coincide with the airliner bombings. When the plot was disrupted and British and Pakistani authorities began making arrests the US operators must have feared that their own plans had been compromised as well.

Do I know this for sure? No. But if there is an obvious flaw in my reasoning I can’t see it.