Ultimately, it was the keen eye of a Texas gun shop clerk that helped authorities find an AWOL soldier who'd stashed bomb-making material in his nearby motel room for a planned attack on Fort Hood soldiers.

The tip that led Killeen police to Pfc. Naser Abdo on Wednesday prevented what could have been the second terrorist attack on the Army post, following a 2009 shooting rampage in which an Army psychiatrist is charged with killing 13 people. Earlier this year in Texas, a shipping company that told the FBI about a suspicious order for a chemical explosive foiled an alleged plot to blow up former President George W. Bush's Dallas home.