It's not quite as simple as "if you have one of these you're a terrorist" of course; it's one indicator based on long-standing patterns, but never used as sole proof.
AQ training/bomb-making manuals from the 1990s–2000s recommend cheap, reliable digital watches like this as timers for IEDs as they're extremely inexpensive and widely available worldwide, durable, water resistant, and easy to modify as delay timers.
Often these guys would get picked up with two or more watches of the same model, for example. We recovered them in bomb-making facilities and on fighters throughout the GWOT. Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.
AQ training/bomb-making manuals from the 1990s–2000s recommend cheap, reliable digital watches like this as timers for IEDs as they're extremely inexpensive and widely available worldwide, durable, water resistant, and easy to modify as delay timers.
Often these guys would get picked up with two or more watches of the same model, for example. We recovered them in bomb-making facilities and on fighters throughout the GWOT. Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.