The U.S. revokes visas of 17 pilots who fly the Caracas-Miami route for Venezuelan airline That's the first thing I thought of, too. It has to be related.
The Venezuelan angle is strange in and of itself, but what is stranger is that I cannot find any followup on the story anywhere. The original article is the only one I saw anywhere on this rather strange story.
Chavez Bombshell?
A defector’s testimony links the Venezuelan strongman to international terror.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-osorio010803.asp On January 5, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's former personal pilot dropped a bombshell that has been ignored by just about every major U.S. news organization: The Venezuelan president, according to the pilot, gave al Qaeda a substantial sum of money following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.