Posted on 07/22/2004 10:46:10 PM PDT by dixie sass
Last week NewsMax linked for several days to journalist Annie Jacobsen's widely reported eyewitness account of suspicious behavior by Arab men on a flight from the Muslim haven of Detroit to L.A. But her report is just the beginning.
"Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack," the Washington Times revealed today.
Story Continues Below
The article singles out the flight Jacobsen took on June 29, Northwest Airlines Flight 327, as well as American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's JFK Airport on Feb. 15.
"No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," the Times quoted an anonymous air marshal as saying.
"It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," the paper quoted an anonymous pilot as saying.
Jacobsen, a business writer for the online Women's Wall Street, described how 14 Middle Eastern men alarmed and "terrified" her and other passengers as well as the crew. Seated throughout the plane, the men at first pretended to be strangers but then exchanged "unusual glances," gathered in small groups, stood throughout most of the flight, filed in and out of the lavatories and even brought a camera into one.
"One man took a McDonald's bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms."
David Adams, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, confirmed Jacobsen's account. He said officers who were on board checked the restrooms several times but found nothing.
"Given the facts, they had no legal basis to take an enforcement action. But there was enough of a suspicious nature for the FAMS, passengers and crew to take notice," Adams said.
Federal officials and L.A. police detained the Syrian men upon arrival, fingerprinted them and released them after checking their story that they were musicians hired to play at a casino.
Bombs in the Bathrooms
The Times noted: "A January FBI memo says suicide terrorists are plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling 'ready-to-build' bomb kits past airport security, and later assembling the explosives in aircraft bathrooms."
The incident on the flight from San Juan was similar. Six Middle Eastern men pretended at first to be strangers, but it became clear they knew each other, observant stewardesses said.
The Arabs tried to videotape the takeoff, made multiple trips to the restroom and congregated in the area until crew members intervened.
A pilot reported another flight in which an air marshal broke into a lavatory that an Arab had locked himself into for a long time. The man had removed the mirror and was trying to break through the wall, on the other side of which was the cockpit, the pilot said.
Terrorists "absolutely" are testing security, he told the Times. "There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines."
But Profiling Terrorists Isn't P.C.
Then why is so little being done? Political correctness and fear of pressure groups.
Only yesterday, Council on American-Islamic Relations raged that the FBI was daring to interview Muslims and Arabs in states including California, New York, Virginia and Florida "as part of an attempt to root out a possible terror attacks in the United States."
CAIR director Nihad Awad complained: "The way it's being done stigmatizes the entire community and makes Muslims objects of suspicion to their neighbors and co-workers. This is not right. This is more politics than security."
As NewsMax noted last week, an anti-terror program in Florida had to be emasculated because of grumbling from American Civil Liberties Union and Muslim groups.
The Citizen Awareness Program, proposed by a domestic security task force in Orlando, had planned to ask firemen, utility workers and other workers who go into homes to report any suspected terrorist activity. One possible sign, the program had planned to note, would be "multiple adult males living together, usually of Middle Eastern appearance and between the ages of 18 and 45, with little or no furnishings."
Scott Rost of ACLU's Orlando office claimed the program would "encourage racial profiling with little reason to believe it will make us safer."
How shocking. What in the world do groups of young Middle Eastern men have to do with terrorism? Everyone knows that 80-year-old American church ladies carried out 9/11. They're the ones who should be profiled!
We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim. Anyone who ignores this reality is abetting the next 9/11.
Pardon?
None of the articles that I have read have given me any indication that the aviation industry is doing anything other than trying to appease those who harmed us.
It scares me and it makes me very angry especially after seeing snippets of the tapes from the surveillance cameras on 9/11.
If anyone is to blame for the tragedy that befell us on 9/11, it is airport security not doing their jobs.
Don't discount it. A plane load of hostages is priceless to them, especially with children on board.
True
Someone, somewhere had better care.
This country went PC mad when you and I were trying to get "what's 'is face" out of office. We've just put PCism at the bottom of the list of things to correct. I think it should now be at the top.
We have people going to the Olympics, a lot of young people flying on commercial jets...
Don't you think that would be a prime target - I bet they do. I'm worried about what could happen in Athens or on the way to Athens.
I hope that the people that load the luggage, service the plane and also fly them are not planning on using our athletes.
If you do a search on FR for this article "Terror in the Skies. Again?" and "Part two. Terror in the Skies", you will read of a real incident.
Because we are America and that is what we are about. Freedom to travel, to worship, to do anything we want and we extend that curtesy to others instead of watching our backs.
Thanks for the link. A little tongue in cheek but he does point out that something was in the air, doesn't he.
I wonder what the physical signs would be?
I don't, do you?
I couldn't agree with you more.
That means that our air-traffic system was expecting trouble. But rather than land the plane in Las Vegas or Omaha, it was allowed to continue on to Los Angeles without interruption, as if everything were hunky-dory on board. It certainly wasn't. If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom. Given the information they were working with at the time, almost everyone should have reacted differently than they did.
Jacobsen's fear was quite natural under these circumstances, and she has done us a service by pointing out some egregious shortfalls in our airline security. Danke Schoen, Darling. Let's hope the right people are listening.
I think you missed this part of the article.
I don't think you can cite Bush for this. I would start with Minetta and the people in State. Also your ill trained security personnel.
I hope they do try it again. There will be a handfull of terrorists facing 100 self appointed air marshalls knowing they have nothing to lose. They'll know what Custer felt like.
I would be willing to bet that there were people on that flight who have at one time or another made that same statement and then just sat there paralyzed with fear.
With 9-11 the terrorists violated a social contract. It used to be that in a hi-jacking the terrorists had a beef with one govt or another and there was a good chance that you would simply be inconvenienced for a day or two. that contract is now null and void. Richard Reid was the first to find that out.
One person might feel intimidated, but in a group, an otherwise timid person is going to feel a little more courage. Add in a person or two like me that are a little high strung already, a couple of wannabe heroes, a few athletes aging or not and you have the makings of a little big horn.
I would like to know they checked photos. They did act very strange!!!
When do these folks figure out that once they crash into something they are no longer here nor there to make a point to anyone. I still don't understand why they are so bent on that. The recruitors for these missions must have one hell of a line.
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