Posted on 07/22/2004 10:47:47 PM PDT by FairOpinion
Key points • Terrorists thought to have targeted at least two US flights in dry-run attacks • 9/11 Commission warns attack worse than Twin Towers 'probable' • Cameras caught 9/11 terrorists setting off security alarms prior to hijacking
Key quote "Every expert with whom we spoke told us an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time" - Tom Kean, chairman 9/11 commission
Story in full DEVASTATING new evidence has emerged that terrorists are preparing another attack on the United States, with air marshals and flight crews reporting a series of dry runs for attacks on aircraft in mid-air.
At least two flights are thought to have been targeted so far by groups of Middle Eastern men who appear to be forming a plan of attack.
On one flight an air marshal reportedly broke into an onboard toilet to find that a mirror had been removed and that a Middle Eastern man was trying to break through a wall to the cockpit.
One air marshal told the Washington Times newspaper yesterday: "No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack."
The revelation came on the day a major US report into the 11 September attacks warned that another attack was likely.
The commission recommended an overhaul of the country’s intelligence services to prevent al-Qaeda launching more deadly plots against America.
Warning that an attack "of even greater magnitude" than the one that killed almost 3,000 people in 2001 was "probable", the commission accused the Clinton and Bush administrations of failing to have sufficient imagination to have envisaged al-Qaeda’s lethal plot.
Tom Kean, the chairman of the commission, said: "Every expert with whom we spoke told us an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time.
"We must prepare and we must act. The al-Qaeda network and its affiliates are sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal."
Airline staff and passengers have catalogued repeated incidents that suggest new attacks are in preparation.
"It’s happening and it’s a sad state of affairs," one pilot said.
On one flight last month, 14 Syrian men on a flight between Detroit and Los Angeles boarded the flight, sitting apart. They pretended to be strangers, according to those on board, but once airborne they started filing in and out of the plane’s toilets. When the plane was about to land, the men shot up to different toilets, arousing the suspicions of air crew, passengers and air marshals.
However, air marshals who monitored the incident said there was no "legal basis on which to take enforcement action".
In another incident, the Washington Times revealed, a flight attendant reported a passenger using a long lens to take photographs of the cockpit door.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that Islamic militants had found a new way to circumvent security systems at airports. Instead of trying to take bombs onto aircraft, they would place the components on board, which they can then assemble in mid-flight.
Security sources told newspapers that the tactic had already been tried out, again in dry-run form, on flights between the Middle East, North Africa and western Europe.
As early as November, the FBI was warning that "terrorists are considering the use of improvised explosive devices assembled on board to hijack an aircraft".
Security agencies around the globe are now trying to track down the militants that have been trained to carry out such attacks.
The activities are a terrifying echo of the meticulous planning of the hijackers involved in the 11 September plot, which was comprehensively detailed in yesterday’s report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
The 567-page final report issued by the ten-member commission pointed to "deep institutional failings" and missed opportunities to thwart the hijackings carried out by al-Qaeda operatives.
"Terrorism was not the overriding national-security concern for the US government under either the Clinton or the pre-9/11 Bush administrations," the report said.
It said that on at least nine occasions, chances were missed that might have led to the uncovering of the plot.
Overnight, US television networks broadcast a newly released surveillance video from Washington’s Dulles International Airport on the morning of the attacks that investigators view as one of the missed opportunities.
The video shows five hijackers passing through security checkpoints. Four of them repeatedly set off alarms but were quickly cleared to board the flight that later crashed into the Pentagon. It was not clear what set the alarms off.
The commission was sweeping in its recommendations for change.
It proposed the appointment of a national intelligence director and the creation of a national counter-terrorism centre to better co-ordinate and share information about future terrorist threats.
"The national intelligence director should oversee national intelligence centres to provide all-source analysis and plan intelligence operations for the whole government on major problems," the report said.
The commission also said the US government must do more domestically to guard against future terrorist attacks, including measures such as setting national standards for issuing drivers’ licences and other identification, improving "no-fly" and other terrorist-watch lists and using more biometric identifiers to screen travellers at ports and borders.
Other recommendations included declassifying intelligence spending, upgrading the computer technology used by US intelligence and reorganising congressional oversight.
Given new warnings about al-Qaeda’s desire to strike again on a mass scale, James Thompson, commission member, said all US leaders would be wise to take the commission’s findings to heart.
"If it happens and we haven’t moved, then the American people are entitled to make very fundamental judgments about that," he said.
The commission’s vice-chairman, Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman, appealed for political unity at the heights of America’s power. A "shift in mindset and organisation" within the US intelligence apparatus and a smoother transition between presidencies were also necessary, he said, to ensure "that this nation does not lower its guard every four or eight years".
"The US government has access to vast amounts of information but it has a weak process, a weak system of processing and using that information," Mr Hamilton said. "Need to share must replace need to know."
However, it will be months if not years before such recommendations can be implemented. Yet many terrorism experts fear that al-Qaeda is planning a terrorist attack in the next four months, in the run-up to the November presidential elections.
"They [the 11 September hijackers] penetrated the defences of the most powerful nation in the world," Mr Kean said. "They inflicted unbearable trauma on our people, and at the same time they turned international order upsidedown."
Mr Kean said the US was "faced with one of the greatest security challenges in our long history".
July 17, 2004
Terror in Skies: Muslim Man Recounts 4 Hours of Fear
(2004-07-17) -- A harrowing story of one man's experience with "terror in the skies" reached a global audience this week, as web surfers and bloggers circulated it, commented on it and challenged its authenticity.
The first-person account starts before the unnamed man and 13 of his friends boarded Northwest Airlines flight #327, bound from Detroit the Los Angeles, on June 29.
"We were just going about our business during the flight," said the man who was born in an unnamed, predominantly Muslim country. "You know, we were just reading the Koran aloud, carrying objects about the cabin and gathering near the restrooms to chat in our native tongues about the ultimate peace we'll find in Allah. Suddenly, I noticed this white woman staring at me. It really freaked me out. It made me and my friends so nervous that we had to use the restroom more, and of course take our digital cameras and other objects in there with us."
The anonymous victim said he began to receive unwanted attention from the flight crew, and saw people passing notes to each other and exchanging glances.
"My legs were like rubber," he said. "I don't know how we endured four hours of this kind of fear. Me and my whole cell group--you know, my friends--finally understood how the great martyr Mohammed Atta must have felt during his final hours."
The unnamed man said his only comfort came from knowing that he had "official permission from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to be aboard that plane. I knew that they respect our religion and were protecting us."
- from scrappleface.com
WNBC investigative reporter Scott Weinberger reported on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC show tonight that the 14 Syrians on Northwest Flight 327 ALL had expired visas. He said that law enforcement officials xeroxed the men's paperwork without looking at the dates. The visas had expired nearly a month earlier, according to Weinberger.
This does not give me much confidence in the background checks that the Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI, and LAPD may or may not have conducted on the men before letting them walk away. Would you trust the terrorism investigation of officials who apparently neglected to verify whether these men--coming from a designated state sponsor of terrorism--WERE EVEN IN THE COUNTRY LEGALLY?!?!?!
http://michellemalkin.com/
satire
you got me!
LOL!
Or it would be funny, if it weren't also true.
http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/20011012.htm
DOT guidelines to screeners:
"Do not subject persons or their property to inspection, search and/or detention solely because they appear to be Arab, Middle Eastern, Asian, and/or Muslim; or solely because they speak Arabic, Farsi, or another foreign language; or solely because they speak with an accent that may lead you to believe they are Arab, Middle Eastern, Asian, and/or Muslim."
http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/20010921.htm
"Since the terrorist hijackings and events of September 11, we have seen several reports of airlines apparently removing passengers from flights because the passengers appeared to be Middle Eastern and/or Muslim. We caution airlines not to target or otherwise discriminate against passengers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, or based on passengers' names or modes of dress that could be indicative of such classification. Various Federal statutes prohibit air carriers from subjecting a person in air transportation to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or ancestry"
What I can't understand is that if you or I tried to loiter in the isles and stand by the toilets, we would be imediately ordered to sit down. I don't understand why the attendants or the marshalls didn't feel they had enough to stop them in the first place. Guess you have to be an eighty year old American to be ordered back to your seats...
You didn't read the whole thing. Different gourp.
My only beef is with people who just want to arrest anyone somebody else thinks is suspicious looking.
And even when they do and find out they are OK, let them go.
I do have a real beef with the authorities at LAX if they let these Syrians go through with expired visas.
THAT is inexcusable.
The last 5 roundtrips I have flown across the country, roundtrip, the attendants were on Americans like white on rice if the toilet was occupied and you tried to stand close to be next in line. It is NEVER allowed. That is why they have the little green lights and prominent X on them when occupied. I have seen them usher little old ladies back to their seats until empty. So these 14 ragheads and their behavior made no sense to me. Neither did Northwest landing on a military base in the Dakotas by accident a couple of weeks ago. MAYBE WE SHOULD AVOID NORTHWEST AIR.
TOO POLITICALLY CORRECT AND DISCRIMINATORY AGAINST AMERICANS.
There is no other way to explain 9/11 and the anointing of the calculating, effete, French fascist, descendant of opium smugglers, John FORBES Kohn Kerry.
He is the Manchurian Candidate and we are the audience for his song and dance, directed by some amorphous nation-states who seek to destroy America's might.
They count on our complacency and on our collective good nature.
God help us.
Those look like instructions for guaranteeing more terror!
If I did my own "profiling" on an airliner and got off if there were several middle eastern types on board with sizzling dynamite sticks, I'd probably get sent to sensitivity training.
While you are so busy defending the suspicious Syrians, did you know they ALL had expired visas? Do you think we should ignore that too? Does THIS raise your suspicions, finally?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1176907/posts
OK. Before you post -- I concede one to you, I didn't finish reading your post, until AFTEr I posted about the expired visas.
Nobody says to arrest people willy nilly, but checking out suspicious people is the only way you have any hope of stopping the terrorists.
You need to watch the people, not the objects.
Another thing that really ticks me off is that on Southwest, while people are actually boarding, the cock pit doors are wide open. What is that about? There should be lock down before boarding and after debarking. Go figure.
None of us would get away with hanging around the toilets either.
I am afraid I have to agree with every word in your post 129.
I don't understand why so few people see this.
ping to 129.
After considerable research I have not been able to find any viable sourcing for that conclusion.
Can you share your source confirming this...i.e., band name?, club scheduled at?, previous venues played at?
There was one source quoting contact with an individual claiming to be their agent, however he is no longer to be found and he did not provide any specifics to substantiate the story.
Any word if they have been taken to Guantanamo???
I don't believe for a minute that they were released.
I am sure they were relaeased -- I just hope they are being tracked.
maybe you should ping "NYC GOP Chick"
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