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".
I've been around Free Republic for a substantially longer time than you, my friend, and I won't be intimidated by pisants tossing out the "troll" word.
Beyond that I'd suggest that you haven't a clue about where I've been, what I know or what makes me tick. In other words, you are completely FOS.
As for you other opinions- well, you know what they say about opinions.
What Islamists are you referring to?
I say....
This is not true that they were just a group of musicians.
They were in this country Illegally according to MSNBC and Joe Scarboro.
They were planning something and MSNBC has stated that they were investigated by the FBI.
The story gets even better.
MSNBC did their own investigation of the investigation and they say that the FBI lied to the media about who these people were.
They were in the country illegally and WERE planning some kind of opperation.
I'm not sure what "Um El" means but "shaheed"= 'a martyr. Someone who dies in the way of Allah'.
I haven't been able to download the video, I keep getting 'access forbidden on this server' but it looks to me like a video in praise of terrorists. If he sympathizes with terrorists then how much of a stretch is it to think he might actively aid them?
You know I have seen you say this on just about every article put on freerepublic about this incident, but after 9-11, 14 Arab men being allowed to get up and walk around in groups and behave strangely is a serious cause for any intelligent passengers concern.
I don't care if they were talking music or bombs make them sit or go to the bathroom in ones and then sit, but do not let them act weird and scare the hell out of the passengers!
Yep, and Sandy Berger 'inadvertently' put classified documents down his pants.
What's your take on post#224?
I saw that before, and thought "Well, he's Syrian. Gotta' appeal to your fans." Maybe like the Beach Boys "Student Demonstration Time."
Here's the missing component to the story, start to finish:
There is not one single mention of anyone - crew or passenger - approaching one or more of these guys and saying "Look, your behavior is upsetting the other passengers," or "You guys seem to be friends, where are you headed?" or anything at all.
Instead it's just a descent into deeper and deeper paranoia.
If I were in that plane, and it was as potentially spooky as described, I might try to set an example by approaching the guys and making conversation. If you're wrong, at least you've interrupted the logistics of their "attack."
There is not one single mention of anyone - crew or passenger - approaching one or more of these guys.....I might try to set an example by approaching the guys and making conversation
There is at this point only Jacobsen account of doing just that...
"I decided to try to reassure my husband (and maybe myself) by walking to the back bathroom. I knew the goateed-man I had exchanged friendly words with as we boarded the plane was seated only a few rows back, so I thought I would say hello to the man to get some reassurance that everything was fine. As I stood up and turned around, I glanced in his direction and we made eye contact. I threw out my friendliest "remember-me-we-had-a-nice-exchange-just-a-short-time-ago" smile. The man did not smile back. His face did not move. In fact, the cold, defiant look he gave me sent shivers down my spine."
I do not think this "look" is all definitive.
In fact it seems to illustrate a pervasive cultural naivete that is at the crux of this story.
The guy is an Islamic male. You know they are generally intolerant of women, and that they are completely flummoxed by Western women.
Perhaps this guy thought she was being too forward, and by his look was scolding her for that and her perceived "loose morals."
I'm sorry, the story is seeming more and more like group hysteria to me.
Your statement that John Valentine is a troll is pure BS. Just becuase he says we can't physically attack a suspicous person. If you were travelling and someone thought that your were suspicious,do you think they should attack you!
I would perfer that all passengers would be armed then if some were terrorists , I might have a chance to stop it, before crashing the plane. I sure would like more options than Flight 93 had.
".........However, air marshals who monitored the incident said there was no "legal basis on which to take enforcement action.....".
Expired Visa? [as has been reported]
No problem! Come on down!!!!
The guy was an Islamic male. He has been raised to be intolerent of "loose" women, "forward" women, Western women.
He was being polite at the gate because he is male and it is his perogative to be polite if he chooses (not hers, she's a woman). He is Muslim. He's the boss.
Later on the plane, this woman gives him a big smile. Is she "loose"? Has she no morals? Is she a prostitute? He is completely aghast. It's not on his cultural map.
So he gives her a stoneface.
Do you now consider it explained?
Oh, bullshit! Do you believe everything that Snopes.com prints? It was a damn dry run and an attempt to flush out the air marshalls.
I fail to see group hysteria, The writer did not show any hysteria on the plane. She was concerned of behavior that was consistent with terrrorists behavior. Also you can get an feel for a person based on a look. If you cannot read body language then you cannot percieve a lot of information from personal interaction.
If you feel this is all baloney, then perhaps you would feel comfortable being on that plane. Personally if I had to take a flight in the next 2 months, I would watch my fellow passengers carefully and if I saw more than a few middle eastern men, then I would refuse to go on that flight. If nothing happens fine, just an inconvienence to get another flight.
Maybe, maybe not.
In the situation she describes, I'd probably have innocently strolled over to the head (where they were "congregating") and struck up a conversation.
If they were hijackers, doing so would spook them or perhaps interrupt their plans. If not, then it would be nothing.
The notion of sitting there for 4 hours and getting more and more paranoid just seems ridiculous. That's no way to solve problems.
The article stated she tried to do just that and got such a cold look that she was intimidated. Anyway how each of us would react is different. I found it strange that the men were not told to sit down by the stewardess.
That is an incredibly lame explanation.
And a very bigoted one about Muslims.
In other words...Muslims
Well, you are the first person I've seen on this thread who is calm and rational, not running around screaming like your hair is on fire.
I suppose that in the last almost 3 years, having read on here about every possible mishap -- fires, electricity outages, industrial accidents -- being a terrorist act, I've become more than a little hesitant to jump on the "IT'S A TERRORIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" bandwagon.
Thank you for that. In fact, you're the first person who has actually shown me some *proof* that these guys are not what they seem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.