Questions remain. The Nantucket Memorial Airport is not a federalized airport; there is no Federal Security Director and no immigration presence — at least not according to my conversation just now with the only airport official on duty, Cathy. The airport does, however, have a TSA presence. Cathy tells me there is no airport office for FBI. At the time of my call (4:30 PST) there was no police officer on duty. So who spotted the suspicious character(s) in the first place? Did FBI track them to the island? Did an alert crew member notice an odd-acting person and report it? Did John or Jane Doe speak up?
Excerpted
Thanks for that update Oorang.
Mysterious substances that were discovered in three plastic containers this evening in Palm Springs turned out to be a non-lethal acid-based substance, emergency crews said. The owner of Airport Quick Lube on Airport Center called firefighters just before 3 p.m. after he found the three containers outside his building. He opened one of the containers and a "vapor" was released into the air, Palm Springs Fire Chief Mark Avner said.
A label on the containers indicated they carried a chlorine-based substance. "(But) it was not the substance that's supposed to be in the container," Avner said. Authorities blocked off the street while the Riverside County Hazardous Materials Response Team inspected the containers. They cleared the area just before 6 p.m.
http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/NEWS01/71105018/1006/news01
Explosives missing from rural construction site (Canada)
Monday, November 5, 2007 The RCMP are looking for a number of dynamite sticks missing from a rural Alberta drill site. A crew working in the rural location near the village, about 105 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, found the explosives missing at the end of their shift on Friday and called police the next day.
Two Hills RCMP said the dynamite sticks are five centimetres in diameter, 20 centimetres long and covered in brown wax paper tubing. They warned anyone who finds them not to touch the material and to call police immediately. The RCMP did not disclose exactly how many sticks are unaccounted for.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/11/05/missing-dynamite.html
Azerbaijan says eight militants captured, including al-Qaida associate
November 6, 2007
BAKU, Azerbaijan: Authorities in Azerbaijan said Tuesday they had detained eight Islamic radicals, including an Arab man with apparent ties to al-Qaida, and seized a large weapons cache.
The announcement came a week after officials said security forces had thwarted a plot by Islamic militants to attack the U.S. Embassy and other government buildings in Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim country with a secular leadership.
The Arab man — detained over the weekend in Sumgait, the ex-Soviet republic's third largest city — was identified as Abu Jafar. His nationality was not released. The other seven have Azerbaijani-sounding names, and they were said to have fought in conflict zones abroad.
Excerpted
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/06/europe/EU-GEN-Azerbaijan-Alleged-Militants.php
Heh.
I found the cause of my deja vu feelings on this topic. check the date of this:
Possible terrorist sighting roils isle
Suspect sought on Nantucket
By Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff | August 21, 2004
HYANNIS — A long-sought suspected Al Qaeda member who has eluded a concerted international dragnet may have been sighted at a Nantucket airport this week, prompting the FBI to distribute a picture of the suspect to law enforcement and transportation officials on the island.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200711/NAT20071106a.html
“FAA Hasn’t Tracked Fraudulently Certified Airplane Mechanics”
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
November 06, 2007
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) - About 1,000 poorly trained or even untrained airplane mechanics have not been accounted for by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and could be working for the nation’s airlines.
Further, investigators do not know yet whether the mechanics who worked on a plane, which crashed and killed 20 people in 2005, were among those mechanics who were poorly trained or untrained.
The federal government has confirmed that it is investigating the FAA’s tracking of airline mechanics that obtained fraudulent certification from St. George Aviation, a Florida company whose owner was convicted on federal charges for issuing fraudulent licenses in the late 1990s.
Though the FAA was tasked with retesting at least 1,800 mechanics who obtained phony certificates from the company, fewer than half of those were retested. Also, the agency does not know where any of the mechanics who graduated from St. George are working now, FAA spokeswoman Allison Duquette told Cybercast News Service.
The federal agency charged with aviation safety responded to 12 written questions more than three weeks after Cybercast News Service submitted its inquiry. The questions had to be reviewed by counsel, Duquette said.”