Posted on 08/30/2002 9:24:15 AM PDT by MadIvan
An Arab man accused of trying to hijack a Londonbound plane with 189 people on board has links with supporters of Osama bin Laden, it emerged today.
The 29-year-old Tunisian-born man is being questioned by Swedish police after he was caught with a loaded pistol in his hand luggage as he tried to board a Ryanair flight from Stockholm Vasteras airport to Stansted.
He was one of a 20-strong party on their way to an Islamic festival in Birmingham for followers of Salafi - a fundamentalist sect whose teachings are popular with Bin Laden's terror group al Qaeda.
All the al Qaeda suspects held in Europe last year were Salafi followers. Shoebomber Richard Reid, the Brixton man who attempted to blow up a Boston-bound airliner, was also a follower.
British security experts today flew out to Sweden to help question the latest suspect. American John Walker Lindh, who was caught fighting with the Taliban after converting to Islam, is known to have studied Salafi.
Scotland Yard said anti-terrorist and Special Branch detectives were liaising closely with Swedish police and forces in Essex and the West Midlands.
The loaded gun was found in a washbag in the hand luggage of the man as he passed through a checkpoint to board Flight FR685 to Stansted.
People on board the Boeing 737-800 told today how heavily-armed police suddenly surrounded the group, who were dressed in traditional Arab clothing, and handcuffed them at gunpoint.
Passenger Elin Dermeborg, 27, a Swedish social worker visiting a friend in the UK, said: "We all got on the plane, then the crew came around and said 'We have got a group of people on the flight we don't feel secure with'.
"There was a group of about 20 Somalians, some were wearing Muslim clothing, and they said they were on their way to an Islamic meeting in the UK.
"Everyone had to get off the plane and one of the Somalians, a guy wearing a red T-shirt, was arrested by the police. They handcuffed him and took him away.
"We were told by the airport staff he was trying to get a gun on the plane. Everyone was very calm, no one panicked."
Police drove the men away from the airport in coaches. Some were made to kneel with their hands behind their heads as officers stood over them. The handgun was detected by a security scanner.
The remaining passengers were taken off the plane and photographed by security men. The plane was delayed for more than six hours.
The latest incident comes as a draft report prepared by UN experts warned the world that Bin Laden's al Qaeda network is "alive and well".
Security sources in London said: " There are already widespread fears that supporters of Bin Laden may try to commit a new atrocity to coincide with the anniversary of 11 September. This incident has illustrated the need for constant vigilance and as a result our state of alert has been heightened even further."
Chief Inspector Anders Freyksell of Vasteras police said: "The gun was a small pistol loaded with three or four bullets."
Police spokesman Ulf Palm added: "We believe he was going to hijack the plane." Mr Palm said the man was also charged with illegal possession of a firearm. The suspect was said today to have a criminal record in Sweden for violence and theft.
The man is a Swedish national but was originally from Tunisia. Some of the Arab group had already boarded the plane yesterday afternoon when the weapon was found.
When questioned the suspect told them he did not know anything about the gun in his bag. The man told Swedish police he was on his way to the conference in Birmingham.
The conference - which attracts up to 3,000 Muslims from across Europe - is organised by Salafi.com, an Islamic online book shop. One of the key aims of the conference is to try to dispel the notion of links between Islam and terrorism.
I wonder what a washbag is.
Perhaps they are using their expendable losers as a feint to keep people focused on threats to airliners, while the jihaddists prepare their next move from an entirely different dirrection
On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers. So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist. How do I differentiate between the true Arab-Muslim-Americans and the Arab-Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same good neighbors and children? The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of it's religions, with ALL of it's different citizens, with all of it's faults. It is time for every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it for me. I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to it's flag? Do you proudly display in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it?
Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your "Jihads"? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it. Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America.
Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. And no more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy ...I am only interested in action. What will you do for America-our great country-at this time of crisis, at this time of war? I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America". I want to see young Arab-Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.
The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals. The very few Arab-Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States prove who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat. If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance. It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members defended Johnny Cochran and O. J. Simpson after the latter butchered his wife and murdered an innocent friend. A form whose members (some as young a five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.
Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized democratic nation in the entire middle-east? And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability? Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE! We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion. We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand." "Until then ... you worry me." ""
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