Shoe-Bomb Flight--A Trial Run?

San Francisco Chronicle | 1/6/02 | Simon Reeve

[foreshadowed at waco]

I sincerely hope that Reid's incompetence leads to the arrest of all the other creeps involved in this scheme--imagine thinking that blowing up a lot of planes and killing thousands of strangers simultaneously is a stroke of genius--the Allah these guys bow down to is not the God of creation--they are Satanic drones.

[foreshadowed at waco]

FYI

[Pharmboy]

I have a slight disagreement here; I think the trial run was "successful." It was Flight 587.

[thatsnotnice]

called "The Mother of Satan" by Palestinian militants, because its inherent instability makes it dangerous to both the victims and bomb maker.

I guess they have never played with mercury fulminate then... amateurs.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

trial run

[Fred Mertz]

FYI

[sam_paine]

Having obtained Boeing blueprints, Yousef calculated the most devastating place to detonate his bombs was in a seat above the center fuel tank, adjacent to the wing. The bomb alone would not destroy the plane, but it would detonate the fuel, ripping the jet apart.

TWA800 ping....???

[zog]

--this latest deal disturbs me. It honestly doesn't sound like any sort of sophisticated attack or plan to me, not even a trial run attack. This guy sounds a lot more like a drugged out zombie-ish lee harvey oswald patsy with a show fulla nuthin. Lighting a match to set it off? This never made any sense to me. Why go to all the trouble of building something like this that doesn't work? On the one hand, the spooks/authorities/cops whatever are quick to say how sophisticated they are with casio watch timers and etc, but here you got firecracker joe with his cobjob dud el kaboom shoe. It don't compute. The amazing carcano bolt action machine gun with smart bullets variant.

[NJJ]

Reid's bombing attempt may have been a "trial run" for future. . .

I think it's highly unlikely it would have been a trial run since it only would have alerted airline security and foiled future attempts if it failed. If he was successful, we would have never known what happened, as has been suggested in other cases. More than likely he had been trained in bomb making from readily available sources and this plot may have been on his own initiative following his buddy Moussaoui 's news situation.

If it were planned to do several others, they would have done then all at the same time, just as they did on 9/11.

[FreedomPoster]

More coming, but we can't even consider ethnic/religious profiling to more efficiently use security resources. No, that might offend Islamic Americans, and we can't have that, so we'll continue to randomly check the shoes of Aunt Martha from Des Moines. We are idiots.

[FreedomPoster]

More coming, but we can't even consider ethnic/religious profiling to more efficiently use security resources. No, that might offend Islamic Americans, and we can't have that, so we'll continue to randomly check the shoes of Aunt Martha from Des Moines. We are idiots.

[eno_]

The article does a good job of tying off all the loose ends: Reid could not have concocted the explosives himself, they are meant to be set off with a low-intensity flame, etc. Plus, it is known that al-Quaida has done "trial runs" before. It fits their known modus operendi.

[OKCSubmariner]

Thanks for the ping.

Excellent article.

[OKCSubmariner]

Besides TWA 800, the cause of another crash is still being ruled unknown even though terrroism could be the cause.

Remember American Flight 587 which broke apart 2 minutes after takeoff over Queens and Jamaica Bay Nov. 12?

TWA 800 and American 587 crashed soon after take off from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

[OKCSubmariner]

See reply #15

[Plummz]

Yep.

[Libertina]

BUMP It was Flight 587
I read yesterday in the Tacoma Tibune that the "latest" theory of flight 587 being the plane that had its tail (vertical stabilizer) bumped while going into a hanger was found NOT TRUE. (It was a different plane.)

Ken Hamblin has had some good discussions on this. He says his "Klingon tractor beam" theory has as much validity as the "turbulance" line from the NTSB. He also remarked that the pilot asked for more power, rather than less which is typical if there is a problem. So much has been going on in Europe with terrorists for years; but rather than learn - we seem to have adopted the same sorry procedures which garnered problems for them. WE would all be better off if we used correct terminology - STATISTICAL profiling rather than "racial" profiling - which gets people are upset and is incorrect as well. In WA a man's 6 year old son was frightened because he was the 5th person and therefore "checked out." Not a very efficient use of time I think. (Unless middle est terrorists are now going afer pre-school age suicide bombers...)

[Sal]

Thanks, Fred. My own speculation (and I admit I have NO expertise in terrorism analysis or bomb making) is that this wasn't a trial run so much as an attempt at a "production" run. I agree with the other posters who think that flight 587 was was just such a run. The difference is that simpleton didn't get caught and so the shoe thing wasn't revealed.

Despite the fact that Ashcroft has ignored some major terrorist information, he does seem to have picked up loads of the creatures and I think it's made a difference. Also, I regularly see titles on FR about the French arresting x men suspected of Al Quaeda ties, or some other country. Judging from Reid, Walker, Mousauwi (sorry about the spelling) and a few others, they are really down to the dregs and they started with recruits from the lower fourth of the bell curve IMO. That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous, just that we have a SLIGHT advantage because they are more likely to screw up their missions. We're extra lucky if they're caught in the act and the plan--made up by somebody with a functioning brain--is exposed.

I'll tell you what really freaks me out is the post on another thread (sorry I can't remember who posted it) that Khalil studied with Dr. Jolly. That combined with OBL's little accolade to high school grads succeeding in murder--which I took to be a trigger or call to arms for their raggedy back-up reserves made my hair stand up. Now we've got this goofy little twit in Tampa flying his little plane into a building. Most likely he's had absolutely no contact with any of these guys, but he could have. Apparently the owner of his flight school had made a plea after 9/ll that people NOT react badly to M.E. types taking flying lessons. Why would he do that unless he had some of those type students?

This last info comes from Mindbender. I laughed myself silly over his post. Right after the crash he was on posting about this owner's statements and saying this was no accident. He was right; it wasn't. What made me laugh was that he said, "The first rule of coincidences is that there are no coincidences." The same shill who shrieks "tin foil!" when we list a BUNCH of coincidences and speculate on what it might mean.

Anyway, I'm hoping that their suicide boys are now down to such screw-ups that they won't be able to do major harm. I'm more worried about those more experienced, non-suicidal agents who appear to remain under fed protection. I keep trying to come up with some scenario that would explain it, like we know they have nukes stashed and we'll never find them if we arrest the ones we think know about them... So far I haven't convinced myself.