Plane Diverted To Fort Smith Arkansas After Suspicions Raised (New Details - 3 Charged)

KHBS Fort Smith, Arkansas ^ | September 11, 2002

[John H K]

I can't believe how gullible freepers are. You should all be ashamed of yourselves for not using the brains God gave you.

It's not really gullibility; most people really WANTED them to have been terrorists for a wide variety of rather interesting psychological reasons. If you really WANT a certain outcome it's going to cloud your ability to judge data accurately.

Of course, still could be terrorists, but the whole story seems to be stinking on ice. No mention of any weapons or bombs. ABC now has a new story, jailer there says he has two Indians and an Egyptian (nationalities match the names in the linked posted story.) Has an official claiming TWO of them "shaved" but nothing about "body hair."

If true identities 2 of the 3 aren't even "Middle Eastern" and likely 2 of the 3 aren't Muslim (one is named Singh, which is, of course, the name all male Sikhs have.)

My WAG guess; the two Indians, traveling together, individually each decided to shave their faces in the bathroom prior to arrival in Vegas for God-knows-what-reason. Then some massively confusing episode in which the two Indian guys are stupidly uncooperative that gets two Arab guys caught up in it; Arab guys don't know the Indian guys at all, but their "swarthy" like them. One of the Arab guys is released.

[veritas3]

Thanks for the links. Freepers are the best new sources in the world! I heard about that Arkansas flight diversion, tried to find it and came up nearly emtpy handed. Drudge had a Los Vegas link for several hours. The Ark news sites in Little Rock, not much. So I thought lets try Freerepublic & here is more than I could find on google. The question is what else happened today everywhere else that we didnt hear much about in the mainstream news. Shaving bodies sounded serious to me, that why I started to search around. Three were arrested. Thank you all Freepers for the great news coverage and keeping me the most informed of any site on the web!!!!!!!

[sheik yerbouty]

They were having a swordfight, and the third one was the referee.

[Cindy]

Thank you Veritas. Glad you found the info.

[Jim Noble]

>>Or maybe it was a drill. Didn't 4 of them go through their routine before 911 on another plane earlier? CD<<

Yes, they did, and there has been at least one other incident where four adherents of the Religion of Peace were taken off a flight (Philly-Orlando) that had to return to Philly because of "suspicious behavior".

I think they are probing airline security with active recon. I think they would dearly love to get another plane.

Why any Muslims capable of hurting us are still here (much less allowed to board a commercial aircraft), 364 days after they should have been expelled, is a good question.

[Rifleman]

And even if you had a stump broke camel, there are few stumps in the Middle East.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Did they search seatback pockets for knives?

[aristeides]

Could be bogus names. I don't think Sikhs have any problem with hair, quite the contrary -- they think they have a religious obligation to have beards.

[CWRWinger]

Or maybe it was a drill.

If this was a drill by the government, they would have used southern white boys as the actors. It would have been politiclly incorrect to use M.E. actors due to prohibitions on 'racial profiling', IMO.

But, we don't know if this was a drill.

[rstevens]

Ever hear of a cordless electric shaver?

[rstevens]

Reread the posts and this time pay particular attention to grammer. "They locked themselves, one after another, in the restrooms." This implies that they took turns in the restroom.

[Corin Stormhands]

And exactly what were they going to shave themselves with? Or did they get a razor by security? I have been in those onboard restrooms and there is hardly room to shave myself, much less having a couple of friends along to participate!!!!

And didn't they see Airplane????

[Corin Stormhands]

Thank you for flying Let's Roll Airlines.

I like the name.

[E Rocc]

Their names are clearly Sikh names. Unless we have a problem with Indians, we may just have a shave before Vegas thing going on.

It's against the Sikh religion to shave, though many Americanized ones do. This could be the equivalent of young Amish women changing their clothes in public restrooms so their parents don't see them. Maybe they jumped the gun a bit and triggered the suspicion alarms.

Especially considering the date, dumb.

-Eric

[Lorraine]

Also, if you listen to the female passenger interviewed in the video link, she says that one of the men appeared to have something taped to his body. I don't think we should dismiss this incident so lightly.

[aristeides]

I see that you're anxious to debunk the story about shaving body hair, just as _Jim was yesterday. You will excuse me, but your denials only make me more inclined to believe the story.

I note that a rather credible reporter, Bill Gertz, has this paragraph in his story in this morning's Washington Times:

However, passengers on the flight told investigators that the men had locked themselves in the plane's restrooms and were shaving their bodies, a practice advocated by terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta to fellow September 11 hijackers.

[cyphergirl]

"Reread the posts and this time pay particular attention to grammer. "They locked themselves, one after another, in the restrooms." This implies that they took turns in the restroom."

It most certainly does. My issue is with the emphasis on "locking themselves in the restrooms".

I don't know about the rest of you Freepers, but I lock the door (or stall) every time I use a public restroom. Heck, I lock the bathroom door in my own HOUSE because I never know when the hubby is going to have friends over.

[Utah Girl]

Thanks. I read an account where the reporter made it sound as if they locked themselves in the same bathroom at the same time.