Terrorist threat closes Fla. highway
Posted on 09/13/2002 6:00:43 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Terrorist threat closes Fla. highway
09/13/2002
NAPLES, Fla. - Officials shut down Alligator Alley, the main East-West highway crossing the Everglades, and people in two vehicles were detained after a possible terrorist threat, police said.
Bomb-sniffing dogs alerted authorities to material in both vehicles, said E.J. Picolo of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Explosive charges were being used to blast open what appeared to be a backpack taken from one of the vehicles. A suitcase was also set out beside the car.
"The information we have is very specific," Picolo said.
AP
|
The Florida Highway Patrol shut down a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 75 shortly after 1 a.m., when the vehicles were stopped. It was still closed more than six hours later.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation had issued an advisory Thursday after a waitress in Calhoun, Ga., in the northwestern part of that state, told police she overheard three men of Middle Eastern descent discussing terrorist plans Wednesday night.
The Georgia woman said the men were talking about amounts of explosives and warned that Americans would "cry on 9/13," said Miami Police Lt. Bill Schwartz, quoting from the Georgia advisory.
Alligator Alley is the main road from Naples to Fort Lauderdale across the Everglades in South Florida.
The highway patrol said the road was blocked off from a toll booth east of Naples to State Road 29.
The identity may (officially) be unknown, although the source of the Anthrax is internal--pretty much has to be.
But use a little logic instead of just emoting, because you hate the terrorists.
This was NOT the sort of job they'd do. Say what you will about them, but they typically don't lay on an operation unless it's going to be big.
Obviously 9/11 was big. USS Cole was big. Khobar Towers was big. The African embassies was a big op. So on and on, all the way back to Beirut.
They carefully mark their targets, train, and carry out the operation, so as to make the maximum "noise" and garner big publicity.
The silly little Anthrax thing was what a kid with a pipe bomb mentality would have done had he been able to get "weaponized" (another garish, silly label; in this case it just means "spores") variety of Anthrax.
It was a domestic nut, a Ted Kasczinsky type. No doubt about it.
Yep. I've been reading some other articles and now its being reported that is was a customer sitting in booth next to the suspects that made the call and reported to the authorities.
Still, you never know if they might have been pestering her, hitting on her, etc.
The final outcome will be interesting to say the least.
Who is emoting? Using logic and coming up with a good guess is one thing. Your theory (and that is all it is unless you are in the official inside track) is a good one. It does have one weak link though. How does a 16 yr old or a 'crackpot' get ahold of weapons grade anthrax? One report called it "more sophisticated than anything ever seen before.".
I could emote on the way you trivialize the anthrax attacks. Did Kasczinsky tie the Postal Service in knots and cost the taxpayers who-knows-how-many millions of dollars? Did he scare the livin' crap out of millions of Americans? Six people died, not two or three. But those are just numbers. Well hey, mathematics is an emotional subject.
Either you're a friend of Leahy's and you know more than the rest of us or...
Mmmmmm hmmm hmmm. Whatever the outcome here I wasn't crazy about the 'tips line' from the start.
If you are talking about Eunice Stone, the lady that called authorities, she was a customer at Shoney's at the time. I gather that from her statement that she was in the booth next to the ME pranksters. The ME's got up to leave and she told her son "Let's go." Her son said "But we don't have our check yet." She replied "Don't worry, we'll get our check. Let's go." She followed the guys out and wrote down the license plate.
Those quotes are not verbatim, but from my recollection of her telling the story yesterday on FOX News Channel. And just fyi. Thanks.
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.
