A Colossal DHS Error, or a Tale of Two Terrorists Gone Awry?
Sometime early Monday, the Department of Homeland Security — America’s multi-billion dollar national security net — determined that two male travelers of Yemeni descent had boarded United Airlines Flight 908 and were headed to Amsterdam. DHS notified the federal air marshals on board — a message would have gone through the United Airlines pilots as federal air marshals are prohibited from using electronic devices on airplanes while in flight. Making things even more dramatic, DHS notified Dutch police who, once the plane had landed at Schiphol Airport, dramatically handcuffed the men, took them off the aircraft, and arrested them. More than two days later the men remain in custody, according to the Dutch lawyer for one of the men, Wouter Hendrickx, “following a request from U.S. authorities.”
The reason for the terror-threat alarm was, as far as we know, twofold. Inside one of the men’s checked bags were mock bombs, knives, and box cutters — oddly discovered earlier in the day by TSA agents in Birmingham, Alabama, and cleared for flight, but which later in the day would up on a totally different flight headed to Washington, D.C., Dubai, and then Yemen. The second, apparently more alarming part of the equation (TSA had already determined the baggage contents caused no threat) came when DHS determined that both men had at the last minute changed their itineraries and decided to go to Amsterdam instead of D.C.-Dubai-Yemen.
Sometime on Monday afternoon, a “law enforcement official” (which is now how DHS asks press to refer to them) gave ABC’s Brain Ross a breaking news story with an attention-grabbing quote. The two men taken off the Chicago-to-Amsterdam United Airlines flight had been charged by Dutch police with “preparation of a terrorist attack.”
As far as the DHS national security machine is concerned, it doesn’t get any more serious than that. And that quote is certainly not something a veteran newsman like Brain Ross is going to get wrong.
FBI agents were sent to Detroit to search al Soofi’s apartment. One neighbor told reporters that the front door of an apartment al Soofi once lived in appeared to have been kicked down.
All throughout the following morning, DHS and TSA officials at headquarters refused to answer questions on the record. I spoke to three TSA agents and two DHS agents, none of whom would provide me with any on-record information other than a previously released official statement describing the investigation as “ongoing.”
Suddenly, around 11:00 a.m. PST, the Department of Homeland Security provided a New York Times reporter with utterly contradictory news.
This reporter then was interviewed on National Public Radio, providing the world with an exclusive, totally different version of events. ABC’s Brian Ross had rushed to judgment, the Times reporter said, explaining that news is a competitive business and insinuating that the desire to make money had gotten in the way of good judgment (nevermind what the unnamed DHS official originally said). According to the Times, what had happened was a just a mistake, a mix-up, a confusion of sorts. It was United Airlines who had changed the mens’ itineraries in the first place — after they missed their flight to Yemen via Washington, D.C. It was United Airlines who instead re-booked the two men to Amsterdam. It was all one big misunderstanding.
Wait a minute.
I’m thinking somethings not being fully disclosed here. If these guys missed their flight to D.C./Yemen and United put them on a flight to Amsterdam, did they book them on a connecting flight to Yemen? And why the taped cell phones and box cutters? Are there a shortage of these items in Yemen?
Something stinks here.
…..”Something stinks here.”
This has to be the Pulitzer Winner for Waaay Uuuuunderstatement of this new century. Thank you, waltc, I mean that.
It’s gotten so we don’t know who to believe, least of all, th’ news media. LeCarre is laughing his butt off…..but he will not be alone in knowing how potentially frightening this really is.
…..(signed)…. OLD Airline Employee going back to 1958 and Pan American World Airways.
Box cutters. The same things that were used on 911. That’s a detail I don’t believe. I don’t beleive there were box cutters in the luggage.
Something obviously is being held back, either real information about a genuine terrorist dry-run, or a CYA attempt to hide a major bit of incompetence on DHS’s part.
BTW, “Brian” is spelled “Brain” several times in the post. He’s a smart guy, but, still…
Something definitely not being told here. How is it two Yemeni men just happen to have similar itineraries AND they both missed their connecting flights in Chicago? Did they miss the flight, or did they “miss” the flight? And what about Al Soofi? Reporting from other sources indicates he had $7,000 in cash on him. He’s worked in a Birmingham, AL convenience store for 3 months. Do they pay that good? And what about the mock bombs, cell phones, and knives. Is that normal for Mr Innocent Traveler?
The DHS and FBI are hiding something. This was a test run by the two men.
Big Sis, is this the system working again? One fraud after another perpetrated on the flying public.
I think we are staring at a duck.
…if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ..looks like a duck then it is probably DHS.
…they withheld and change their story so many times on the christmas day bomber that I am going to venture that the DHS doesn’t have a clue and if it did we would probably be worse off. …what ever ended up with the second terrorist on that christmas day flight?? I did hear that the passenger who saw a second suspicious person get on board was proven to be correct by the video evidence from Amsterdam.
It’s a very valid point, were these two the only ones who missed the connection??
Regardless of DHS’s backtracking, the unanswered questions make it smell like a terrorist dry run. The alternatives would be: these guys are victims of highly improbable circumstances, or DHS is doing excruciating gymnastics in deference to Muslims.
Oh no! Mr. Bill.
If there is going to be another terrorist incident before nov 2, it will be one that our manly president’s crack team of experts will thwart brilliantly.
This was a dry run as a prelude to a big attack. This is exactly why the stories are being changed to confound the public.
Imagine if 9/11/01 had not happened due to dumb luck, and after finding box cutters in Atta’s and the other terrorist’s luggage, DHS made up such a cock and bull story.
Just imagine…..
The author herself experienced a possible dry run on a US Air flight, I believe. Then there was the experience of the actor James Woods on a LA-NY flight about a month or so before 9-11. He saw a lot of suspicious behavior by a group of men and reported it to the FBI. They interviewed him once, briefly.
If these guys were not released so quickly, the official version might have some credence. As it is, it appears to be a coverup or incompetence beyond available belief.
Larry you are correct. I was on a dry run with 13 Syrians in June 2004, on Northwest Flight 327, back when I used to be a financial reporter. The actor James Woods was on an American Airlines flight in August of 2001, before 9/11. Also on Woods’ flight, in first class, were Mohammed Atta and two other hijackers — performing what Woods believed was a dry run for a hijacking. Woods reported the incident to the captain, who reported the incident to the FAA.
No follow-up was done with Woods until after 9/11 at which point the FBI visited the actor to silence him, saying he would be a witness in a criminal investigation. He never was. Sometime around 2005 Woods went public with his story with a late night talk show host, which you watch on You Tube.
As of this morning, the two Yemenis from United Flight 908 were still in custody in Amsterdam, in separate cells.
As I recall, the FBI or INS told you they were musicians in for a gig in LA. But they were in out and of the bathrooms, as I remember you writing. Same things for Woods. I didn’t remember from the interview I read with him that he had said they were trying to silence him, but I inferred it from what Mr. Woods said.
So now, Annie, why would they need to silence James Woods AFTER 911?
Also, was it verified that Atta was really one of ‘his’ practice hijackers?
The DHS also tried to say that the men did not know each other. But a Detroit news station had a story with passengers on the plane that said the men were laughing and joking like they were old friends. Why do people fall for this without asking questions. This is fantasy. The men were doing something bogus. Get real.
I also agree with the other comment. How does a person who works a minimum wage job save up so much money. Isn’t it too much of a coincidence that they were going to Yemen?
DHS didn’t want the media focused on a dry run, they wanted people to listen to what the prez says in his white house chat. All spin and the Yemenis sharpen the knives and box cutters.
Alice you aren’t in Kansas anymore. The dept. of Homeland Security is like a big angry hairy pile of monkeys fighting to see who well be first to have sex with a football.
Like to know if they had round trip tickets? So we have two unrelated guys flying solo, while Muslim, who have some really interesting checked baggage packing techniques. Well if it was a dry run to check the level of security for detecting explosive devices, they certainly don’t have to risk reporting in the results of their research. At the risk of grossly generalizing, Muslims do demonstrate a knack for self initiated traditional religious activity.
Dont forget the middle eastern “diplomat” who was caught “smoking cigarettes” in the rest room on board a comercial flight recently….
THAT dry run was conducted to test the “smuggle-ability” of fire producing items (lighters/cigarettes) upon your person and getting them aboard an aircraft. This test “BASIC FLAME TEST” was conducted due to the failure of the “CHEMICAL FUSE/IGNITION SYSTEM” Captain Underpants tried to use on Christmas. They also wanted to see how much time you had to play with fire in private (the rest room) because the Shoe bomber created too much attention with matches/lighters trying to “do it” in his seat.
This latest Dry Run was designed to see if “bombs” (I.E. suspicious looking containers/tape/timing devices) could be sucessfully hidden in CHECKED LUGGAGE.
They are working all the angles…Physically overpower (done), smuggle bombs on their persons (done), with various ignition sources (done), smuggle bombs in checked baggage (the most recent)
My biggest question is, WHO cleared “the packages” to go aboard? They were some very strange looking bottle/tape/timer devices to be “cleared” for flight without some serious (and full day long?) close look and analysis. Just think of how long the latest “suspicious package” tied up traffic somewhere else in recent memory, and you’ll see what I mean.
They are DEFINITELY testing the systems, and this one was (another) huge win for them.
I find the theory that TSA personnel are authorized to let such suspicious items bundled in this manner through to be incredible – unless a call was made to a supervisor who personally authorized it, for reasons unknown to John Flying Public, who apparently has no rights.
Far be it from me to ascribe any intelligence to the TSA or the DHS, but it occurs to me that the luggage was checked, the fake bombs found and the men not apprehended for a reason. By doing this the ‘dry run’ appears to have worked–even though it didn’t. When the actual run happens, the terrorists may then consign their bomb laden baggage to the TSA folks–never suspecting that it has been detected.
Possible, and others suggested this as well. The problem is, the dry-runners now know they were detected, and so do any others supervising them. I suppose if they don’t get that part, then they are incompetent. So maybe it’s ‘Spy vs. Spy’ bumbling.
Well. It would appear there’s all sorts of fresh news to be had here.
1. DHS is incompetent.
2. DHS lies about their incompetence.
3. DHS isn’t actually protecting US from anyone; they ARE protecting their own butts.
4. They lie about protecting their own butts.
Oh, wait. None of that is fresh news. Nothing new here. Move along now.
(And if you value your life, for cryin’ loud, stop flying.)
The name of the game is ‘don’t excite the public’. If the truth was really told, airline traffic would suddenly drop and we couldn’t really have that.
Could we? Its not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.
Pepto bismal is radio opaque and the bismuth bursts into flames by itself.
http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/abdominal-x-ray?page=2
Before the X-ray test, tell your doctor if you:
* Have had an X-ray test using barium contrast material (such as a barium enema) or have taken a medicine (such as Pepto-Bismol) that has bismuth in the last 4 days. Barium and bismuth can block a clear picture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth#Characteristics
Fine bismuth powder can be pyrophoric.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophoric
A pyrophoric substance (from Greek πυροφορος, purophoros, “fire-bearing”) will ignite spontaneously in air.[1] Examples are iron sulfide and many reactive metals including uranium, when powdered or sliced thinly. Pyrophoric materials are often water reactive as well and will ignite when they contact water or humid air. They can be handled safely in atmospheres of argon or (with a few exceptions) nitrogen. Most pyrophoric fires should be extinguished with a Class D fire extinguisher for burning metals.
Picture this: a UFO crashes in New Mexico. Several days later it is revealed to be a weather balloon. And, just recently, two men a caught practicing an attack, and now we learn that they are just nice fellows who like duct tape….
Let’s see……the underwear bomber was never really a problem and that guy who tried to blow up Times Square had no idea he had packed his stolen car with explosives.
Here, have a little more Kool-Aid, today’s flavor is Unbelievable Blue.
This was at least the third major failure of DHS and the TSA in just the last year. It has to be obvious that this entire scheme is doomed to failure, maybe intentionally. Not by the workers, but by the cabinet level logistics. Also, it proves that images taken of “luggage” aren’t “viewed and deleted”, the data are stored. What ever the problem, it’s sure that there are still major risks associated with flying post 9-11.
This definitely seems like a dry run. Ramzi Yousef also had a dry run before his arrest in the Philippines and the discovery of the Bojinka plot to simultaneously explode planes over the ocean. He left a small bomb on a plane in Cebu and it exploded, killing a passenger,and blowing a hole in the plane. More explosives would have brought the plane down. I believe they want to attempt to place a bomb in the cargo hold somehow.
DHS and TSA people need to be competent and properly organized, for our sake. They should do secret dry runs to simulate competency and organization, so as to accustom themselves to these concepts.
I’m not so sure that I wouldn’t rather have my government actually be evil than to be as inept and incompetent as it is. Can you imagine any other criminal enterprise being so insipid?
Without a doubt, the NY Times and NPR are hacks and shills – mouthpieces for the White House – simply regurgitating talking points fed to them…and this isn’t tinfoil conspiracy, it is documented, admitted fact. (source: Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2009)
What should really shock people is that the local newspaper of the 2 suspects’ home town gives yet another completely contradictory story (source: The Herald, Dearborn, MI)
The newspaper interviewed the family members of the suspects, who both confirmed that the men knew each other, prayed together, and once worked together. As the NY Times and NPR never bothered to acquire such information, it seems dubious as to why neither media outlet chose to refer to the local newspaper interview who provided first-hand accounts, choosing to simply fabricate their own story from thin air.
Oh, and when was a box full of knives, box cutters, and other cutting instruments deemed legal to fly and unsuspicious?
Everyone is assuming that if the terrorists had decided to do a dry one, the only one they tried was what was reported in the news. There could have been doing many more dry ones that DHS never noticed.
I’m sure that Bozo in the W.H.will say as the plane come crashing down,that he is on top of it, ( no thats Valarie ) and that it’s G.W.Bush fault. Just like so many other faults that have allways been somebody eleses fault. His name should be Bozo the Yellow Back, as this suits him to the tee.
I’m figuring the reason TSA let these items remain in the checked baggage is because the TSA folks that CHECK the luggage were too busy ripping off items from more interesting suitcases.
This whole story falls into the: “If we pretend it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen” category. Pretty sure most of the DHS and TSA folks were on vacation this past week. Hate to interrupt quality time with the family for a couple of wannabe terrorists in training….
“I’m figuring the reason TSA let these items remain in the checked baggage is because the TSA folks that CHECK the luggage were too busy ripping off items from more interesting suitcases.”
Frightening but possibly true. Please do not let the TSA be so incompetent, letting these symbolic and possibly deadly items through unchecked…
I don’t believe in coincidences, period.
Fundamental question : What the hell were these two Yemenis doing in the US anyways?
If you knew that Massad agents kicked down their door it might lead to other questions.
This is what you get when political hacks run the security of our country. DHS, ICE, and TSA are run by the most incompetent people this country has ever had in these positions. But then the whole government has been taken over by the incompetent.
This reminds me of the “alarm clock tied to a block of cheese” (or was it marzipan?) incident from 2 or 3 years ago? I can’t find the story now, but if I remember correctly those involved were questioned and then allowed to proceed…?
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. Beginning with her embrace of the impotent euphemism “man-caused disasters” to the hit job on conservatives and veterans that she was forced to apologize for, to her assertion that crossing the border illegally “isn’t a crime per se”, to her boneheaded claim that 9/11 terrorists came in through the Canadian border, Ja-No has confirmed time and again that she’s not ready for prime time. Let’s face it, she’s as effective as HS Sect as she was as Gov at stopping the invasion in her home state. Perhaps another 6 month study by a blue ribbon panel is what’s needed here (just kidding). If these dopes were in charge in 1941 we’d all be speaking german and japanese. To be fair, does the White House know we are at war yet? Come to think about it, maybe they don’t? Why would I say that? Because the first thing the Administration did was get this psyco a lawyer! Then there was the news that the terrorist may need plastic surgury! Arizona’s gain was the U.S.A.’s loss! What a clueless clown. So let me see if I got this right. You don’t know what happened, or how it happened but you are sure that we are all safe until we point out you don’t know but you say the system worked but the system had nothing to do with a failed explosion (other than security measures make it tough to get a working bomb on board). When we point out the system did not work, then you agree to that. So we are left with a failed system run by you but you tell us we are safe but you don’t really know anything? I guess her next comment will be “It depends on your definition of “the.”
Inspector (Ja-No) Clouseau is alive and well at DHS, choosing to fight a battle of semantics and political correctness while ignoring the terrorist beast snarling in the background.
Joe Stack, a disturbed man who crashed his small plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas back in February, was not known to have any ties to any tea party group, any “patriot” group, or other right-wing groups. His manifesto reads like a confused communist rant with hate for the U.S. government and George W. Bush liberally sprinkled throughout. But NPR lumps this nut in with the right with claims that they are all dangerous to government officials and facilities.
NPR similarly uses as proof of these dangerous patriots the disturbed actions of John Patrick Bedell who opened fire on officers near the Pentagon on March 4. Bedell was an anti-war protestor, heavy marijuana user, and exhibited paranoia for which he refused to seek medical help. Bedell also has no known ties to tea party groups, any political organizations, or NPR’s frightening “patriot groups.”
Yet NPR put forth both of these sick-minded men as examples of “patriots” that have become dangerous and unstable. If NPR wasn’t saying so why include them in this report?
Naturally for its “expert” on dangerous patriots NPR turns to Mark Potok, the director of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center. As always, Potok cites claims of a “huge growth in the so-called patriot movement that includes militias out there.” Not that NPR offers any actual proof other than Potok’s say so, of course. “We’ve seen in particular a huge growth in the so-called patriot movement that includes militias out there,” Potok says. “And I think that some of the violence that we’ve seen, such as the Pentagon shooter and the IRS, are at least in some way a reflection of that rage.” Potok says there are now more than 500 patriot and militia groups active in the U.S., more than triple the number in 2008. Again, NPR trots out Potok to warn of those evil, evil right-wing patriots and tries to back his claims up with two crazy people that have no ties at all to those same right-wing patriot groups that are being blamed for this “upsurge” in violence.
What NPR doesn’t tell you is the sort of people that work wt. the SPLC. Chip Berlet, for instance, is one of those people. Berlet has all sorts of extremist, left-wing associates (like anti-American billionaire financier George Soros) and is a member of other far left organizations such as the Socialist Workers Party. Here is an entry on Berlet in discoverthenetwork.org nestled in a page about the left-wing Tides Foundation: Berlet is a senior analyst for Political Research Associates, and has had affiliations with the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Christic Institute, the Socialist Workers Party, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. To show how unbiased SLPC’s Chip Berlet is, he once wrote that, “right-wing foundations and think tanks support efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable.” Not too biased there, eh?
Discoverthenetwork.org also has a page on the SPLC itself.
So, for its expert on those monstrous patriot groups, NPR turns to a group that has ties to the Socialist Workers Party, George Soros, and the anti-Christian ACLU and then expects us to think such an organization should be accepted as an unbiased news source! Apparently NPR does expect us all to accept as gospel its left-biased report on how dangerous those “patriots” are, but I hope America is more skeptical than that.
Remember folks, our tax dollars support NPR.
Major TV networks denounced Gen. Boykin as a “Holy Warrior.” They ridiculed his Evangelical Christian faith on prime-time television.
“I hope he’s not long for this world,” said NPR’s Nina Totenberg on WUSA’s Inside Washington TV talk show. When fellow panelists, mostly liberals, protested, asking whether Totenberg rally wanted to issue a fatwa on the offending general, she quickly backtracked. She said: “in his job, in his job, please, please, in his job.” Well, that’s reassuring. Totenberg only wanted the heroic general fired. She wanted him removed from any role in directing the war on terror. She didn’t want him beheaded.
Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin knows something about political correctness in the military. Gen. Boykin, a highly-decorated combat veteran was dragged through the mill by the liberal media back in 2003 for expressing his Christian beliefs in Christian churches. They charged the general was calling for a Christian crusade against the Muslims.