By Debbie Schlussel
A few years ago, the incident involving Raed Abdul-Rahman Alsaif would have been a big national news story. Perhaps, international.
But now, in the era of Obama "post-terrorism," we're supposed to pretend that these things--these attempts by Muslims to bring weapons on planes for the apparent purpose of hijacking and, at the very least, testing the system--don't happen. Yup, in this new "enlightened" age, these things are only reported once on the pages of the Tampa Tribune. And not in any other mainstream media sources outside South Florida. Yes, a Muslim man trying to get a seven-inch butcher knife on a plane in America is no longer "noteworthy."
Federal authorities have charged a 24-year-old man with trying to bring a seven-inch knife aboard a plane at Tampa International Airport.
Raed Abduhl-Rahman Alsaif was arrested June 4 as he tried to board US Airways flight 1077 to Phoenix and Portland, Ore., according to a criminal complaint.More from HRW:During the screening process, an officer spotted a large chef's knife in one of Alsaif's bags, the complaint states. The knife was concealed between the outside fabric and the expandable pull handles of the bag.**** UPDATE: Bill Warner also points out that on the very same day (June 4, 2009) that Alsaif tried to sneak the butcher knife onto the U.S. Airways flight bound for Phoenix, Arizona, two other men, Roshid Milledge and Damien Young, were caught trying to do the same thing from Philadelphia--also on a U.S. Airwarys flight bound for Phoenix, Arizona. Both flights were scheduled to take off within 35 minutes of each other. Coincidence? Or mass hijacking plan a la 9/11?Don't bet against the latter.
* these incidents each involved US Airways and a Phoenix connection
* as did the flying imams case
FBI watching Phoenix-area Muslim leaders
Jihad Watch: How the imams terrorized an airliner
Flying Imams: more terror links
3 comments:
Following the links discloses that Young actually got on board the plane with the gun concealed and was only apprehended after another passenger alerted security personnel that Young and Milledge were behaving in a suspicious manner at the gate. The plane returned to the gate and that's when Young and Milledge were arrested. US Airways may have just barely dodged a bullet there, pun intended.
In Alsaif's case it would seem he was acting on his own or with extremely stupid accomplices in that nobody checked out whether a knife could be concealed in that manner from an x-ray machine.
I gather so far no proof of contact between these 3 guys has been established but nobody's going to see my surprised look if it is. Despite Alsaif having an arrest record he apparently wasn't on any watch list and the airline just got lucky with the other two fools who didn't know enough not to cool it around the boarding area.
Obviously none of these losers had deadly weapons in their carry-ons by accident? So do we have an especially inept cell or a co-incidence involving two inept jihad-it-yourselfers? In either case, that was just too damn close for comfort.
RRA,
Yes, there is no evidence of contact between them. However, this is quite a coincidence.
I do NOT believe this was a 9/11. I think this may have been a dry run test.
However, I don't think these guys are very serious, because I don't think this is the way Al Qaeda or anything large terrorist organization would go about an attack using planes.
RRA . . .consider also:
* these incidents each involved US Airways and a Phoenix connection
* as did the flying imams case
FBI watching Phoenix-area Muslim leaders
Jihad Watch: How the imams terrorized an airliner
Flying Imams: more terror links
HRW
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