Got brown skin? Then your a terrorist! At least that's what the Feds think!

The only way to stop this type of terrorism is to remove the American Empires armies from Iraq, Afghanistan and other Middle East countries and for the US to stop financing the terroristic activicties of Israel against Arabs and Muslims.

Until then the Arab and Muslim world has every right to defend them self against the American Empire!

Source

Two passengers detained at Sky Harbor released without charges

by Nathan Gonzalez - Dec. 27, 2009 05:12 PM

The Arizona Republic .

Phoenix and federal authorities detained two Middle Eastern men accused by a passenger of acting suspiciously aboard a Phoenix-bound plane Saturday evening.

An investigation by the FBI found no evidence of a terroristic threat and the men were later released without charges.

While en route from Orlando, Fla. to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, a passenger aboard U.S. Airways Flight 192 reported that two men were acting strangely, said Suzanne Trevino, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman.

"The passengers alerted the flight crew and they called for law enforcement and TSA officers to meet them when the plane arrived," Trevino said.

Once the plane arrived at Sky Harbor for its scheduled stop about 8 p.m., the two men were met by Phoenix police, TSA and FBI officials, said Special Agent Manuel Johnson, a FBI spokesman.

The passenger told authorities the two men, described as being Middle Eastern, were speaking "loudly" in their native language.

The passenger then saw a suicide bomber on the DVD version of the movie "The Kingdom," and one of the men reportedly got up to use the lavatory when the fasten-seatbelt sign was lit.

"The totality of those three occurrences led this passenger to believe this was suspicious," Johnson said.

The men were cooperative with the FBI when questioned, then were later released to catch another flight to their final destination in California. Neither was charged.

The incident delayed the inbound flight from Orlando for about an hour as authorities emptied the plane, searched luggage and swept the plane with police K-9s to ensure nothing dangerous was left aboard. Authorities found nothing.

Todd Lehmacher, a spokesman for Tempe-based US Airways, declined to comment on the incident and referred all questions to the TSA.

In October, US Airways settled a discrimination lawsuit for an unspecified sum in a case involving six imams who were taken from a Phoenix-bound plane from Minneapolis in November 2006.

In that incident, passengers were alarmed that the clerics said their evening prayers in Arabic, before boarding the flight and some of the men made critical comments about the Iraq war. The imams were handcuffed and questioned for several hours before being released without charges.

Airports nationwide have beefed up security since Christmas Day, when a Nigerian man allegedly attempted to blow up Northwest Flight 253 in Detroit. Federal authorities said the device Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, tried to detonate malfunctioned and he suffered significant burns to his legs.

"We definitely want the public to be vigilant to report information, but we don't agree with racial profiling," Johnson said.

"What is suspicious to one person could mean something else to another."

Racial profiling can be counterproductive, said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper in a statement released Sunday.

"While everyone supports robust airline security measures, racial and religious profiling are in fact counterproductive and can lead to a climate of insecurity and fear," Hooper said in the statement.

CAIR describes itself the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.

Source

Man arrested in new disturbance on Detroit flight

Dec. 27, 2009 11:15 AM

Associa

ted Press .

WASHINGTON — A Nigerian passenger onboard the same Northwest Airlines route that was attacked on Christmas Day was taken into custody in Detroit on Sunday after locking himself in the bathroom for an hour and becoming verbally disruptive upon landing, officials said.

The latest disturbance aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 came as the U.S. system for checking suspicious travelers and airport security came under new scrutiny, prompted by an alleged terrorist bent on destroying a jetliner who was thwarted only by a malfunctioning detonator and some quick-thinking passengers.

Delta Air Lines spokeswoman Susan Elliott said crew members on Sunday requested that security remove the man from Flight 253 after he became disruptive. The remaining 255 passengers got off safely, she said. A law enforcement official said the man was Nigerian and had locked himself in the airliner's bathroom. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

An apparent malfunction in a device designed to detonate the high explosive PETN may have been all that saved the 278 passengers and the crew aboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. No undercover air marshal was on board and passengers subdued the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, of Nigeria.

Abdulmutallab was hospitalized with burns from the attack and was read an indictment filed Saturday in federal court in Detroit charging him with attempting to destroy or wreck an aircraft and placing a destructive device in a plane. He was released from the hospital Sunday to the custody of federal marshals, who would not reveal where he was being held.

Abdulmutallab was on a watch list, but not one that denied him passage by air into the U.S. His own father had discussed concerns about his radical religious views before the attack.

Still, in appearances on Sunday talk shows, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the traveling public "is very, very safe."

"This was one individual literally of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year," Napolitano said. "And he was stopped before any damage could be done. I think the important thing to recognize here is that once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have."

Even so, airport security and intelligence played no role in thwarting the plot. Abdulmutallab was carrying PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, the same material convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes. Abdulmutallab is alleged to have carried the explosive in condom-like pouches attached to his body.

Abdulmutallab was on a "generic" terrorist watch list, which includes more than half a million names, but was not elevated to a no-fly list or even designated for additional security searches, Napolitano said. That would have required "specific, credible, derogatory information," she said.

"We did not have the kind of information that under the current rules would elevate him," she said. Napolitano said the Obama administration is considering changing those rules.

Despite being on the broad terrorist watch list, Abdulmutallab, who comes from a prominent and wealthy Nigerian family, had a multiple-entry U.S. visa. It was issued last year. U.S. officials say he came to the attention of America intelligence in November, when his father expressed concerns to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria about his son's extremist views.

Napolitano said Abdulmutallab was properly screened before getting on the flight to Detroit from Amsterdam.

The administration is also investigating aviation detection systems to see how the alleged attacker managed to get on board the Northwest flight in Amsterdam with explosive materials, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

No other flights were known to have been targeted. However, Gibbs says federal authorities took precautionary steps "to assume and plan for the very worst." Napolitano said there is no indication yet Abdulmutallab is part of a larger terrorist plot, although his possible ties to al-Qaida are still under investigation.

The United States is reviewing what security measures were used in Amsterdam where he boarded the flight.

"Now the forensics are being analyzed with what could have been done," Napolitano said.

Additional security measures are in place at airports around the world that are likely to slow travelers. Napolitano advised getting to airports earlier.

Congress is preparing to hold hearings on what happened and whether rules need to be changed.

"It's amazing to me that an individual like this who was sending out so many signals could end up getting on a plane going to the U.S.," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Republican leader in the Senate.

Gibbs appeared on ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Napolitano spoke on CNN's "State of the Union" as well as on NBC and ABC. McConnell appeared on ABC.

Source

Bomb suspect came from elite family, best schools

Posted 12/28/2009 3:28 AM ET

By Jon Gambrell, Associated Press Writer

LAGOS, Nigeria — As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London. But the education he wanted was of a different sort: Nigerian officials say his interest in extremist Islam prompted his father to warn U.S. authorities. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he told U.S. officials that he had sought an extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

A portrait emerged Sunday of a serious young man who led a privileged life as the son of a prominent banker, but became estranged from his family as an adult. Devoutly religious, he was nicknamed "The Pope" for his saintly aura and gave few clues in his youth that he would turn radical, friends and family said.

"In all the time I taught him we never had cross words," said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo. "Somewhere along the line he must have met some sort of fanatics, and they must have turned his mind."

Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Northwest flight on Christmas Day with 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board. The detonator on his explosive apparently malfunctioned and he was subdued by other passengers.

Through an official, Abdulmutallab's father "expressed deep shock and regret over his son's actions."

His family home sits in the city of Funtua, in the heart of Nigeria's Islamic culture. Religion figured into the family's life: His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, who had a successful career in commercial banking, also joined the board of an Islamic bank -- one that avoids the kind of interest payments banned by the Quran.

The large house, surrounded by a wall and a metal fence just off the main road running through the city, stood empty, a common occurrence for a jet-set family that sought an education abroad for Abdulmutallab. Family members told The Associated Press they could not comment but expected the family to issue a statement.

Mutallab was working with the FBI and not expected to grant media interviews, Information Minister Dora Akunyili said.

The elder Mutallab was "a responsible and respected Nigerian, with a true Nigerian spirit," she said. He had been estranged from his son for several months and alerted U.S. officials last month about the youth's growing hard-line Islamic religious beliefs.

A close neighbor told the AP he believed Abdulmutallab did not get his extremist ideas from his family or from within Nigeria.

Basiru Sani Hamza, 35, said Abdulmutallab was a "very religious" and a "very obedient" to his parents as a boy in the well-to-do banking family.

"I believe he must have been lured where he is schooling to carry out this attack," Hamza said. "Really, the boy has betrayed his father because he has been taking care of all their needs."

Rimmer, a teacher at his high school in West Africa, said Abdulmutallab had been well-respected.

"At one stage, his nickname was 'The Pope,'" Rimmer said from London in a telephone interview. "In one way it's totally unsuitable because he's Muslim, but he did have this saintly aura."

But Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, Rimmer said.

In a discussion in 2001, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Rimmer said. At the time, Rimmer thought the boy was just playing the devil's advocate.

He also noted that during a school trip to London, Abdulmutallab became upset when the teacher took students to a pub and said it wasn't right to be in a place where alcohol was served.

Rimmer also remembered the youngster choosing to give 50 pounds to an orphanage rather than spend it on souvenirs in London.

Rimmer described the institution -- an elite college preparatory school, attended by children of diplomats and wealthy Africans -- as "lovely, lovely environment" where Christians often joined in Islamic feasts and where some of the best Christmas carolers were Muslims.

Abdulmutallab showed no signs of intolerance toward other students, Rimmer said, explaining that "lots of his mates were Christians."

The Briton noted that he has not seen or heard from his former pupil since 2003 when he was still a teenager.

Abdulmutallab went on to study engineering and business finance at the University College London, where he graduated last year, the college confirmed.

Students at his prestigious university in London, where Abdulmutallab lived in a smart white stone apartment block in an exclusive area of central London, said Abdulmutallab showed no signs of radicalization and painted him as a lax student with deep religious views.

"We worked on projects together," Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering student at University College, told The Independent newspaper. "He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes. When we were studying, he always would go off to pray.

"He was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. I didn't get to talk to him much on a personal level. I was really shocked when I saw the reports. You would never imagine him pulling off something like this."

Marincola declined further comment when contacted by the AP.

___

Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in London and Salisu Rabiu in Funtua, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

Source

Airliner plot raises fears about al-Qaida in Yemen

Posted 12/27/2009 8:59 PM ET

By Donna Abu-Nasr, Associated Press Writer

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Nigerian man's claim that his attempt to blow up a U.S. plane originated with al-Qaida's network inside Yemen deepened concerns that instability in the Middle Eastern country is providing the terror group with a base to train and recruit militants for operations against the West and the U.S. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas day in a botched attempt to detonate explosives. The 23-year-old claimed to have received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, a U.S. law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still ongoing.

If confirmed, it would be the second known case recently by the relatively new group, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, of exporting terrorism out of Yemen -- a country with a weak central government, many lawless areas and plentiful supplies of weapons. But Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, has long been an al-Qaida stomping ground.

In August, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, in a suicide bombing in an attack that bore similarities to the airliner plot. The explosive device Abdulmutallab used was attached to his body, just below his torso. The Saudi attacker is believed to have attached the explosives to his groin or inserted them inside his body.

According to U.S. court documents, a preliminary analysis of the device used by Abdulmutallab showed it contained PETN, a high explosive also known as pentaerythritol. The same material is believed to have been used in the August attack in Saudi Arabia by Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri, who had traveled to Yemen to connect with the al-Qaida franchise there. PETN was also what convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

The botched attack on the U.S. plane came a day after Yemeni forces, with the help of U.S. intelligence, launched the second of two major air and ground assaults on major al-Qaida hideouts in Yemen. At least 64 militants were killed in the two operations.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement, dated from last week and posted online Sunday, that the first airstrike was conducted by American jets. The group urged followers to attack U.S. military bases, embassies and naval forces in the region.

The mass shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas Army post on Nov. 5 added to the concerns about al-Qaida threats from Yemen. U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who allegedly killed 13 people, had exchanged dozens of e-mails with radical U.S. cleric Anwar al-Awlaki who was hiding in Yemen. Last week's attack on al-Qaida hideouts targeted a meeting of Yemeni and foreign al-Qaida operatives, believed to include al-Awlaki.

A video posted online four days before the bombing attempt featured an al-Qaida operative in Yemen threatening the United States and saying "we are carrying a bomb." Though it was not immediately clear whether the speaker was anticipating Friday's bombing attempt, it has attracted scrutiny because of reports that the bombing plot may have originated in Yemen.

Yemen's weak central government, whose authority does not extend far outside the capital San'a, is battling two rebellions -- a secessionist movement in the south and a war with Shiite rebels in the north -- as well as al-Qaida militants. Al-Qaida's presence is particularly worrying because the lawlessness of the country allows it to roam freely.

Some analysts say increased activity by al-Qaida in Yemen suggests the group has strengthened and taken root in a country whose proximity to the world's top oil producer, Saudi Arabia, and vital maritime routes make it strategically more important than Afghanistan.

Anwar Eshki, the head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies based in Jiddah, said al-Qaida in Yemen "is stronger than it was a year ago and is turning Yemen into its base for operations against the West." Eshki's center closely follows al-Qaida in Yemen.

"Yemen is al-Qaida's last resort," Eshki said. "There's no doubt that al-Qaida's presence in Yemen is more dangerous than its presence in Afghanistan."

Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants, suggested rivalry among al-Qaida's branches may be a factor behind the focus on the U.S. He said al-Qaida central in Afghanistan and Pakistan is still the main source of attempts to attack the United States.

"There's now a competition in the world of al-Qaida between various al-Qaida factions, with each trying to prove themselves and prove their worth," he said.

"The ultimate achievement for these folks is being able to replicate something that previously only al-Qaida central could achieve," he added. "If you can be sophisticated enough to hit a target in the continental United States, that's a tremendous achievement for these folks."

Yemen has not confirmed Abdulmutallab's claims that he was aided by al-Qaida operatives in the country and officials told The Associated Press investigations are ongoing. Significantly, the government has not denied his claims.

Meanwhile, Yemen's government appears to be mounting a serious and aggressive campaign against al-Qaida after years of treading carefully with the militants. The intensified battle coincides with increased Yemeni-U.S. cooperation.

Last week's attack targeted a meeting of Yemeni and foreign al-Qaida operatives believed to include the top leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, and his deputy Said al-Shihri. There were reports, later denied by family and friends, that al-Awlaki, the radical cleric linked to the Fort Hood shooter, was killed in the bombings.

Shihri was one of 11 former Guantanamo detainees that Saudi Arabia said went through a rehabilitation program but later joined al-Qaida. He emerged as a leader of Yemen's branch of al-Qaida after being released from the Saudi program last year.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi discussed Yemen's campaign against al-Qaida with Arab diplomats on Sunday, but it was not clear whether Abdulmutallab's case came up.

In a statement, al-Qirbi said his country had long planned the operations against al-Qaida elements and the decision to execute them was expedited because al-Qaida has increasingly threatened the country's stability.

"Al-Qaida elements went far by carrying out attacks against security officers, and threatened the country's stability and economic interests which made the decision impossible to postpone," he said.

The United States and Saudi Arabia, Yemen's powerful northern neighbor, have expressed concern over al-Qaida's growing presence in Yemen. The Pentagon has spent about $70 million this year on assisting Yemen against the militants as U.S. officials pressed that country to take tougher action.

Yemen, at the tip of the Arabian peninsula, straddles a strategic maritime crossroads at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the access point to the Suez Canal. Across the Gulf is Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the U.S. has said al-Qaida militants have been increasing their activity.

The hard-to-control border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia means private money from the rich kingdom can easily be smuggled to al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. Yemen's proximity to the Arab world and the Horn of Africa makes it easier for the group to recruit young Muslims, an effort fed by rampant poverty.

Yemen was the scene of one of al-Qaida's most dramatic pre-9/11 attacks, the 2000 suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole off the Aden coast that killed 17 American sailors.

But the difference now is that rather than just carrying out attacks in Yemen, the new generation of al-Qaida militants appears to be trying to establish a long-term presence here, uniting Yemenis returning from fighting in Iraq and other areas and Saudis fleeing the kingdom's crackdown on al-Qaida. A year ago, the terror network's Yemeni and Saudi branches merged into Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, another factor that may have strengthened the group.