InkUnderNails

First, the story, ISIS fighter worked at Minneapolis airport.

One of several interesting quotes from the story:

I have conflicting thoughts.

First, if he was a committed terrorist and was already "inserted" in a sensitive position, why was it more important for him to fight overseas? Are airlines lower on their target list than some think?

How did he get past the screening process?

He did not swim to the Middle East, so he was obviously (?) not on the NFL. If anyone should not be flying it would be a person recruited by a designated terrorist organization. Or, maybe the NFL is just a series of wild guesses?

Still, it is a very interesting confluence of events and circumstances.

tkey75

I suspect this gets quickly swept under the rug. If the TSA were forced to perform real background checks, there'd be no workforce left!

Randyk47

This is an interesting and potentially disturbing set of circumstances. Certainly you can't bar or not hire a person simply because they are Muslim or whatever so his religious affiliation wouldn't necessarily be an issue. Now I'd have to assume he didn't say "Hey I'm a radical Muslim and advocate and want to pursue the overthrow of the US and all non-Muslim governments." in his application or job interview even if he felt or thought that way. Indeed he may not have felt that way until some time after he was hired or maybe he was part of a potential "sleeper cell". No known or significant criminal record and no known membership in a terrorist group so no name on the NFL. Unfortunately good people go bad and I don't know of anything certain or foolproof way to predict that.

GUWonder

They mostly fly via IST. And if not, connection via Europe and BEY seems popular.

I'm not sure how they validated that these two dead Americans from around MSP were part of ISIS/ISIL, but that they are found dead by the FSA is not a vote of confidence in the validity of claims they make/suggest. They want our money (and weapons) badly too. Not everyone who goes to the area and ends up dead there is with ISIS/ISIL.

Keep in mind that the NFL list has been deliberately used or not used with supposedly "known" terrorists because the USG wanted them to travel and try to monitor travel by targets or rabbits/runners.

runninaway

Local news last night was reporting that, based on his facebook profile, he appeared to have been radicalized fairly recently. This guy is one of two from the twin cities that were reported to have been killed fighting for ISIS in the last week. There have been literally dozens of young men from the Twin Cites in the last year or two that have been recruited to fight for terrorist organizations in the last several years.

I'm guessing there's someone in the FBI's Minneapolis office on the hot seat right now.

GUWonder

There isn't really, not today anyway with regard to this here. There's a limit to the utility of entrapment/"sting" operations in this area and it's been basically hit -- you can't fool all of the people all of the time doing the same old thing and still have the cooperation needed to come up with targets and rabbits to tail and grab.

And one of the two "MSP area" guys did his stuff out of California before heading to Turkey and the border with Syria. These latest two media-mentioned "ISIS" people from the "MSP area" aren't Somali. The one from "MSP" is from Chicago originally and went off his rocker from California; he didn't lose it in Minnesota. The other -- who attended the same high school -- is a different story. The bulk of the MSP "terrorists" have gone to Somalia, and some of them may not have even been with the terrorist groups that grab US headlines.

With all the US media coverage on ISIS and all the government and government contractors checking this kind of stuff out, the volume of people checking out "radical" material related to ISIS has sky rocketed; and so losing needles in bigger haystacks is an expected outcome with all the wild goose chases going on.

This whole ISIS monstrosity would be non-existent if the 2003 invasion of Iraq was aborted before it was launched. And the whole "get rid of Assad" push seems to have backfired on those who should have known better but choose to have a tin ear.

Now, with all of this in the background, we're going to get more innocent people flagged when flying US airlines just because they transited IST or BEY as a tourist or decided to have a legitimate vacation/recreational trip in Turkey or Lebanon. Watch for TSA haraSSSSment of a bunch of grandkids who went on a Mediterranean cruise with grandma and grandpa -- it's coming to an airport near you soon.

Maine2LA

First of all you say "their" as if there is a single group or single master plan or single ideology. This is not at all the case.

However, I believe that for the 'pros', airlines aren't a target at all. Been there, done that. Too much hassle. There are a plethora of much simpler ways to cause drastically more psychological, economic, and social damage to western society.

What in the heck do you think they're screening for? Brown skin? The future?

chollie

It's a reminder that cursory background checks are one thing.

If I understand correctly, the background check on this guy wouldn't have caught anything because he didn't get 'radicalized' until well after he was hired.

It's a reminder that a background check, even if thorough and valid, shouldn't preclude physical enforcement, ie, monitor airport workers and TSOs at least as closely as pax, perhaps even more so.

Instead, one background check and a badge are a license to wander the airport unchallenged.

We're indeed fortunate that this guy found his 'calling' overseas and not at MSP airport. He certainly knows how to 'beat the checkpoint'.

tkey75

He can think and feel that way all he wants. It's one of the benefits of being in the US. You just can't act on it.

GUWonder

Background checks of the sort used for those employees can't check the head. Look at the US-Israeli journalist whose "beheading" video was on the nightly national TV news this week. He got caught and killed in the area too, and yet he knew the area well enough to know it's a danger to go there without a proper PS plan to frustrate armed assailants. Head check for him too? His employers and the governments aren't endowed with the magical power of mind-reading.

That said, the TSA wanted-and-approved physical premise/perimeter security is sort of a joke given how easy it is for supposedly "clean skin" nuts to so easily enough squirrel things airside and even onto to the tarmac/plane in some cases.

If any terrorist was so inclined to get airside, it doesn't take genius to do so. Especially with the TSA on the job.

A US citizen advocating for the overthrow of the US Government is protected speech? Either way, freedom of speech in practice doesn't mean freedom from consequences for speaking.

Randyk47

Sure he could have, never said he couldn't, just that he probably wouldn't have gotten the job if he'd been forthcoming with that position.

Airbridge

The problem I have with this story is they are claiming somebody worked at Minneapolis airport. Makes it highly dubious.

InkUnderNails

"Their" refers to the possessive of "they" meaning possessed by "them" which would be some group of people greater than one. It it the "they" that is used as that generic catch-all for "those" that are always looking for an opportunity to do something bad. As in "We have to grope you because they are always looking for new ways to attack us." It was meant as sarcasm of the justification of nearly everything that is done for our protection as they are out to get us. Always. They are hiding out in every corner. Be afraid. Be very afraid. They are there.

The screening refers to the one to get the job, the one that is supposed to catch "them." I have had several and I am not a government employee, a government contractor, nor do I work at an airport. Since I am not one of "them" it did not flag me as such. I'm not saying it would, but it is supposed to as in "We do not have to screen them as close at the check point because they have all had background screenings and we know they are not one of them."

I think you are correct that the airlines are no longer a target. That is what I was trying to imply by my sarcasm.

The inference to racism is insulting and "Minority Report" was a pretty good movie but it was still fiction and I knew that when I watched it.

FliesWay2Much

One would think that it would be pretty easy to check records going back a few years. It would be easier if the airport authority kept records. If they were kept by the TSA, they will never be found, if they existed in the first place.

If he drove rental car shuttles landside, that's a whole lot different than if he had swipe access to airside. Of course, as the TSA clerk-force regularly demonstrates, one doesn't have to be "radicalized" in order to be bribed by those wishing to conduct business and commerce at airports while avoiding the checkpoints.

GUWonder

He "reportedly worked on janitorial crews at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and had security clearance for the tarmac" on behalf of Delta Air Lines.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincitie...elta-unit.html