and the Washington Post this morning reports a lot of confusion around the entire issue:

"Boston airport authorities said the man appeared to have been carrying explosive materials that could have caused serious damage. They said a bomb squad found substances in the shoes consistent with "C-4," a powerful plastic explosive that can elude airport security devices.

Other government sources noted that a preliminary examination suggested no presence of the C-4 explosive. Dogs specially trained to react to C-4 did not respond when they sniffed the suspect and his shoes, sources said.

"We're told by the bomb teams on board that this, if it indeed is an improvised explosive, that there certainly is enough there to do sufficient damage to an aircraft in flight," said Tom Kinton, interim director of aviation at Logan.

Other government sources cautioned that the man -- identified by Boston authorities as Richard Reid -- could have simply been trying to light a cigarette, and were reluctant to unequivocally call his action an act of terrorism."

Read the entire article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Dec22.html

Just amazing that nobody can get a straight story. Laughed last night as CNN reporter talked about a 757, and the scrolling report going across the bottom of the screen said a 767. Somewhat useless info, but inability to get it right is amazing.

And we get upset with the rent a cops for their problems? Hah!

Terenz,

I really don't think it's race baiting, but then again, I'm not you. To me it doesn't matter if he's from the north pole. If he's travelling on a bogus passport using improvised explosives drilled into a shoe then there's some planning and organization behind that. That means that he was at least part of a cell of some larger organization. I don't really care if it's Pathet Lao or Shining Path or Hamas or the IRA or Red Hand of Ulster or the Aryan Nation or whomever.

Squeeze him for every drop of info, roll up the organization or cell and execute him for 187 counts of attempted murder. The race of the man in question is utterly irrelevant to me.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

T, not "race baiting", but facts:

...the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee told CBS that the man, who carried a false British passport identifying him as Richard Reid, "was trying to blow himself up, blow the plane up and we are very fortunate that it did not happen." French police said Sunday the man arrested by US authorities after allegedly trying to detonate explosives on a trans-Atlantic flight told investigators he was a Muslim from Sri Lanka.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfra...01/dlfor51.asp

And now we don't know what's up. So now we hear that they sent dogs to sniff his shoes and they didn't find any traces of explosives. And they are now speculating that maybe he was just trying to light up a cigarette.

We really need to get all the facts in. It's very important that we find out whether or not there were explosives in that guy's shoes or not. If there were, then it is one thing and he needs to be locked up and the key needs to be thrown away. But if he was just trying to light up a cigarette, then fine him and send him on his way.

This story is getting more and more bizarre every day!

Looks like explosives were there. Fry the b*****d now! I don't care where he is from. Sri Lanka or Boise, it doesn't matter. Apparently, this guy tried to kill 180+ people, many of them Americans. While it does not suprise me he is reported to be Muslim, it really doesn't matter.Attempted muder is attempted murder!
http://home-news.excite.com/news/ap/...light-diverted

[This message has been edited by bnaboy (edited 12-23-2001).]

what sares me the most about this is two things: 1) any crackpot, Muslim or otherwise, will feel compelled to "make a statement:; and 2) but for the fact that he didn't know what the hell he was doing, 180 people would have died. Had he been trained and disciplined like the Islamic fundamentalists who pulled off 9-11, it would have been yet another tragedy.

BZ to the flight crew and pax, however.

from The Orange County Register

December 23, 2001


Monique Danison, 20, a Trabuco Hills High School graduate, was aboard the flight on which Saturday's incident took place.


The University of California, Santa Barbara senior was returning home to Mission Viejo after a five-month study program in France. Danison, whose father Paul is a Register editor, was seated about five rows ahead of the man who was arrested.

She provided the following account by telephone from Boston:

I was looking at a life-and- death situation. It is scary to be in a place with a possible terrorist and you have to just sit there. There is nowhere to escape.

I was one of the last people on the plane. I saw the man who was later arrested walking to his seat and putting his bag in the overhead compartment. I wondered how he got on the plane. I saw other people checked very carefully, and I wondered how he had been let on board. He looked exactly like somebody who would get on a plane and do something. He was tall and had long curly hair, and he wore a gray beanie. He looked like he was on something.

I looked at him and said to myself, "This guy is missing a link." I remember thinking, "If he's a terrorist, he's a moron," because he stood out when I saw him.

The first few hours of the flight were uneventful. The flight crew served an unremarkable meal, and the flight seemed like it would just be long.

In one moment, the entire energy of the plane changed dramatically.

I heard the stewardess scream: "Oh my God. Someone get some Styrofoam cups."

I knew right away it was something real important. People were asking for water and contact (lens) solution. I smelled something; maybe it was smoke. A lot of people got up to look at the struggle, but I didn't. The woman next to me did, and she said the man looked possessed.

I just prayed for my life.

When I finally looked, they were pouring water on the guy. One guy got up and said, "Just beat the crap out of him." Nobody beat him, but he was handcuffed; they used those things you use to seal a plastic garbage bag. He was sedated. I looked at him, and he wasn't moving at all.

A man who looked like a pilot took charge. An African- American man guarded the suspect. The stewardesses checked the passports of all the men (passengers). The people who went to the bathroom had to be escorted and were patted down before they went inside.

The pilot came on the intercom about a half-hour later and said there was a possible terrorist attempt. He said to look at the person next to you and report anything suspicious. We were told to look for suspicious behavior and remain seated.

There were people on the plane who were just concerned with their luggage and their connecting flights. I was concerned for my life. I sat there praying.

I did get a look at his shoes. They looked like ordinary French boots.

When things quieted down, we still had four hours before we could land. They put on the movie "Legally Blonde" to get everybody's mind off what had happened.

I saw out the window that we were being escorted by F-15s.

That helped make me feel safe, until later I was told that the reason they were there was to shoot us down if we looked like we were going to be used like the planes that hit the World Trade Center. We were told that the plane was going to land in Boston, not Miami.

When we landed, a SWAT team came aboard and took him off the plane. One of the SWAT members wore a hood, and they all carried big guns.

I got off the plane and there were all these SWAT team men and Army people, and then I began to feel safe.


Register staff writer John McDonald interviewed Danison and compiled this report.

"I was looking at a life-and-death situation."

"He looked exactly like somebody who would get on a plane and do something."

"... he wore a grey beanie."

This Danison chick reads like a real bimbo.

I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to get that impression.

I don't like her line of thinking either.

However, I have a tendency to give someone the benfit of the doubt in this type of situation. Let's review.

She was in a plane that nearly had a piece of it blown out, that nearly went into a nosdive over the Atlantic Ocean as the cabin de-pressurized, that nearly slammed into the ocean at several hundred miles per hour. Her body and the bodies of her fellow passengers would have been torn to pieces, never to be found.

I would refrain from calling her a "bimbo".

That is exactly what they should have done. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have restrictions on what they can do to prisoners. Those of us defending ourselves from someone who wants to kill us and 200 others do not.

The lead headline in Aftenposten (a major newspaper in Oslo, Norway) today (Dec 24)is "Vent or Se" - "Wait and see". This is part of what Aftenosten quotes Richard Reid (aka Tarif Raja, aka Abdul Rohim)as saying about what he was trying to do. Aftenposten further quotes Reid as saying "you will all get to see" (my translation - I could find no english source), which Aftenposten describes as new threats of future similar terorism.

You can find a similar statement in other foreign newspapers, but I have yet to see it in my local papers, much less as a headline. Nor could I find it in the NYT or AP (I did find a "We'll see" buried deep in the Washington Post).

Local newspapers are reporting that Reid has not been linked to any known terrorist groups, and may likely be acting alone. Yet, if Reid really did make these threats when apprehended, it seems that there may be a reasonable inference that he did not act alone.

Is this all just my paranoid imagination? Did I miss the local coverage and I am now imagining things; or are the foreign reports unusually apprehensive; or are US papers trying to avoid reporting items which might upset potential travelers if those items are still uncertain??

Just curious.

Bruce

Both those quotes were reported in today's Chicago Tribune and (I think) also on cnn.com.

This news is missing a story. I find the girl's recount very refreshing and the willingness of the Orange County paper to publish sets them apart from other news outlets.