Recently in air security Category

As I noted here, the whole TSA security apparatus exists because of Islamic jihad terrorists, and yet, as I have pointed out many times, it will never be adequate to stop those jihadists. The TSA is always prohibiting or restricting or searching things pertaining to the method of the previous jihad attack attempt -- shoes, liquids, etc. -- but they have no way to anticipate or head off the method of the next attack. And they waste huge amounts of time, money, and resources by pretending that everyone is an equal threat to launch a terror attack -- Baptist grandmothers in wheelchairs just as much as young Pakistani Muslim males. And now, seizing terrorist cupcakes.

The only answer at this point, and even it is not perfect, would be to institute Israeli-style profiling of air passengers. The Israelis have run an efficient and terror-attack-free air service for years, without all these invasive security measures.

But to emulate them, of course, would mean to recognize in an official way that Muslims are a greater risk to commit terror attacks than Methodists or Mennonites. And in today's politically correct environment, the Obama Administration and the TSA would rather see another jihad mass-murder of American citizens on the scale of 9/11 or worse than do anything to suggest that.

So drop that cupcake.

"Cupcake Deemed 'Security Threat,' Confiscated By TSA," from The Boston Channel, December 23 (thanks to Kenneth):

BOSTON -- A Peabody woman says a cupcake she tried to take on a flight with her sparked a potential security threat this week.

Rebecca Hains says she was going through security at the airport in Las Vegas when a TSA agent pulled her aside and said the cupcake frosting was “gel-like” enough to constitute a security risk.

She said she was able to pass through Logan International Airport security with two cupcakes, but she was stopped on the way back when she tried to return with one of them....

Maybe the TSA guy was hungry when she tried to return.

Hains contacted the cupcake company, Wicked Good Cupcakes of Cohasset, which said it will ship her a new batch free of charge.

“Apparently we're a tasty, terrorist threat. I guess we were also amazed at what can pass through security in one airport, but not in another,” said Brian Vilagie of Wicked Good Cupcakes.

Theophilus Maranga is right. The airlines were negligent to let Abdulmutallab aboard. The responsibility lies, however, with the useless screening processes that focus on how the last jihadi tried to blow up an airplane, while maintaining a politically correct willful blindness that pretends that everyone is equally likely to blow up a plane in the first place.

"Man who foiled 'underwear bomber' sues airlines," from AP, December 22:

NEW YORK - A New York man has sued two airlines for $10 million in damages for injuries he says he incurred when he jumped on a Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner with a bomb in his underwear.

Theophilus Maranga filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan. He named as defendants Delta Air Lines, Inc., Air France-KLM and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who awaits sentencing after admitting he tried to blow up the plane.

Maranga claims the airlines were negligent to let Abdulmutallab aboard. The Wappinger Falls man says he suffered numerous injuries after jumping on Abdulmutallab when he tried to bring down a Christmas 2009 Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight with 290 people aboard....

The whole TSA security apparatus exists because of Islamic jihad terrorists, and yet, as I have pointed out many times, it will never be adequate to stop those jihadists. The TSA is always prohibiting or restricting or searching things pertaining to the method of the previous jihad attack attempt -- shoes, liquids, etc. -- but they have no way to anticipate or head off the method of the next attack. And they waste huge amounts of time, money, and resources by pretending that everyone is an equal threat to launch a terror attack -- Baptist grandmothers in wheelchairs just as much as young Pakistani Muslim males.

The only answer at this point, and even it is not perfect, would be to institute Israeli-style profiling of air passengers. The Israelis have run an efficient and terror-attack-free air service for years, without all these invasive security measures.

But to emulate them, of course, would mean to recognize in an official way that Muslims are a greater risk to commit terror attacks than Methodists or Mennonites. And in today's politically correct environment, the Obama Administration and the TSA would rather see another jihad mass-murder of American citizens on the scale of 9/11 or worse than do anything to suggest that.

"Smoke Screening," by Charles C. Mann in Vanity Fair, December 20:

Not until I walked with Bruce Schneier toward the mass of people unloading their laptops did it occur to me that it might not be possible for us to hang around unnoticed near Reagan National Airport’s security line. Much as upscale restaurants hang mug shots of local food writers in their kitchens, I realized, the Transportation Security Administration might post photographs of Schneier, a 48-year-old cryptographer and security technologist who is probably its most relentless critic. In addition to writing books and articles, Schneier has a popular blog; a recent search for “TSA” in its archives elicited about 2,000 results, the vast majority of which refer to some aspect of the agency that he finds to be ineffective, invasive, incompetent, inexcusably costly, or all four.

As we came by the checkpoint line, Schneier described one of these aspects: the ease with which people can pass through airport security with fake boarding passes. First, scan an old boarding pass, he said—more loudly than necessary, it seemed to me. Alter it with Photoshop, then print the result with a laser printer. In his hand was an example, complete with the little squiggle the T.S.A. agent had drawn on it to indicate that it had been checked. “Feeling safer?” he asked....

Bruce Schneier’s exasperation is informed by his job-related need to spend a lot of time in Airportland. He has 10 million frequent-flier miles and takes about 170 flights a year; his average speed, he has calculated, is 32 miles and hour. “The only useful airport security measures since 9/11,” he says, “were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can’t break in, positive baggage matching”—ensuring that people can’t put luggage on planes, and then not board them —“and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater.”

Remember the fake boarding pass that was in Schneier’s hand? Actually, it was mine. I had flown to meet Schneier at Reagan National Airport because I wanted to view the security there through his eyes. He landed on a Delta flight in the next terminal over. To reach him, I would have to pass through security. The day before, I had downloaded an image of a boarding pass from the Delta Web site, copied and pasted the letters with Photoshop, and printed the results with a laser printer. I am not a photo-doctoring expert, so the work took me nearly an hour. The T.S.A. agent waved me through without a word. A few minutes later, Schneier deplaned, compact and lithe, in a purple shirt and with a floppy cap drooping over a graying ponytail.

The boarding-pass problem is hardly the only problem with the checkpoints. Taking off your shoes is next to useless. “It’s like saying, Last time the terrorists wore red shirts, so now we’re going to ban red shirts,” Schneier says. If the T.S.A. focuses on shoes, terrorists will put their explosives elsewhere. “Focusing on specific threats like shoe bombs or snow-globe bombs simply induces the bad guys to do something else. You end up spending a lot on the screening and you haven’t reduced the total threat.”

As I waited at security with my fake boarding pass, a T.S.A. agent had darted out and swabbed my hands with a damp, chemically impregnated cloth: a test for explosives. Schneier said, “Apparently the idea is that al-Qaeda has never heard of latex gloves and wiping down with alcohol.” The uselessness of the swab, in his view, exemplifies why Americans should dismiss the T.S.A.’s frequent claim that it relies on “multiple levels” of security. For the extra levels of protection to be useful, each would have to test some factor that is independent of the others. But anyone with the intelligence and savvy to use a laser printer to forge a boarding pass can also pick up a stash of latex gloves to wear while making a bomb. From the standpoint of security, Schneier said, examining boarding passes and swabbing hands are tantamount to performing the same test twice because the person you miss with one test is the same person you'll miss with the other.

After a public outcry, T.S.A. officers began waving through medical supplies that happen to be liquid, including bottles of saline solution. “You fill one of them up with liquid explosive,” Schneier said, “then get a shrink-wrap gun and seal it. The T.S.A. doesn’t open shrink-wrapped packages.” I asked Schneier if he thought terrorists would in fact try this approach. Not really, he said. Quite likely, they wouldn’t go through the checkpoint at all. The security bottlenecks are regularly bypassed by large numbers of people—airport workers, concession-stand employees, airline personnel, and T.S.A. agents themselves (though in 2008 the T.S.A. launched an employee-screening pilot study at seven airports). “Almost all of those jobs are crappy, low-paid jobs,” Schneier says. “They have high turnover. If you’re a serious plotter, don’t you think you could get one of those jobs?”...

What a coincidence: they were on their way to a conference on "Islamophobia" and they got pulled off a flight just for being Muslim! Imagine! And this is such palpable hooey: I fly several times a month, sometimes several times a week, and innumerable times have flown on planes with Muslims in traditional dress. No one gets pulled off a flight solely for being dressed as a Muslim, whatever may be the hysterical charges of the Muslim victimhood industry. "Muslim Men to Sue Airlines After Allegedly Being Kicked Off Flight," from the Associated Press, December 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Two Muslim men who say they were kicked off an airplane in May after the pilot objected to their presence are suing Delta Air Lines Inc. and a regional carrier that operated the Delta Connection flight from Memphis to Charlotte, North Carolina.

According to a suit filed Monday in federal court in Memphis, Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul were traveling to Charlotte to attend a conference on anti-Muslim discrimination at the time.

Rahman, who is an adjunct instructor of Arabic at the University of Memphis, has said he was dressed in traditional Indian clothing. Zaghloul, who is a religious leader with the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis, was dressed in Arab garb that included traditional headgear.

The two passed through regular security screening and were waiting at the gate to board when they were pulled out of line and subjected to a second security check, according to the suit. They were questioned about their trip and their luggage and belongings were searched before the men were cleared and allowed to board.

Shortly after the plane pulled away from the gate, the pilot announced the aircraft was returning to the terminal. Once there, according to the suit, the men were pulled off the plane, asked more questions and searched again, this time with a "comprehensive body pat down."

Although they were again cleared to board, the pilot refused to allow them back on the plane, the suit claimed. The plane began to depart without the men when an unnamed airline official called it back and it returned to the gate for a second time.

The suit claims the official then boarded the plane and spoke with the pilot, who said he would not allow Rahman and Zaghloul on the plane because their presence could make other passengers uncomfortable.

According to the suit, the official told passengers that anyone who was apprehensive about the presence of the two men could take a different plane and would be given a generous voucher. There were no takers. The pilot still refused to allow the men to board and they were booked on a later flight, the suit said.

Delta and Atlantic Southeast Airlines Inc., which is owned by SkyWest Inc., issued a statement Monday that read: "Atlantic Southeast and Delta oppose discrimination in any form from any source, and our employees act at all times in the best interest of passenger safety and security. We cannot comment further on pending litigation."...

"Defendants excluded Mr. Rahman and Mr. Zaghloul because of the way they looked," the suit claims. "They had beards, wore traditional Arabic clothing, and were visibly foreign. Defendants unlawfully relied upon these characteristics to conclude that Mr. Rahman and Mr. Zaghloul were security threats, disallowing them from utilizing their purchased tickets."

The suit said the two were traveling to a conference on "`Islamophobia,' and how Muslims religious leaders could help address this issue."

The suit seeks unspecified compensation for the men's losses and injuries as well as punitive damages.

Shahsavari after his Allahu-akbaring

Nothing to do with terrorism, of course. "Passenger: 'You're all going to die,'" by Joe Gamm for the Amarillo Globe-News, October 18 (thanks to Debbie):

Somewhere in the heavens above Amarillo, angry shouts rang out from the back of Southwest Airlines Flight 3683.

“You’re all going to die,” a man dressed in black screamed at passengers Tuesday afternoon. “You’re all going to hell. Allahu Akbar,” translated as God is great in Arabic.

Federal authorities arrested Ali Reza Shahsavari, 29, of Indialantic, Fla., onboard the Boeing 737 after pilots made an emergency landing at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport at 3:30 p.m. He is being held in the Randall County jail on a federal charge of interfering with a flight crew.

None of the 136 passengers and five crew members on the flight from Los Angeles to Kansas City was hurt, said Brad Hawkins, spokesman for Dallas-based Southwest.

Police said the incident began with Shahsavari arguing with another passenger. The flight crew separated the men, said Amarillo police Cpl. Jerry Neufeld.

Shahsavari went into a bathroom and yelled obscenities from the rear of the plane, said passenger Doug Oerding, of Sacramento, Calif. Attendants tried to calm Shahsavari before a female flight attendant finally succeeded in quieting him. Oerding said.

As the tension mounted, the aircraft began to gain speed and descend, Oerding said. The slender Navy veteran said he put his shoes back on in preparation to act.

“All of us guys were looking at him like, ‘Are we going to have to do something?’” Oerding said after finishing a cigarette outside the Amarillo terminal while waiting to reboard the plane.

Amarillo Aviation Director Patrick Rhodes said an emergency call was placed about 3:30 p.m. to the control tower at Rick Husband. The caller initially reported a male passenger was attempting to break into the cockpit, Rhodes said. Amarillo police said the call came from the cockpit.

“He was being disruptive and unruly on the flight, but he was not specifically trying to break into the cockpit,” Rhodes said.

Not specifically!

When the plane reached a gate at the airport, police boarded it and arrested Shahsavari without incident, Neufeld said.

“He was waiting at the door when we went in,” Neufeld said. “He cooperated with officers.”

FBI Special Agent Mark White, based in Dallas, said the event did not appear to be an act of terrorism. He described Shahsavari as a U.S. citizen who might have experienced an episode of mental illness.

“It sounded like he sort of lost control of himself,” White said....

Of course! How could terrorism possibly be involved in the case of a Muslim shouting "Allahu akbar" on an airplane and telling the passengers that they were all going to die? He must be mentally ill!

TSA agents removed Shahsavari’s luggage from the plane, searched it and turned it over to his unidentified sister, who was traveling with him, Neufeld said.

The sister stayed in Amarillo overnight, Neufeld said. He said there was a language barrier for investigators attempting to interview Shahsavari, who is of Iranian descent. Shahsavari was born in Mississippi, Neufeld said....

Certainly for many who are born in Mississippi there is a language barrier.

Abbasi hard at work claiming victim status

I am just about to board a Southwest flight. If I get removed for working on "Jihad Watch" in the gate area, I'll let you know.

Irum Abbasi may have been wrongly singled out. Nonetheless, the involvement of Hamas-linked CAIR in her case is just one of many red flags. In reality, no one should be shedding any real tears for Irum Abbasi, especially Irum Abbasi. She says, "I have lived in the United States for 10 years. I am a U.S. citizen." So if she is a loyal U.S. citizen, she should understand that what happened to her is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that devout, observant Muslims worldwide, including hijab-wearing women, have carried out jihad terror attacks in the name of Islam, and so people who are entrusted with the safety of airline passengers have every reason to err on the side of suspicion. Those who are thus inconvenienced should consider it a small price to pay in order to head off the next terror attack.

I speak from experience. More than once I have been held and questioned at airports because of my work. Once I was working on this website on my laptop, someone saw "jihad" on my screen, and presently I was surrounded by police and large dogs, and hauled off for questioning.

Another time I was in an airport, having hurried from a venue where I had just given a talk. I don't ever speak from a written text, but I sometimes do carry notes -- a page or two of quotations from various Muslim Brotherhood operatives, etc., including jihadist and Islamic supremacist statements by some putative American moderate Muslims, as well as quotations from the Qur'an and Hadith, etc. I had this material in my suit pocket, and it dropped out without my noticing when I took off my suit jacket to go through security. So a few minutes later I was again in the friendly presence of police and TSA personnel. One gentleman was holding up my notes and asking me why I had this material. I started laughing, because I realized that there was absolutely nothing in the notes to show that I actually opposed what was written there -- and realized that it might take awhile to straighten the whole thing out.

And it did. But I didn't mind. Because I knew what they were doing. I knew they weren't holding the bearded, swarthy fellow with notes full of jihad hate because they were racists and bigots, and didn't like people of Middle Eastern descent, or hated Muslims, or what have you. They were doing their job, which was to protect the American people. Irum Abbasi and Hamas-linked CAIR should realize that, and I think they do. They should also realize that we are on to them.

"Muslim woman removed from Southwest flight sues," from AP, October 7 (thanks to all who sent this in):

SAN DIEGO (AP) – A Muslim-American woman who was removed from a plane in San Diego last spring sued Southwest Airlines on Thursday, alleging she was discriminated against because she was wearing an Islamic head covering.

Irum Abbasi, a psychology graduate student at San Jose State University who is a U.S. citizen, filed the lawsuit in federal court in San Diego.

"Suspicions were aroused because of her religion," Abbasi's attorney, James McElroy, said at a news conference. "She would not have been removed from the plane if she had been a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman."

Abbasi, a mother of three, was taken off the San Jose-bound flight in March as it was about to depart after a flight attendant thought she heard her say "it's a go" on her mobile phone.

Abbasi "was horrified, embarrassed, humiliated and confused," the lawsuit stated.

In fact, Abbasi had said "I have to go" because the plane was about to depart, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

Abbasi was searched and given clearance to reboard the flight within three minutes, but the pilot claimed the crew was uncomfortable flying with her and refused to allow her aboard.

She was given an apology, a voucher and a boarding pass for the next San Jose flight. As a result, she missed a critical research experiment that she needed to be able to complete for her graduate studies, the lawsuit said.

Chris Mainz, spokesman for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co., said the airline apologized to Abbasi for her inconvenience and her concerns were addressed "in good faith."

"In this case, our employees raised a safety concern based on the customer's behavior, and we had a duty to thoroughly address those concerns before clearing the customer to travel," Mainz said in an emailed statement....

He spoke little English, but understood enough, obviously, to be able to get a ticket and get on the flight in the first place. And he apparently lied about being a student at the University of Indianapolis. But nothing to see here, folks. He was just "confused."

"Saudi passenger disrupts flight bound for Indianapolis," from the Gannett News Service, October 6 (thanks to Block Ness):

INDIANAPOLIS - Federal authorities are probing the actions of a Saudi Arabian man who tried to get into the cockpit of an American Airlines flight to here.

Indianapolis Airport police said Abdulaziz Mubarak Alshammari, 20, was pulled away from the cabin door by another passenger a half hour before Flight 1936 from New York to Indianapolis International Airport landed at about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Alshammari, who said he is a student at the University of Indianapolis, appeared confused when flight attendants and police questioned him, according to a police report. Investigators photocopied a note Alshammari wrote in Arabic while on the plane.

Scott Hall, a spokesman for the University of Indianapolis, said the school has no record of Alshammari being a student there.

Passengers said Alshammari walked to the front of the plane, then to the rear, before strolling again to the front. When he got there, he appeared to be looking for a door and started tugging on the locked cabin door.

Capt. James K. Kolostyak heard someone trying to open the cabin door and saw the interior door light come on, according to the report. He called a flight attendant on the plane's phone system to ask what was happening.

The attendant was at the back of the plane serving passengers at the time. A passenger in seat 4B, Rodney Bailey approached Alshammari, grabbed his arm and led him back to his seat, 13B.

Bailey asked Alshammari if he were looking for the bathroom and Alshammari shook his head.

Airport police officer Jonathan Brown talked to Alshammari after the plane landed and said Alshammarri, who spoke little English, didn't quite understand what he had done.

Alshammari said he flew from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Doha, Qatar, to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York before heading to Indianapolis.

Police contacted The Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center and the FBI Terrorist Screening Center to run checks on the passenger. Records indicated Alshammari was not on a terrorist watch list nor wanted on criminal warrants.

No charges were filed.

Whew! "Islamophobia" charges averted!

UPDATE: Now that pictures of these markings have finally been released, we can see that they aren't Arabic at all. They don't even look like Arabic. Someone who was investigating this case was a complete idiot.

---------

This is not just graffiti. This is not "Kilroy was here." The messages are unlikely to be saying, "Islam is a Religion of Peace" or "Islamophobia is the real problem." This is not casual scrawling: note that "the writing appears to have been etched using a chemical process and is visible only after an auxiliary power unit is turned on." "Southwest Airlines, Feds Investigate Arabic Markings on Planes," from NewsCore, September 21:

Mysterious messages that appeared to be scrawled in Arabic writing on the underbellies of several Southwest Airlines jets were being investigated Wednesday by the airline and the FBI, Los Angeles radio station KNX-1070 reported.

The graffiti, which began appearing in February on 737-model planes, has been found more often in recent weeks, according to the report.

The writing appears to have been etched using a chemical process and is visible only after an auxiliary power unit is turned on.

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Brandy King confirmed that the company is "conducting an internal investigation." The FBI and Transportation Security Administration were also making enquiries.

The airline denied that the vandalism posed a safety or security threat.

Of course not. Who ever heard of Arabic-speaking people targeting airplanes for terror attacks?

The clear-thinking Kassam

Any loyal U.S. citizen, Muslim or non-Muslim, should understand that getting stopped in an airport is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that devout, observant Muslims worldwide have carried out jihad terror attacks in the name of Islam, and so people who are entrusted with the safety of airline passengers have every reason to err on the side of suspicion. Those who are thus inconvenienced should consider it a small price to pay in order to head off the next terror attack.

I speak from experience. More than once I have been held and questioned at airports because of my work. Once I was working on this website on my laptop, someone saw "jihad" on my screen, and presently I was surrounded by police and large dogs, and hauled off for questioning.

Another time I was in an airport, having hurried from a venue where I had just given a talk. I don't usually speak from a written text, but I do carry notes -- a page or two of quotations from various Muslim Brotherhood operatives, etc., including jihadist and Islamic supremacist statements by some putative American moderate Muslims, as well as quotations from the Qur'an and Hadith, etc. I had this material in my suit pocket, and it dropped out when I took off my suit jacket to go through security. So a few minutes later I was again in the friendly presence of police and TSA personnel. One gentleman was holding up my notes and asking me why I had this material. I started laughing, because I realized that there was absolutely nothing in the notes to show that I actually opposed what was written there -- and realized that it might take awhile to straighten the whole thing out.

And it did. But I didn't mind. Because I knew what they were doing. I knew they weren't holding the bearded, swarthy fellow with notes full of jihad and hate because they were racists and bigots, and didn't like people of Middle Eastern descent, or hated Muslims, or what have you. They were doing their job, which was to protect the American people.

"Profile Me," by Raheem Kassam for The Commentator, September 7:

I never thought I’d write this but I have something in common with a member of the Young Fabians. Well, two things in common – but I promise you it stops there.

Shazia Yamin and I both have ‘Muslim sounding names’, as she so brashly articulates in her blog post on her recent visit to Israel. We also have both recently dealt with strict interrogation based on ‘racial profiling’ – though I contest that this was based on religion rather than race, we’ll use Shazia’s terminology for the sake of argument.

She writes about her recent ‘detention in the Muslim room’ while travelling to Israel – and goes so far as to say that while she ‘understands the need for Israel to contain security and terrorist risks’ that during her three hour wait, she felt an ‘invisible niqab of anger’ grow across her face. Pardon me for saying – this isn’t the calm rhetoric one would expect from this young leftist traveller. On the back of this, Yamin says she wonders whether the Israeli response to the security threat might exacerbate the threat it seeks to contain.

Yamin clearly does not understand the existential threat to the state of Israel as she so professes. Anyone with an iota of sense in this area could fully grasp why the border authorities would detain someone with Pakistani heritage and a Muslim name travelling with a political organisation based in the ‘delegitimisation capital of the Western world’.

My own experiences when recently travelling at short notice to the United States last month was not dissimilar, though I’ll give Shazia the fact that Israel is stricter – the Transport Security Administration (TSA) weren’t exactly all smiles when they found fifty pages of terrorist profiles in my hand luggage (research for work which I had read on the plane).

After a thorough bag search, almost identical to the one Shazia describes, I was on my way. I can’t help but wondering if she kicked up more of a fuss, rather than simply complying. Either way, here’s the kicker...

People with names like Raheem Kassam and Shazia Yamin are those responsible for atrocities that Israel experiences week upon week, as Kassam rockets themselves hail down on Israeli civilians. Why in heaven’s name should Israeli or American security be concerned with what John Smith is doing in their country, when the most virulent threat emerges from people who look and sound like me? I’m all for this kind of profiling.

As an Iranian friend once said to me within the confines of the British Parliament no less, “Once people who look like me stop blowing themselves up – then I’ll get upset at being profiled. Not before.” Hear hear.

Shazia’s blog post then delves into the ridiculous as she uses the BBC Question Time audience, usually a gaggle of hard leftists and welfare statists, to vindicate her ‘niqab of anger’. ‘This type of profiling would cause an outcry on BBC Question Time in the UK’, she adds – as if this were a representative or even sane model upon which to base your political analyses.

I urge that Shazia try to use models which are at least somewhat comparable. Britain and Israel are not under the same existential threat, even though both are under threat from domestic and international terrorism.

Ten years ago on Sunday, nineteen men with Muslim names boarded US aircraft and flew them into government buildings and the two towers that stood tall over the New York skyline. Since then, people with Muslim sounding names have gone on to radicalise, terrorise and delegitimize Western nations and Israel over and over again.

That isn’t to say that John Smith or Sean O’Connor pose no threat – but the response must remain proportionate to the evidence.

Ten years is one second on the clock of geopolitics. I for one hope that until jihadist threats against the West are truly diminished, that Western and Israeli authorities will not stop profiling visitors into their countries.

More steals and deals at the jihadist garage sale of the century. "Qaeda offshoot acquires Libyan air missiles: EU," from Agence France-Presse, September 5:

Al-Qaeda's north African branch has acquired a stockpile of weapons in Libya, including surface-to-air missiles that are threatening air travel, the EU's counter-terrorism coordinator said Monday.

Due to the turmoil in Libya, members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have "gained access to weapons, either small arms or machine-guns, or certain surface-to-air missiles which are extremely dangerous because they pose a risk to flights over the territory," said Gilles de Kerchove.

At a news conference marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, de Kerchove said that while the threat of strikes by mainstream Al-Qaeda followers had decreased, AQIM was taking root both on the Arab peninsula and in Africa, posing a mounting threat.

"It is a group that is Africanising and seeking to extend its area of influence," he said.

Like other Al-Qaeda affiliates in Pakistan and elsewhere, AQIM had gained support among locals by using ransom money and possibly drug-related income to fund social services unavailable from cash-strapped African governments.

It had extended its area of action from northern Niger, Mali and Mauritania to northern Nigeria and as far south as Senegal, he said.

To put a brake on any further extension of its influence, European Union nations needed to help African countries such as Chad and Niger to reintegrate the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who have fled home from Libya in the past months. Mali alone faced the return of 210,000 people, he said.

The Libyan rebels are reported to be rounding up black people.

Plans were underway also to aid information-gathering and counter-terror centres in Algeria and Mauritania, and to back Malian efforts to redeploy seven to 10 military bases in its remote barren north as well as provide basic services for the population there.

We have seen many other cases where a Muslim defendant has refused to recognize the authority of the court, with various gestures of disrespect, because it is not a Sharia court. And because he only recognizes Sharia law, Abdulmutallab therefore calls himself unlawfully imprisoned.

Unfortunately for him, we don't imprison defendants only according to the laws they recognize. "Underwear bomb suspect claims wrongful imprisonment by U.S., files for release," from the Detroit Free Press, August 25 (thanks to Zilla):

The so-called underwear bomber charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner is arguing for his prison release, claiming wrongful imprisonment by the American government.

In a handwritten court document filed today, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 24, asked the court to release him from prison, arguing that "all Muslims should only be ruled by the law of the Quran."

"The defendant is being unjustly detained in the Unites States of American, and subjected to the Rule of Man," wrote Abdulmutallab, adding he should "only be judged and ruled by the law of the Quran."

In a separate, handwritten court filing, the Nigerian national also wrote that "excessive force" was used to restrain him on Wednesday while he was in his closed cell, during the "holy month of Ramadan." He wrote that between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., "in defense of Muhammad," he assaulted several officers from his cell, and that as a result, "excessive force" was used to restrain him.

Abdulmutallab, who is acting as his own attorney in the case, also asked the court to order that no excessive force be used on him.

On appeal, he can claim his attorney was incompetent.

He's actually angry the guards fought back. From "'Underwear' bomb suspect claims assault on guards, seeks Quran judgment," by Robert Snell for the Detroit News, August 25 (thanks also to Zilla):

... "Defendant Abdulmutallab, in defense of Muhammad (peace be upon him … the messenger of Allah to Mankind who is being defamed and abused by the United States of America) assaulted several officers from his cell," he wrote. "As a result, excessive force was used to restrain defendant Abdulmutallab who was already in a closed cell on his own."

He asked Edmunds to order prison guards not to use excessive force while he is "justly defending Muhammad and his religion," according to the court filing....

Don't they know stereotyping causes alienation, and alienation and poor self-esteem lead to radicalization? Now these poor men are going to have to deal with those additional radicalized Misunderstanders of Middle America and worry about backlash because of their portrayal in this video! And this is going to damage our standing with middle-class white guys abroad in nations that are our Friends and Allies, and create even more terrorists.

Of course, the intention seems obvious. But by bending over so far backward to show they aren't singling out any other group, they appear to have created a study in absurdity. As James Thurber once cautioned, "You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward."

"Who does Homeland Security thinks poses the greatest risk? Video portrays white middle-class as the most likely terrorists," from the Daily Mail, July 22:

A video released by the Department of Homeland Security urging people to report anything suspicious has caused outrage by characterising white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists.

The promotional video is part of Homeland Security's $10million 'See Something, Say Something' programme as they believe it will help curb random acts of terrorism by individuals.

But the controversial video has angered some Americans due to the fact all the actors who play the would-be terrorists in the video are white, and the people who report them are either black, Asian or Arab.

What would happen - it is asked - if it was the other way about?

Lawsuits. Oodles and oodles of lawsuits.

The ten-minute clip shows a number of scenarios in which different behaviours which could be characterised as terrorism are played out.

These include - wearing a hooded top, driving vans, opposing surveillance footage, using a video camera, talking to police officers and recording something on your smartphone, among others.

The voice over urges viewers not to consider a person's race when making a decision on whether or not they are a terrorist. [...]

DHS has confirmed the video is theirs but adamantly deny there are any racial or politically correct overtones to it.

The discussion about the absurdity of frisking Grandma in order for air security to appear "fair" (Fair to whom? Not Grandma) about counter-terror measures is taking place across the pond as well. In any country, not targeting resources to acknowledge the more probable source of the threat is not only wasteful, but reduces security efforts to playing a blindfolded game of chance. "Police 'should ignore racial balance in stop and searches'," by Martin Bentham for the Evening Standard, July 18 (thanks to JG):

Police conducting counter-terrorism stop and searches at airports should abandon efforts to achieve a "racial balance" in the numbers they frisk, an official report says today.

Which race is Islam again?

The Government's terrorism watchdog, David Anderson, QC, says that it is the "antithesis of intelligence-led policing" for officers to ensure that the numbers of each ethnic group searched are proportionate to their presence in the population.

He says that instead checks should be targeted at those groups most likely to carry out a terrorist attack.

Mr Anderson's comments come in his annual report to Parliament on the operation of terrorism laws.

They follow complaints that some travellers, such as elderly white women, are subjected to unnecessary searches to ensure that statistics do not appear "disproportionately" focused on Muslims.

Today, however, Mr Anderson says that the "schedule 7" powers, which allow searches to be conducted at airports and ports without the need to prove suspicion, have been "instrumental" in catching terrorists.

He cites examples such as Sohail Anjum Qureshi, 30, who was jailed at the Old Bailey in 2008 for four and half years for terrorism offences after being stopped at Heathrow en route to Pakistan to carry out a "two-to-three week" terrorist operation.

Another was Yassin Nassari, 28, from Ealing, who was sentenced to three and a half years in 2007 for possessing rocket-making instructions, after being detained at Luton airport.

Mr Anderson's report says that the value of such searches is "therefore scarcely in doubt". The report states: "To use schedule 7 in such a way as to reflect the ethnic balance of the population would be the antithesis of intelligence-led policing.

The proportionate application of schedule 7 is surely achieved by matching its application to the terrorist threat, rather than to the population as a whole."

He added: "If the police have intelligence that there may be someone dangerous on a flight from Pakistan, or a ferry from Northern Ireland, they must be free to concentrate their resources on that flight or that ferry.

"If people are stopped simply for the sake of balance, whether in terms of gender, age or race, the powers will not be used in the most effective way - or in the fairest way."....

Here we go again. The TSA protected us recently from a 95-year-old, wheelchair-bound leukemia patient, and now this. It is a good thing that there were agents available to do this, and that they were not too busy patting down former Secretaries of Defense and six-year-olds.

Extra scrutiny for young Arab and Pakistani males, despite the fact that they've been responsible for the lion's share of jihad terror plots in the U.S. over the last few years? That would be racist! Who are you to assume that a 94-year-old wheelchair-bound grandmother is less likely to commit an act of terror than a young man from Saudi Arabia who loves Allah, Muhammad, and jihad?

"94-year-old upset by TSA pat down," by Shae Crisson for WTVD, July 14:

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- A 94-year-old wheelchair-bound Florida woman says a search she went through at Raleigh/Durham International Airport went too far.

Marian Peterson said it happened July 6 as she went through a TSA security checkpoint before boarding a flight home.

Peterson said she was selected for extra screening. First, security officers lifted her out of her wheelchair and helped her stand in a full body scanner. Then, she was given a physical pat down.

"They took me to one side and they patted me down, and they made me stand for, with my arms out, for over 10 minutes," she said. "I was beginning to feel that I wasn't going to be able to continue to stand, I was going to fall down or something."

"I asked, I said why are you doing this, and the woman was very polite and said 'I don't know, maybe the scanner detected something or maybe she moved,'" recalled Peterson's daughter Marian Malone.

Peterson's family said it's not just the length of the search they object to, it's the way it was done.

"She said it would be in-depth. She started the putdown [sic], and at that point, she asked mom to spread her legs. She stood there with her legs spread and she checked every place thoroughly," said Malone.

"They groped her. All of her body. Her crotch, her breasts. And everything else," said son Joe Peterson.

The Petersons said the search seemed unnecessary given Marian's obvious age.

"I didn't think I was much of a threat to anybody," said Marian Peterson.

"My sister had even asked them, you know, what did she do? Why are we doing this? What's going on here," said Joe Peterson....

Political correctness, that's what.

TSA is expected to begin a pilot program this fall that will try more "risk based" screening. It will start with just Delta and American at four U.S. airports. Raleigh is not included.

And when the TSA introduces this "risk based" screening, those Christian extremists better watch their step.

He said he collects knives. That's his story, and he's sticking to it. "Man tries to board plane at Baltimore airport with 13 knives," by Rebecca Ruiz for MSNBC.com, July 14 (thanks to Kenneth):

A 24-year-old Baltimore man tried to board a flight last week with these knives in his carry-on luggage.

Amr Gamal Shedid was attempting to fly from Baltimore Washington International Airport to Minnesota on July 7 when a security officer operating an X-ray machine noticed something suspicious and discovered the 12 switchblades and a butterfly knife in the flier's luggage, according to Sgt. Kirk Perez, a spokesperson for the Maryland Transportation Authority Police. Shedid told officers that he collected knives.

The man did not appear to be involved in a plot or a threat onboard the plane. "We don’t have any indication to lead us to believe anything along those lines at this time," said Perez.

Of course! Who ever heard of a Muslim trying to bring a weapon onto an airplane?

The TSA: protecting you from former Secretaries of Defense, six-year-olds, and 95-year-old, wheelchair-bound leukemia patients.

Think of all the millions, if not billions, of dollars that have been spent on this charade, all in service of the politically correct fantasy that any person of any background is just as likely as anyone else to commit a terrorist attack. The fact that young Arab and Pakistani Muslim males have been responsible for virtually all of the incidents that have made all this air security necessary is not to be the subject of any official notice whatsoever -- that would be racism! Profiling! Islamophobia!

But at least air passengers were saved from Donald Rumsfeld's jihad.

June 2007: Muslims try to destroy the Glasgow airport. July 2011: Muslims claim victim status and demand lax security for Muslims at the Glasgow airport.

What took them so long?

"Muslims boycott airport," by Alison Campsie and David Leask for The Herald, July 13 (thanks to Twostellas):

GLASGOW’S Muslims are boycotting the city’s main airport and choosing to fly from Manchester because of perceived harassment from counter-terrorism officers, it was claimed last night.

The allegations were made at a public meeting called to discuss concerns held by parts of the Asian community that powers held by police, ports and immigration officials to question travellers at travel hubs were abused, with travellers singled out solely on the basis of their race or skin colour.

This has nothing to do with jihad, of course. Who ever heard of a Muslim trying to disrupt an airplane in flight? "Unruly passenger on flight diverted to Cleveland faces federal charges," by Mike Waterhouse for Newsnet5.com, July 12 (thanks to all who sent this in):

CLEVELAND - The unruly passenger who caused a commercial jet flying from Chicago to Germany to divert to Cleveland Friday is facing federal charges.

The FBI said Monday that Saleh Ali S. Alramakh, aka Saleh Ali S. Alramaleh, age 21, of Riyadh Saudi Arabia, has been charged with interference with flight crew members and attendants.

The incident caused United Airlines Flight 944 -- en route to Frankfurt -- to divert to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at about 5:30 p.m.

According to the FBI, Alramakh went into the plane’s bathroom and used an electronic device while the plane was taxiing in Chicago. He allegedly refused to follow the flight attendant’s directives that he immediately turn off the device and return to his seat, but eventually returned to his seat.

Shortly after takeoff and while passengers are still required to stay seated, the FBI said Alramakh went into the bathroom again and used an electronic device. He once again refused to follow orders by the flight attendants to immediately return to his seat, investigators said.

At this point, the FBI said flight attendants unlocked and opened the bathroom door, at which point Alramakh became verbally abusive toward the attendants before returning to his seat.

At some point later in the flight, Alramakh got up a third time and approached a flight attendant in a “belligerent, confrontational manner,” the FBI said.

“Alramakh was speaking in a loud tone of voice, using profanity, with his face inches from the flight attendant's face. The flight attendant asked Alramakh to step back multiple times, but instead Alramakh shoved the flight attendant backwards against the aircraft,” the FBI said in a news release.

At least one passenger stepped in, grabbing Alramakh and helping the flight crew restrain him, the FBI said, but Alramakh refused to comply with the crew and continued to try to kick and spit on the people around him.

Alramakh’s conduct caused the flight to divert to Cleveland, where police were waiting for him at the gate.

Police said he was restrained on the floor of the aircraft near the bathroom....

America is safe from six-year-old boys, but what's the big deal about a stun gun or two aboard an airplane? It isn't as if any Islamic jihadists want to fly airplanes into tall buildings, right? If there even are any Islamic jihadists.

"Stun gun left in jet seat," by Daniel Edward Rosen in the New York Post, July 11:

A flight-crew member found a stun gun on a JetBlue plane that had just discharged its passengers at Newark Airport after a flight from Boston, a source told The Post last night.

The FBI was conducting an investigation Monday after the Striker 1800 stun gun was found Friday by a cleaning crew inside the back pocket of a seat on board Jet Blue flight 1179, myFOXny.com reported. The plane had just arrived from Boston and all passengers had disembarked....

More idiotic fruit of our national unwillingness to identify the real source of the threat to air security.

"First do no harm" is certainly off the table here: the implanted device would not only kill its carrier, but would be intended to bring down an entire plane. In the report below, the threat is not described as coming from any particular group (could be anybody -- could be grandma), but al-Qaeda has been moving in this direction for years. It is a logical extension of the tactics used by the failed underwear bomber en route to Detroit, and the Saudi suppository bomber.

"TSA warns of possible airline threat involving implanted bombs," by Christie Parsons for the Los Angeles Times, July 6:

The government has warned airlines that terrorists are considering surgically implanting explosives into people in an attempt to circumvent screening procedures, according to U.S. officials.

There is no indication of an immediate plot, but the new information could lead to additional screening procedures at the nation’s airports. Existing scanners would not necessarily detect bombs implanted under a person’s skin, experts said.

While the information suggests such a threat would come from overseas rather than domestic groups, federal officials are ordering precautions both in the U.S. and abroad, the official said.

The idea of surgically implanting bombs has been examined by intelligence agencies in the past, but new information has suggested that terrorist groups are seriously considering the technique, officials said.

A spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, Nicholas Kimball, said that passengers flying to the United States are likely to face additional screening measures.

"These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same activity at every international airport," Kimball said. "Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies."

Will Islamic interest groups again move for exemption?

Existing scanners cannot detect certain explosive materials like PETN under the skin. They would have to rely on explosive trace detection swabs to detect bombs under the skin, and those are only conducted on a fraction of the passengers.

The TSA: protecting us from 95-year-old wheelchair-bound leukemia sufferers. But hey -- at least they're not profiling Muslims, and that's all that matters!

"Elderly woman asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search," by Lauren Sage Reinlie for NWF Daily News, June 25 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A woman has filed a complaint with federal authorities over how her elderly mother was treated at Northwest Florida Regional Airport last weekend.

Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration in Miami, said she could not comment on specific cases to protect the privacy of those involved.

“The TSA works with passengers to resolve any security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner,” she said.

Weber’s mother entered the airport’s security checkpoint in a wheelchair because she was not stable enough to walk through, Weber said.

Wheelchairs trigger certain protocols, including pat-downs and possible swabbing for explosives, Koshetz said.

“During any part of the process, if there is an alarm, then we have to resolve that alarm,” she said.

Weber said she did not know whether her mother had triggered an alarm during the 45 minutes they were detained.

She said her mother was first pulled aside into a glass-partitioned area and patted down. Then she was taken to another room to protect her privacy during a more extensive search, Weber said.

Weber said she sat outside the room during the search.

She said security personnel then came out and told her they would need for her mother to remove her Depends diaper because it was soiled and was impeding their search.

Weber wheeled her mother into a bathroom, removed her diaper and returned. Her mother did not have another clean diaper with her, Weber said.

Weber said she wished there were less invasive search methods for an elderly person who is unable to walk through security gates.

“I don’t understand why they have to put them through that kind of procedure,” she said.

Koshetz said the procedures are the same for everyone to ensure national security.

“TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability,” she said....

How admirable: the lone sentinel, willing to take the heat to do what is necessary to protect us all. Except, of course, take into consideration in any way whatsoever the nature of the actual terrorist threat, the ideology behind it, and the likelihood that some groups are more likely to commit terrorist acts than others.

Weber said she plans to file additional complaints next week.

“I’m not one to make waves, but dadgummit, this is wrong. People need to know. Next time it could be you.”

That's fine. As long as it isn't Ibrahim Hooper or Ahmed Rehab or Nihad Awad or Reza Aslan, or Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; or Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; or Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; or Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; or Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; or Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; or Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; or any of their coreligionists who might want to launch a similar attack, then all is well.

Better hope for a soft landing. This report does not spell out whether regular passenger flights included dangerous cargo, or if there were charter flights under false pretenses. In either case, "war is deceit." The allegation is included in a sidebar by BBC reporter Kim Ghattas adjacent to the main report, and appears first below."US imposes economic sanctions on Iran Air," from BBC News, June 23:

Iran Air passenger planes have allegedly been used by the Revolutionary Guards to transport rockets and missiles - some of them to Syria.

Revolutionary Guard officers are said to occasionally take control of Iran Air flights with special cargo.

Wink-wink.

Iran Air doesn't fly to the US and is unlikely to have any assets here, but Washington will also encourage other countries to shun the blacklisted companies and get airports around the world to stop refuelling Iran Air planes.

The main report:

The US has imposed economic sanctions on Iran's national airline, saying Iran Air had supported the Iranian military.

In a statement, the treasury department also said the airline had provided "material support and services" to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

It said the paramilitary group supported terrorism and committed human rights abuses against protesters.

The US accuses Iran of aiming to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran says its programme is wholly peaceful.

In addition, the US treasury department accused Iranian port company Tidewater Middle East Company of the Revolutionary Guard Corp of exporting arms and military equipment from the seven ports it operates in the country.

"Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is a top US government priority and we remain deeply concerned about Iran's nuclear intentions," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in a joint statement.

"The United States is committed to a dual-track policy of applying pressure in pursuit of constructive engagement, and a negotiated solution."

To quote the good doctor from Airplane, "I just wanted to say good luck, and we're all counting on you."

Iran Air has faced US sanctions since 1995, preventing it from buying aircraft or spare parts from Boeing or Airbus.

Last year, the European Commission banned Iran Air jets from European air space, citing safety concerns....

They have all the more reason to do so now.

Apparently the TSA in Newark airport is devoting its energies to looking for drug traffickers. That's all well and good, but does anyone care to devote any attention to looking for Islamic jihadists? "U.S. Homeland Security Committee demands TSA explain reports of racial profiling at Newark airport," by Steve Strunsky for The Star-Ledger, June 17:

WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee said they want the head of the Transportation Security Administration to explain how racial profiling became a common practice among TSA screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) are both seeking answers from TSA Administrator John Pistole, after a federal report found several behavior detection officers, or BDOs, had singled out Mexican and Dominican passengers for special scrutiny, bag searches, questioning and document reviews in 2008 and 2009.

"We have been in contact with TSA. We are looking forward to hearing Administrator Pistole’s analysis," King, who is from Long Island, said in a statement[.] "After that, we will determine our course of action."...

The group of managers and BDOs who engaged in racial profiling were dubbed "the Great Mexican Hunters" by other TSA employees at the airport....

Of course there isn't. After all, it's only a coincidence that Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and so many other jihad murderers and would-be murderers were all Muslim men under age 35. Remember: Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer, is 40! So Napolitano is right!

"Napolitano: No 'Logic' In Profiling Muslim Men Under The Age Of 35," from Real Clear Politics, June 9 (thanks to Phil):

"You're not using good logic there. You've got to use actual intelligence that you received. And, so, you might -- all you've given me is a kind of status. You have not given me a technique for tactic or behavior. Something that would suggest somebody is not Muslim, but Islamic, that has actually moved into the category of violent extremists," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a forum on U.S. security and preventing terrorist attacks.

"Not Muslim, but Islamic"? Does Napolitano have the first foggiest idea of what Islam is all about? Shouldn't such knowledge be a requirement for someone in her position?

"We have ways to make some of those cuts. And they involve the intel that comes in, the analysis that goes on. For example, we often times, for travelers entering the United States, we won't not do what is called a secondary inspection just because they are a 35-year- old male who appears to be Muslim, whatever that means...."

Whatever that means? Ms. Napolitano, it means someone believes that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. How did you get this job again?

This is an outrage! Who ever heard of a "man who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent" engaging in an act of terror in an airport?

"Muslim rights group cries foul over MSP security drill," by Paul Walsh for the Star Tribune, May 23 (thanks to J.):

A national Muslim civil rights group is asking the head of Homeland Security to investigate the use of stereotypes after a man who appeared to be of Middle East descent was used in a recent security drill at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday renewed a request that Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano review "the use of outside trainers who offer hostile, stereotypical and grossly inaccurate information about Muslims and Islam."

Hamas-linked CAIR includes me in this group -- I'm mentioned in their press release about it. My observations regarding that are twofold:

1. Hamas-linked CAIR cannot accurately or honestly show that anything I say about Muslims and Islam is "hostile, stereotypical and grossly inaccurate." They can and do lie, sure, but they can't actually demonstrate a single instance of anything genuinely hostile, stereotypical or grossly inaccurate about Muslims and Islam in anything I have written in ten books, hundreds of articles, and over 25,000 Jihad Watch posts.

2. Napolitano and the DHS should realize that a Hamas-linked group that has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever come down the pike is likely to recommend just the opposite of what they should do if they really want to protect America.

The organization has previously asked the Obama administration, the Department of Defense and Congress to provide oversight for apparent "widespread anti-Muslim bias in the training of law enforcement and security and military personnel nationwide."

Hamas-linked CAIR would do better to address the widespread anti-Infidel bias in Muslim communities in the U.S. and worldwide. But they never do that. Now, why is that?

According to information released Monday by MSP airport police, the May 12 security test included a device in a shaving kit made to look like a bomb. It was a cylinder with wires connected to a wrist watch. The device was brought to a passenger security checkpoint, according to airport Police Sgt. Mark Ledbetter, one of the responding officers.

"Upon arriving [at the checkpoint]," Ledbetter wrote in his report, "TSA [Transportation Security Administration] screeners were out with a male who appeared to be Middle Eastern in descent or Indian/Pakistani."

He was wearing casual business attire and was calm.

"Well, let's cover all the stereotypical bases," Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Monday. "It's not surprising in the least that [federal authorities] would resort to anti-Muslim stereotypes."

Hooper, whose group acts as a rights watchdog on behalf of Muslims in the United States, said he has no problem with such security tests, but "when you resort to ethnic and religious stereotypes in these types of drills, it sends the message to watch out for these people, and that leads to profiling."

TSA spokesman Greg Soule countered that his agency conducts "thousands of training tests each year, and the individuals carrying out the testing are [of] various ethnicities, ages and appearances, just like the traveling public."...

Next time, Soule, make the guy look like Honest Ibe Hooper. Or, if that would cause another bogus victimhood uproar from these Hamas-linked thugs, make him look like me. I don't mind in the least. Funny how a genuine interest in protecting America changes one's perspective on issues like this.

He charged the cockpit twice, shouting "Allahu akbar." Thus the judge had no choice but to reject the bathroom defense. "Judge denies bail for passenger who roiled Calif. flight," from the Associated Press, May 11:

SAN FRANCISCO — A Yemen native who disrupted a San Francisco-bound flight was portrayed by prosecutors yesterday as a dangerous and erratic passenger who tried to barge into the cockpit twice, did not carry any luggage, and yelled “God is great’’ in Arabic.

Assistant US Attorney Elise Becker said Rageh Al-Murisi, 28, was carrying valid and expired forms of identification from New York and California, $47 in cash, and two postdated checks totaling $13,000 in his wallet. She said he made one check out to himself but did not specify where the other was from. She also said he didn’t tell his relatives in California that he was traveling there.

Murisi faces one count of interfering with flight crew members and attendants as pilots on American Airlines Flight 1561 were preparing to land in San Francisco on Sunday, one week after the United States’ raid and killing of Osama bin Laden, which has raised fears of possible retaliation.

“He attempted to enter the cockpit right before a critical part of the flight,’’ Becker said in arguing to withhold bail for Murisi.

Judge James Larson denied bail yesterday, but planned to revisit the issue on Friday.

Why?

In the court affidavit filed Monday, air marshal Paul Howard said that after being told the cockpit door wasn’t the restroom, Murisi made eye contact with a crew member, lowered his shoulder, and rammed the door. The crew member told Howard he then got between Murisi and the door, but Murisi kept yelling and pushing forward in an attempt to open it, according to the affidavit.

Court documents say Murisi repeatedly yelled “Allahu Akbar,’’ or Arabic for “God is great,’’ and tried twice to open the cockpit door before being subdued by a crew member and several passengers, including a retired Secret Service agent and a former police officer. The flight landed safely at San Francisco International Airport, but not without frightening passengers who became alarmed as he yelled and tried to rush the cockpit....

Authorities have said Murisi has no clear or known ties to terrorism and investigators have not established a possible motive.

Shouting "Allahu akbar" while charging the cockpit ought to be a sufficient indication of motive, as well as of ties to jihad terrorism (even if Murisi was carrying no al-Qaeda membership card), but in our politically correct age authorities must ignore the obvious and search for the arcane.

Yemen, a nation at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, has been a focus of US officials because one of the most active branches of Al Qaeda operates in remote parts of the country.

Murisi’s lawyer, assistant federal public defender Elizabeth Falk, said he was not a public danger.

Except maybe to Infidels.

This one is a real head-scratcher. What on earth could have motivated a Muslim who started screaming "Allahu akbar" and pounding on the cockpit door? It's a big, deep, wide mystery, but I'm telling you, he just wanted more pretzels. An update on this story. "Suspect in flight disturbance had Calif. ID," from the Associated Press, May 9 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

SAN FRANCISCO – The passengers sat stunned as they watched a man walk quickly toward the front of American Airlines Flight 1561 as it was descending toward San Francisco. He was screaming and then began pounding on the cockpit door.

"I kept saying to myself: 'What's he doing? Does he have a bomb? Is he armed?'" passenger Angelina Marty said.

Within moments Sunday, a flight attendant tackled Rageh Almurisi. Authorities do not yet have a motive.

While authorities said that Almurisi, 28, of Vallejo, Calif., has no clear or known ties to terrorism, the incident underscored fears that extremists may try to mount attacks to retaliate for the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden last week.

Federal agents are investigating Almurisi's background. He was carrying a Yemeni passport and a California identification card, authorities said. [...]

Marty, 35, recalled that she and other passengers on the plane were stunned when they saw Almurisi walking down the aisle. She said a woman in a row across from her who speaks Arabic translated that Almurisi said "God is Great!" in Arabic.

Andrew Wai, another passenger, told KGO-TV on Monday that the wife of one of the men who took Almurisi down later said Almurisi was yelling "Allahu Akbar."

"There was no question in everybody's mind that he was going to do something," Marty said....

These imams are demanding all sorts of concessions. It is interesting to note that the orthodox Jews who were removed from a plane in March are not crying victimhood, not claiming racial profiling, not trying to weaken airport security. The contrast is illuminating. An update on this story. "Captain Backs Pilot Who Kicked Muslims Off Plane," from WSOCTV.com, May 9:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A U.S. Airways Captain defended the actions of another pilot, three days after two imams were kicked off a flight bound for Charlotte.

Lawyers for Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul said the imams were pulled off a plane in Memphis before it headed to Charlotte Friday. The lawyers said the pilot refused to fly with them on board. He said the men passed multiple security clearances before boarding a Delta connection flight operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines.

The imams said they were victims of racial profiling. On Sunday, Capt. James Ray, who represents the pilot’s union for U.S. Airways, said it’s highly unlikely the pilot asked them to leave for that reason.

"I can promise you the captain didn't throw those people off because of the way they were dressed. There's more to the story,” Ray said.

The imams said the pilot told them the passengers were uncomfortable, but no passengers spoke up.

Ray said ultimately, it’s the captain’s call. “The captain operates in an environment that's always changing. It's dynamic. You can't fly an airplane by committee,” he said. [...]

The imams were headed to Charlotte for a weekend conference on "islamophobia" - the fear of Islam.

They were put on another flight and arrived a few hours later.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines released a statement and said it apologizes for any inconvenience but it takes security very seriously. The imam's attorney said his office plans to launch an investigation into the incident. If it turns out the pilot was not justified in putting the imams off the plane, his office will sue for negligence and a violation of civil rights.

Muslim Leaders Address "Islamophobia"

The annual conference in Charlotte was scheduled before Friday's incident and before the death of Osama bin Laden. Conference organizers said the timing could not have been more coincidental....

Yes, what a remarkable coincidence!

And -- purely coincidentally -- he was, like the flying imams who made national news a few days ago, on this way to a conference on "Islamophobia." Abdul-Latif's victimhood complaint is so flimsy and obviously concocted that even a veteran whiner like Hamas-linked CAIR's Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper "suggested it was possible technical problems, rather than profiling," that was the cause here.

"Imam Claims Racial Profiling by American Airlines," by Arun Venugopal for WNYC News, May 9:

One of the city's most prominent Muslim leaders claims he was prevented from boarding two American Airlines flights en route to a conference on Islamophobia last week because of his appearance.

Imam Al-Amin Abdul-Latif — who heads the Majlis Ash-Shura, or Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York, a representative body that includes dozens of area mosques — said he was twice denied by officials when he tried to board an American Airlines flight from La Guardia to Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday to attend a conference on Islamophobia.

The imam was traveling with his son, Imam Abubakr Abdul-Latif, who heads a mosque in Bed-Stuy.

The two cleared a security check and arrived at their gate where they said a Transportation Security Administration official asked to see the elder Abdul-Latif's boarding pass.

The official allegedly left for 10 to 15 minutes before returning the boarding pass. The father's boarding pass would not scan and he resigned himself to missing the flight, assuming his son would make it to Charlotte.

The son's flight did not take off, and according to Abubakr, the plane returned to the gate after having approached the runway.

After having his documents examined, he said he was allowed to walk away. He eventually reunited with his father, who had obtained a new boarding pass for early the next day, and the two returned at around 3:30 a.m.

The son's boarding pass was cleared, but this time, the two said an American Airlines employee indicated to the elder imam that he was not allowed on the plane.

"There was no ill intent on the part of any of our employees involved in this," American Airlines spokesman Ed Martelle wrote in response. "It was a situation that just got very complicated very quickly."...

Gee, I wonder why.

But the senior imam thinks his appearance -- a kufi, or Muslim cap, and a beard dyed bright-red with henna -- caused airline officials to single him out.

"I look at the climate that we're living in -- the anti-Islam, the anti-Muslim trend that is growing in the country, by a handful of hatemongers, basically. That's the climate we're living in, that's why we're having that conference, [on] Islamophobia, to discuss the strategy of how to respond and how to deal with this growing trend of hatred and bigotry towards Islam and Muslims."

He noted that nine other imams had been on the plane -- none of whom were apparently prevented from flying -- but said the fact that he is prominent adds weight to his fear that Muslims are being targeted.

"If it had not been for the death of Osama bin Laden, I don't think these incidents would've happened," said Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for the [Hamas-linked] Council on American Islamic Relations.

But Hooper suggested it was possible technical problems, rather than profiling, had prompted the New York incident....

According to Imam Abdul-Malik Mujahid, a Chicago-area cleric, Abdul-Latif has been outspoken against terrorism, and has argued that "war, terrorism and Islamophobia are a connected triple-evil."

Maybe he just wanted more pretzels. "Crew subdues man banging on cockpit during flight," from The Associated Press, May 9 (thanks to Bill):

SAN FRANCISCO—Crew members and passengers wrestled a 28-year-old man to the cabin floor after he began pounding on the cockpit as an American Airlines flight approached San Francisco, the third security incident in a day on U.S. planes, authorities said Monday.

The man was yelling unintelligibly as he brushed past a flight attendant about 10 minutes before American Airlines Flight 1561 was due at San Francisco International Airport Sunday night, Sgt. Michael Rodriguez of the San Francisco police said.

A male flight attendant tackled the suspect, who carried a Yemen passport, and other crew members aided as the suspect banged on the cockpit door.

"He asked for help; a couple of passengers joined in," Rodriguez told The Associated Press. "They were able to get him to ground and a flight attendant put him in plastic handcuffs."

The Boeing 737 carrying 162 people landed safely at 9:10 p.m. and the man was taken into police custody.

He was identified as 28-year-old Rageit Almurisi. Though he carried a Yemen passport, it wasn't clear if his nationality was also Yemeni, Rodgriguez said.

Almurisi was charged with interfering with a flight crew, a federal offense. No motive has been established and the officer said he had no information when asked if the disturbance was linked to terrorism.

During the scuffle, Almurisi sustained some bruises and was checked at a hospital before being transported to San Mateo County Jail, the officer said....

We have yet to hear the pilot's side of the story, but this situation smells bad for several reasons, not least of which is the curious coincidence of the imams' travel plans to a conference on the concocted phenomenon of "Islamophobia." We have seen provocative behavior by "flying imams" before, as well. And in any event, the imams ought to understand this before claiming victimhood: Even as the air security apparatus bends over backwards to avoid the appearance of any special focus on one particular group, the single most serious terrorist threat at home and abroad to the United States is from jihadists. And we know well their preference for the drama and massive disruption that targeting air travel provides them. Hence the scrutiny.

They have already gotten an apology from the airline, and the TSA will busily continue its work screening wheelchair-bound nuns.

"Muslim group: two imams pulled from plane bound for North Carolina," from CNN, May 7:

(CNN) -- An airline is investigating the removal of two imams from a flight headed to North Carolina, ostensibly because passengers felt uncomfortable with their presence of the pair -- both clad in Islamic attire.

The incident occurred Friday on an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight from Tennessee to North Carolina and it involved Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul were wearing traditional Muslim dress, CNN affiliate WCNC reported.

The two -- who hold high religious positions in the Muslim community -- were headed to North Carolina for a conference on prejudice against Muslims, or Islamaphobia. The meeting is sponsored by the North American Imams Federation.

Rahman, who is a professor at the University of Memphis, told the affiliate that the incident reminded him of the prejudice Rosa Parks faced during the civil rights movement.

"That history I found today in that plane, and it shouldn't happen with any other person," he said.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which operated the flight, said the incident is under investigation, and apologized "for any inconvenience that this may have caused."...

Probably not him

Was he trying to join the jihad in Libya? Or was he actually planning to fly the plane into some landmark? Or is he actually a Kazakh Methodist driven by Christian extremism, and this has nothing to do with jihad at all? Time will tell -- or at least it will if the mainstream media allows enough information about this to dribble out. "Man overpowered trying to hijack Alitalia flight," from Reuters, April 24 (thanks to D.C. Watson):

ROME (Reuters) – A man with a knife tried to hijack an Alitalia flight from Paris to Rome Sunday night, demanding it be flown to Libya, but was quickly overpowered and arrested when the plane landed, officials and witnesses said.

Witnesses said the man put a small knife to the throat of a female flight attendant and held her for a few minutes.

"The man grabbed the stewardess from behind her back and pointed the knife. She was in difficulty and tried to turn around," a passenger named Sofia told reporters....

Italian media said police had identified the man as a 48-year-old citizen of Kazakhstan who worked in Paris.

A statement from Alitalia airlines said the man had "assaulted a flight attendant and asked that the plane be taken to Tripoli."...

This may have been a dry run or some sort of test; in any case, whatever it was, Hamas-linked CAIR is likely to be on it soon, using it as a weapon to weaken airport security -- which will have the effect (unintended, no doubt) of making jihadists' work easier.

"3 'Strange' Men Cause Flight Diversion," by Phil Rogers and Andrew Greiner for NBC Chicago, March 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Portland, Ore.-bound flight made a "level two emergency" stop in Chicago Tuesday night after passengers said three men, reportedly of Middle Eastern descent, were acting strangely, even fighting with flight crews.

At least one of the men walked back to the area of the plane where flight attendants work, laid down and began complaining of illness. That man engaged in "some sort of altercation" with the flight attendant, a passenger said.

At one point another man, who was pacing back and forth in the aisles, also got into a "verbal altercation" with a flight attendant, according to a passenger.

Other men of “Middle Eastern descent” were passing notes and “writing in their notebooks,” a source told NBC Chicago.

United contacted officials at O'Hare and alerted them that the flight, which originated in Washington D.C., would stop. The flight was diverted to Chicago.

Three passengers were removed from the aircraft, and the remaining passengers were re-screened through security, before being sent on their way.

Passengers arriving at Portland told NBC affiliate KGW they were aware of problems during the flight. Cliff Robinett described the incident as “strange goings on in the back of the plane."

Another passenger, Lydia Omelchenko, said the three individuals removed were “strange people.”

Robinett said the man was lying on the floor in the back of the plane did not speak English, and an interpreter had difficulty translating. Robinett said a doctor on the plane also tried to assist the passenger.

He said three men got off the plane, one of them ill. No one knew what was happening at the time, including TSA officials in Chicago, he said.

Stacy Niedermeyer of Southwest Portland was on the flight with her husband and four children.

Niedermeyer said one of the men went to the back of the plane and "sat down on his bottom." Some type of heated altercation took place.

Lydia Omelchenko said passengers knew something was amiss and were texting about the incident. She reported that two men, one of them young, left the plane and neither looked ill.

Other passengers interviewed did not wish to be identified. One passenger said a man with a backpack was pacing back and forth and got into an argument with a flight attendant.

Another said she understood it was some type of medical issue and despite it all, she never felt unsafe.

United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson refused to elaborate Wednesday morning on the reasons for the passengers’ removal other than saying “they were not following crew member instructions.”...

Detroit can't seem to catch a break: even jihadists are taking advantage of its depressed economy. Thankfully, the area was spared the economic damage that likely would have come with a successful jihadist attack. "For al-Qaida, Detroit was just the cheapest flight," by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo for the Associated Press, March 24 (thanks to Block Ness):

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When an admitted al-Qaida operative planned his itinerary for a Christmas 2009 airline bombing, he considered launching the strike in the skies above Houston or Chicago, The Associated Press has learned. But tickets were too expensive, so he refocused the mission on a cheaper destination: Detroit.

The decision is among new details emerging about one of the most sensational terrorism plots to unfold since President Barack Obama took office. It shows that al-Qaida's Yemen branch does not share Osama bin Laden's desire to attack symbolic targets, preferring instead to strike at targets of opportunity. Like the plot that nearly blew up U.S.-bound cargo planes last year, the cities themselves didn't matter. It's a strategy that has helped the relatively new group quickly become the No. 1 threat to the United States.

After the failed bombing and the arrest of suspected bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the question of why Detroit was targeted had gone unanswered. It was previously reported that Abdulmutallab did not specifically choose Christmas for his mission.

Abdulmutallab considered Houston, where he attended an Islamic conference in 2008, current and former counterterrorism officials told the AP. Another person with knowledge of the case said Abdulmutallab also considered Chicago but was discouraged by the cost. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

While the target and timing were unimportant, the mission itself was a highly organized plot that involved one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists and al-Qaida's go-to bomb maker, current and former officials said. Before Abdulmutallab set off on his mission, he visited the home of al-Qaida manager Fahd al-Quso to discuss the plot and the workings of the bomb....

Abbasi hard at work claiming victim status

Irum Abbasi may have been wrongly singled out. Nonetheless, the involvement of Hamas-linked CAIR in her case is just one of many red flags. In reality, no one should be shedding any real tears for Irum Abbasi, especially Irum Abbasi. She says, "I have lived in the United States for 10 years. I am a U.S. citizen." So if she is a loyal U.S. citizen, she should understand that what happened to her is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that devout, observant Muslims worldwide, including hijab-wearing women, have carried out jihad terror attacks in the name of Islam, and so people who are entrusted with the safety of airline passengers have every reason to err on the side of suspicion. Those who are thus inconvenienced should consider it a small price to pay in order to head off the next terror attack.

I speak from experience. More than once I have been held and questioned at airports because of my work. Once I was working on this website on my laptop, someone saw "jihad" on my screen, and presently I was surrounded by police and large dogs, and hauled off for questioning.

Another time I was in an airport, having hurried from a venue where I had just given a talk. I don't ever speak from a written text, but I do carry notes -- a page or two of quotations from various Muslim Brotherhood operatives, etc., including jihadist and Islamic supremacist statements by some putative American moderate Muslims, as well as quotations from the Qur'an and Hadith, etc. I had this material in my suit pocket, and it dropped out when I took off my suit jacket to go through security. So a few minutes later I was again in the friendly presence of police and TSA personnel. One gentleman was holding up my notes and asking me why I had this material. I started laughing, because I realized that there was absolutely nothing in the notes to show that I actually opposed what was written there -- and realized that it might take awhile to straighten the whole thing out.

And it did. But I didn't mind. Because I knew what they were doing. I knew they weren't holding the bearded, swarthy fellow with notes full of jihad and hate because they were racists and bigots, and didn't like people of Middle Eastern descent, or hated Muslims, or what have you. They were doing their job, which was to protect the American people. Irum Abbasi and Hamas-linked CAIR should realize that, and I think they do. They should also realize that we are on to them.

"Muslim removed from flight wants crew disciplined," from the Associated Press, March 17 (thanks to Twostellas):

SAN DIEGO — A Muslim woman said Wednesday that she wants a Southwest Airlines crew disciplined for removing her from a flight for wearing a headscarf.

Irum Abbasi, 31, told reporters at a news conference outside San Diego's airport that she was forced off a San Jose-bound flight in San Diego on Sunday because a flight attendant found her to be suspicious.

Abbasi said she was told that a flight attendant overheard her say on her cell phone words to the effect of: "It's a go."

The mother of three, who is originally from Pakistan, told reporters that she said, "I've got to go," before hanging up because the flight was about to depart. She believes the flight attendant made the assumption about her comment because she was wearing an Islamic head scarf.

After patting down her head scarf and talking to her, Transportation Security Administration agents recognized the mistake and told her it was not necessary to inspect her purse or cell phone, Abbasi said.

But they refused to let her back on the plane, telling her the crew was uncomfortable with her on the flight, according to Abbasi. She was booked on the next flight.

"I was in tears," Abbasi said. "I was just crying. I have lived in the United States for 10 years. I am a U.S. citizen."

Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said the airline has apologized to Abbasi twice, including the day of the incident. The airline also gave her a voucher for another flight, he said.

Abbasi said she gave the voucher to someone else and at this point does not want to fly Southwest again. She said she wants a written apology and a guarantee that the crew will be disciplined.

Abbasi, who is originally from Pakistan, said the verbal apology "doesn't make me feel better. This time they said we weren't comfortable with the head scarf. Next time, they won't be comfortable with my accent or they won't be comfortable with my South Asian heritage."...

Hanif Mohebi, director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his group believes she was targeted because of her head scarf and wants to meet with the airline to ensure it does not happen again.

Abbasi attributed her removal to growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and said that it was a direct result of the congressional hearing called by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., on the radicalization of U.S. Muslims....

The same day Abbasi was removed from a plane in San Diego, pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who were conducting an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer.

FBI and customs agents along with police and a full assignment of fire trucks met the plane at the gate at Los Angeles International Airport, and the men were escorted off. After questioning from the FBI, the men were released without being arrested.

Are the orthodox Jews demanding an apology? Holding press conferences? Claiming Judeophobia?

An update on this story. Despite the fact that recordings showed Defreitas, a former air cargo handler at JFK, "speaking with evident relish about his desire to cause death and destruction," the defense attorney still claimed "entrapment."

That claim is absurd, as usual. Evidence showed the fact that this group of jihadists became "operational" rather than remaining "aspirational" was their choice, and one ought to be thankful authorities have had so much success in quietly constructing "off-ramps" for many a jihad plot, from Dallas to Portland, Springfield, Illinois, Baltimore, and this case as well, averting untold numbers of casualties.

"Life Sentence For Leader Of Terror Plot At Kennedy," by Colin Moynihan for the New York Times, February 17:

A man described by prosecutors as the ringleader of a plot to blow up fuel tanks at Kennedy International Airport was sentenced Thursday to life in prison.

As he had at his trial, the man, Russell M. Defreitas, 67, sat silently through his sentencing as Judge Dora L. Irizarry of Federal District Court in Brooklyn said "the offenses that were contemplated here, that the jury found Mr. Defreitas guilty of, are extremely serious."

Mr. Defreitas, a Guyanese immigrant and former cargo handler at the airport, was convicted in August of conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack after a trial in which prosecutors played secretly recorded conversations in which he planned the attack and described his hatred of the United States.

The recordings were made by a convicted drug dealer, Steven Francis, who worked as an informant and contributed some financial and logistical support to the plotters.

Four men were charged in the plot, including Mr. Defreitas and Abdul Kadir, who once served as mayor of Guyana's second largest city and as a member of the Guyanese Parliament.

Mr. Kadir was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison. Another defendant, Abdel Nur, pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The fourth man, Kareem Ibrahim, has yet to be tried.

Prosecutors said Mr. Defreitas came up with a sinister plan intended to cause a chain reaction of explosions along a pipeline that runs between the airport and other parts of New York City. The conspirators hoped to destroy the country's economy, prosecutors said, and tried to contact Adnan G. el-Shukrijumah, a Qaeda operative with explosives training.

Parts of the conspiracy, as conceived by Mr. Defreitas, had bizarre aspects. He declared that he wanted the attack to be "high-tech" and "ninja-style" in execution, according to the tapes. At one point, he suggested that the plotters could create a diversion by flooding the airport's main terminal with a horde of rats. [...]

At the trial, Mr. Defreitas's lawyers portrayed him as more disagreeable than dangerous; one of his lawyers described him as "a man with a small mind, a big mouth and an ugly imagination." On Thursday, that lawyer, Mildred Whalen, asked Judge Irizarry to sentence her client to no more than 15 years.

"This was a group of people who were aspirational rather than operational," she said of the plotters. "Until the government got involved, this was talk."

Prosecutors disagreed, presenting a wide array of evidence during the trial, including hours of recordings. They showed that Mr. Defreitas had traveled to Guyana and Trinidad to seek support for the plot and had pushed it forward on numerous occasions, sometimes speaking with evident relish about his desire to cause death and destruction....

War is deceit: "Karim established a deep cover, joining a gym, playing football and never airing extreme views." An update on this story. "BA worker 'plotted with terror preacher Anwar al-Awlaki'," from the Telegraph, February 1:

In secret email exchanges with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, Bangladeshi Rajib Karim, 31, shared details of his BA contacts and access from his home in Brunton Lane, Newcastle, the court heard.

Karim, who came to the UK in 2006, worked for BA in the city and had access to the airliner's offices there and at Heathrow.

Today, Woolwich Crown Court heard Karim established a deep cover, joining a gym, playing football and never airing extreme views.

All the the while, the prosecution allege, he was communicating with a terror cell and al-Awlaki who has never been caught and is believed to be hiding in the mountains of Yemen.

The defendant is accused of plotting to blow up a plane, sharing information of use to hate groups such as al-Qaida, offering to help financial or disruptive attacks on BA and gaining a UK job to ''exploit terrorist purposes'', which he denies.

The jury of seven men and five women were told today that Karim has already pleaded guilty to three terror charges.

Only greasy Islamophobes would object to a hijabbed, observant Muslim TSA worker, right? After all, to object would be to assume that all Muslims are jihad terrorists or jihad terrorist sympathizers, and that is the very definition of "Islamophobia," now, isn't it? We should be applauding the prospect of a devout Muslim who has dedicated her time to protecting Americans by working at the TSA, right?

All right. I am sure the TSA employee pictured here is as loyal and patriotic as the day is long. This is the question I have: just imagine the possibility -- admittedly wild and remote, virtually inconceivable -- that jihadis would want to infiltrate the TSA, so as to place operatives in strategic positions who could then ensure that airport security became lax at the precisely opportune moment. One's immediate thought would be that they would be dressed in a secular Western style, as the Al-Qaeda playbook directs, and as Muhammad Atta and his fellow jihad hijackers were dressed on September 11, 2001.

However, another goal could be in view as well: the placement of people dressed in "Muslim garb," as Juan Williams memorably put it, in the TSA forces non-Muslim air passengers to place their safety in the hands of people who clearly hold the same belief-system as did those who made all these security procedures necessary in the first place. Thus we are forced tacitly to acknowledge either that that belief-system had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks -- even though the attackers themselves invoked it and only it as their motivation -- and that therefore we must do nothing to oppose its spread in the West, or that even if that belief-system did motivate the 9/11 jihad attacks, it is continuing to advance in the West and we can do nothing about it.

The two goals may coalesce: in other words, Islamic jihadists who wished to infiltrate the TSA may decide that a hijabbed TSA worker would be preferable to one in secular dress, as a gesture of Islamic supremacist assertiveness as well as the placement of an agent who could weaken security at the right moment. A hijabbed TSA worker is the personification of a dare: Islamic supremacists are daring the TSA to question her about her belief-system, thereby acknowledging that that belief-system has something to do with terror and violence. The TSA almost certainly did not dare to do so: it is virtually inconceivable that the woman pictured, as well as other hijabbed TSA workers and airport personnel, were ever questioned in any attempt to determine how closely their view coincided with those of Osama bin Laden. To have done so would have been "Islamophobic," and would have invited protests from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

And so the TSA hires observant Muslims without making any effort at all to determine whether or not they are jihadist infiltrators.

Yet on what basis can that possibility be ruled out?

Feel safe yet?

Photo thanks to Pamela Geller.

Accidentally, of course. You know, I forget where I put my loaded handgun all the time. And it's just a coincidence that Farid Seif is Iranian, and that there are numerous reports of dry run-type activity in airports and on airplanes. This could just as well have happened to Mr. Smith. "TSA under fire after businessman boards international flight with loaded handgun," from the Daily Mail, December 17:

The effectiveness of security at U.S. ports is being questioned after a businessman accidentally travelled on a flight with a loaded handgun in his luggage.

Iranian-American Farid Seif was screened by Trasport [sic] Security Administration officials at Houston airport in Texas. His hand luggage was also X-rayed before he took off on his international flight.

It wasn't until Mr Seif arrived at his hotel several hours later that he realised that he had forgotten to unpack a loaded snub nose Glock pistol from his luggage before he embarked on his journey.

'It's just impossible to miss it, you know. I mean, this is not a small gun,' Mr Seif told ABC News.

'How can you miss it? You cannot miss it.'...