Two held over suspected airliner terror plot
Two men suspected of carrying out a dry run for a terrorist attack on an airliner were being questioned by police today.
The Yemenis were held at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport after security services in the US found what could have been a dummy bomb in one of their suitcases which had been placed on another plane.
Their arrests came amid a period of extra security in the run up to the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
The luggage had been removed from a plane in America and checked after its owner suddenly switched flights, along with the other man.
Prosecutors in the Netherlands said the men flew in from Chicago yesterday en route for Sana’a, the Yemeni capital.
Meanwhile their luggage was sent on a US internal flight to Washington. But security called the plane back and examined the bags after discovering its owners were not on it.
They found a mobile phone taped to a medicine bottle, knives, several mobile phones taped together and multiple watches also taped together.
Dutch prosecutors said today the men were being held “on suspicion of a conspiracy to commit a terrorist criminal act”.
It will be announced in a few days if they will be charged.
None of the items found on the men or in their luggage broke US security rules. But together with the men’s changing travel itinerary they raised concern that it may have been a deliberate test of the US aviation security system to determine what would raise an alarm.
A US source said the men were Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al-Soofi and Hezam al-Murisi. Al-Soofi had a Detroit address. He had been living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and working at a convenience store for the last three months.
The White House said the men were not on any US terror watch list.
Al-Soofi was questioned by the US Transportation Security Administration as he went through security in Birmingham, Alabama on Sunday on his way to Chicago.
He told the authorities he was carrying a lot of cash. Screeners found 7,000 dollars on him, but he was not breaking any law by carrying that much money. It is not unusual for people to carry large amounts of cash when they travel to third world countries.
Al-Soofi was supposed to fly from Chicago to Washington and then on to Dubai. But when he got to Chicago, he changed his travel plans to take a direct flight to Amsterdam, while his luggage went on to Washington.
On international flights, passengers and their luggage must be headed toward the same destination, according to US policy.
Al-Murisi also changed his travel plans in Chicago to take a direct flight to Amsterdam, raising suspicion among US officials. Federal Air marshals were on the flight from Chicago to Amsterdam.
The men were arrested yesterday morning at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport after getting off the United Airlines flight from Chicago.
A Homeland Security spokeswoman said once officials found suspicious items in luggage associated with two passengers on Sunday night’s flight, they notified the Dutch authorities.
“This could have been a test or it could have been an honest mistake, but the system in this case worked,” said John Sullivan, managing partner of aviation security consulting firm Welsh-Sullivan.
Security at Amsterdam’s main airport has been boosted this year, after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian student, flew from Schiphol airport to Detroit on Christmas Day with explosives in his underwear. Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate the explosives over the United States before being grabbed by passengers and crew.
After the Abdulmutallab security lapse, Schiphol ordered 60 new full body scanners to screen passengers flying to the United States. Those who do not pass through the scanners are patted down.
