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By David Hinz Posted in National Security — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

A newly released report from the US Inspector General has confirmed that an incident aboard a 2004 Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Los Angeles was a terrorist dry run. On Northwest flight 327, June 29, 2004, thirteen Syrian Muslims acting suspiciously throughout the flight caused concern for passengers, flight crew and the two Federal Air Marshals aboard.

One of those passengers was Annie Jacobsen, an author and free-lance investigative reporter. In her book about the experience, Terror in the Skies she states:

If dry runs are really going on, they need to be performed by people. And since dry runs involve testing the system, there's always a chance that the U.S. government will catch on and actually interrogate the people involved. For that reason, as one federal agent [explained], "it's common practice to switch out 'operatives' who are in essence working as part of a terrorist cell."

According to the inspector general report, one of the air marshals noted six or more of the Muslim men who arrived together at the airport gate, then separated and pretended not to know each other.

According to the air marshals, these men were sweaty, appeared nervous and arrived after the boarding announcement. The air marshals made eye contact with one another to ensure they were aware of this behavior.

Passengers and crew noted myriad suspicious behavior from the thirteen men. Jacobsen became so concerned that she contacted a member of the flight crew in an attempt to alert the pilots, and possibly divert the flight to safety.

One of the flight attendants passed Jacobsen a note telling her to remain calm, that there were Air Marshals aboard and that they were monitoring the situation. Still, the behavior of the men caused the passengers to be frightened. From the Washington Times article:

The men "walked in the aisle, appearing to count passengers," and "several men spent excessive time in the lavatories."

"One man rushed to the front of the plane appearing to head for the cockpit. At the last moment, he veered into the first-class lavatory, remaining in it for about 20 minutes," according to the report. One man carried a McDonald's bag into the lavatory, and "another man, upon returning from the lavatory, reeked strongly of what smelled like toilet bowl chemicals.”

"Some men hand signaled each other. The passenger who entered the lavatory with the McDonald's bag made a thumbs-up signal to another man upon returning from the lavatory. Another man made a slashing motion across his throat, appearing to say 'No.' "

As the flight descended into Los Angeles, the report said, "four of the suspicious individuals stood up and made their way to the back of the plane," where "the individuals used the rear lavatory, and one of the men was doing stretching exercises/knee bends by the exit door."

After the flight touched down, the FBI rushed to the gate, escorting the Muslim men to an interrogation area. Amazingly enough, however, only two of the men were ever actually questioned.

The Syrian men, who suddenly knew each other -- after several had pretended not to during the flight -- told authorities that they were musicians contracted to play at a private club in the California desert. The Federal Air Marshal supervisor examined their visas, which turned out to be temporary cultural visas, and failed to note that the men were traveling on visas which had expired. In addition, according to the newly released report, eight of the men appeared on a background check in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, for criminal or suspicious behavior.

More damning even than that was the fact that a mere two months earlier, in April of 2004, the FBI had issued a warning that would-be terrorist might be entering the US using sports or cultural visas. This was clearly a complete security breakdown on the part the FBI and of Homeland Security personnel. They were all immediately released.

"The reported suspicious activity was determined to be unfounded, and not a terrorist threat, and therefore did not merit an HSOC referral," stated Robert Jamison, Deputy Administrator of the TSA.

Due primarily to the publicity generated by Jacobsen’s writings on the subject, an FBI investigation was begun concerning the incident in July of 2004. That belated investigation uncovered the fact that one of the men, the “promoter” of the musicians, had been involved in a similar incident aboard a Frontier Airlines flight. On Jan 28, 2004, eight passengers aboard Frontier Flight 577 from Houston to San Francisco, engaged in suspicious behavior.

"Flight attendants reported all eight passengers kept trying to switch seats while boarding and during the flight, made repeated service requests in what the attendants described as an effort to keep the flight crew occupied. One took a cell phone into the front lavatory, remained in the lavatory for over 15 minutes, but did not appear to have the phone when leaving the lavatory," the report said.

The incident followed a series of breaches of airline security in December and January, when the FBI issued a memo warning that suicide terrorists were plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling "ready-to-build" bomb kits past airport security to be assembled in aircraft bathrooms.

Although this information was available as early as 2005, when the report was first published, and then rescinded, additional security measures preventing passengers from including small amounts of liquids in their carry-on luggage were not enacted until last year.

If these two incidents sound eerily familiar, there is the case in Minnesota of the “flying Imams.” In November of 2006, the six clerics alarmed passengers on a US Airways jet with their behavior. The six Muslim men, traveling on one-way tickets, first brought notice to themselves with loud praying in the airport terminal prior to the flight. Not in and of itself suspicious, once on board, the six left their assigned seats and positioned themselves with two at the front of the plane, two at the rear and two near the emergency exits in the middle of the plane.

Air marshals and passengers could not fail to note that this was the same configuration of the 911 terrorists. In addition, an Arabic speaking passenger overheard two of the Imams conversing, condemning the execution of Saddam Hussein, and speaking derogatorily about President Bush.

Subsequent investigations determined that the airline and passengers over-reacted, and that the Imams were unfairly targeted because of their religion. Right! While the government might have determined the incident to be innocent, pilots are not convinced.

"What is disturbing to us as pilots is that there are now a number of incidents like this taking place across our industry and the vast majority of our flights are still defenseless," said Captain David Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance.

"If I were a member of Congress, I'd be asking some hard questions about why such a small percentage of flights have armed pilots or air marshals aboard, while the TSA whistles past the graveyard, asking us to believe none of this is related to terrorism," Mr. Mackett said.

Nearly five years after 911, the Department of Homeland Security has still done almost nothing to make the skies safer for air travelers.

According to Air Marshal P Jeffrey Black, “Agency management was not only covering up numerous probes and dry-run encounters from Congress and other federal law-enforcement agencies, it was also hiding these incidents from their own flying air marshals.”

To sum it all up, we know that Islamic terrorists have continued to probe our airport and homeland security defenses, looking for weakness and points of attack. During the past five years DHS officials have utterly failed to take any substantive measure to protect the American people from attack. The agency has covered up its own incompetence, burying reports about their incompetence.

The original inspector general’s report, which took two years to complete, was first released in 2006, only to be redacted in its entirety. The Washington Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the report, which was finally made public this past month.