Two Yemeni men who arrived in Amsterdam on a flight from Chicago were arrested by Dutch authorities Monday and charged with preparing a terrorist attack after officials found suspicious items in their luggage, Dutch and U.S. officials said.
U.S. authorities requested the arrest after discovering that one of the men had checked his luggage from Chicago to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, then left Chicago on a different flight to Amsterdam, said a U.S. official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.
The luggage sent to Virginia contained a cell phone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, in addition to three cell phones taped together and several watches taped together.
The owner of the luggage, Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, a Yemeni citizen who lives in Detroit, also was carrying $7,000 in cash, said a Dutch official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
After sending his luggage to Dulles, al Soofi was joined in Chicago by a second man, Hezam al Murisi, and the two men flew on United Airlines flight 908 to Amsterdam. U.S. air marshals were aboard the flight.
Al Soofi's luggage was flown to Virginia and was headed for Dubai, then Yemen. But once authorities learned al Soofi had taken a different flight, federal officials in Virginia ordered the aircraft to return to the gate to remove his luggage. Another inspection revealed no explosives.
Yemeni men were testing flight security of U.S. with some abandoned luggage
This had to have been some sort of test run for something. Empty bottles with electronics attached? Really? What else would that be?
Airport Business, via the Virginian-Pilot newspaper site:
Click the link for the whole article as on Airport Business.
- jR (AirFarceOne on Twitter)
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