It started as a routine flight from Detroit to Los Angeles. But what followed would plunge the US into another Sept. 11 panic.
A simple, if frightening, account of a plane flight on an obscure US Web site has become something else in the paranoid world of post-Sept. 11 air travel. Annie Jacobsen's tale of flying to Los Angeles with 14 "Middle Eastern-looking" men quickly generated a storm of controversy.
It caused airline whistleblowers to come forward with lurid tales of lapses in security against terrorists.
It threw a spotlight on rumors and warnings of terrorists carrying out dry runs for future hijackings.
But it also revealed an unpleasant underbelly of fear and loathing among ordinary passengers who are terrified of seeing a dark-skinned male face board their plane.
It showed a world in which passengers saw terrorists around every corner and in which an innocent band of Arab musicians going to play a gig were mistaken for suicidal jihadis intent on mayhem.
For Jacobsen, a writer for a finance and lifestyle Web site, the sight of six men of Middle Eastern appearance waiting for her Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles was not an initial source of concern.
But when the six men boarded, she noticed eight others were also getting on board. It is then that Jacobsen's controversial account takes on the tone of a cheap airport thriller. Though seated in different places, Jacobsen noticed that all the men knew each other. "We watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other. They continued to look at each other and nod, as if they were all in agreement about something," Jacobsen wrote.
Things soon went from bad to worse. Jacobsen described how the men began making frequent trips to the lavatory.
One took a paper bag inside and then emerged without it. The men would congregate in groups. One man, in a dark suit and wearing sunglasses, was seated in first class in the seat closest to the cockpit door.
Jacobsen said she smiled at one of the men, whom she had exchanged pleasantries with while boarding. "The man did not smile back. In fact, the cold, defiant look he gave me sent shivers down my spine," she said.
Soon, other passengers were scared too. The pilot was informed, flight attendants wrote notes to each other and Jacobsen's husband was assured by one of them that air marshals were monitoring the group.
Just as the plane was cleared to land, suddenly seven of the men jumped up to go to the lavatory at the same time. One female passenger began to cry as the men entered the toilet one by one. In Jacobsen's own words: "The last man came out of the bathroom, and as he passed ... he ran his forefinger across his neck and mouthed the word `No.'"
The plane then landed safely. As relieved passengers disembarked the 14 men were shuffled over to one side where they were taken away for questioning by airport authorities and the police. Jacobsen went to the FBI.
The authorities interviewed her at length. She later found out that the men had claimed to be a musical group.
"Do I think these men were musicians? I'll let you decide," Jacobsen's story concluded.
"But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?" she wrote.
Jacobsen's account was an instant hit. Jacobsen's magazine Web site, Womenswallstreet.com, was soon getting 100 times its normal amount of hits. The story spread rapidly. Jacobsen was interviewed by newspapers, radio shows and television.
Suddenly pilots, air stewards and air marshals began contacting her. They told stories of terrorist hit squads testing the airline's security system. "The terrorists are probing us all the time," said Gary Boettcher, a director at the Allied Pilots Association. An American Airlines pilot, Mark Bogosian, said terrorist dry runs were the "dirty little secret" of the airline industry.
But there was one problem in Jacobsen's account. The 14 men claiming to be musicians were, in fact, exactly that.
Nour Mehana, a well-known Syrian singer, had been travelling on the plane along with his entire backing band. James Cullen of Athem Artists confirmed that Mehana and the band were on the same flight as Jacobsen. The band went on to play a gig on the outskirts of San Diego.
The incident has outraged many Arab and US civil rights groups. "It is judging someone by their skin color or their religion. It has become par for the course in the post-Sept. 11 era," said Ibrahim Hooper, a director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in