We are at war after all. - The scuttlebutt is making it's way off the web and into the main media now.
The terrifying incident on Flight 327 I noted Monday in the post, A Must Read Domestic Airline Experience: Flight #327, is now getting legs and making stops on bigger media outlets from print to TV.
Michelle Malkin has been following the info closely since it broke and she has a post about a man named Clint Taylor and an article he did for National Review Online. Through some Googling, he found what is apparently the Syrian Musical group in question. The artist is someone named Nour Mehana and all the Syrian men were apparently a backup band.
So the gist is that it may have just been a music group after all and no terrorism was at it's heart.
Sure thing? Maybe, but I don't know.
I think it possible that a band traveling with a fairly popular Arab singer is still capable of going out in a blaze of jihad madness. Makes for a good cover or at the very least a good way of testing security. I imagine that if the terrorists could learn to fly passenger aircraft into buildings they could also learn to play musical instruments as a cover.
Should it prove that they were nothing more than musicians with bad attitudes (big surprise) I think we have learned three important things from this situation.
- We are still vulnerable.
- Our citizenry recognizes our enemy as having certain behavioral characteristics.
- And our citizenry is still alert to the possible terrorist dangers in everyday living experience.
What I find interesting is that this story is bringing to light several other incidents of similar nature which is being reported in the Washington Times today by Audrey Hudson.
Hudson reports that a similar incident like that on Northwest Airlines Flight 327 happened on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport back on February 15. Other things she notes is Middle Eastern men video taping and taking photographs inside planes on flights of cockpit doors and the like.
Hudson also writes:
A second pilot said that, on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period.
The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side.
The second pilot said terrorists are "absolutely" testing security.
Vigilance by all is needed. Along with prayer.
