This doesn't sound good:
CEREDO, W.Va. - A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated Thursday after two bottles of liquid found in a woman's carry-on luggage twice tested positive for explosives, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said.
"The bomb squad is on site and the woman is being interviewed by the FBI," Amy von Walter said.A machine security checkpoint screeners use to test for explosives registered positive, and a canine team also got a positive hit, von Walter said.
Airport manager Larry Salyers said the bottles would be moved by robot to a remote area of the airport where officials would attempt to detonate them. National Guard and State Police explosive experts will conduct chemical field tests to determine what's inside them, he said.
Salyers said he was told the woman was 28-year-old native of Pakistan who had moved to Huntington from Jackson, Mich. He did not know how long she had lived in Huntington.
It could easily be a "dry run" -- an attempt to test airport security. But even if this turns out not to have been an explosive liquid at all, it's a timely reminder that terrorists are testing our safety procedures and systems constantly.
And by the way, this woman who disrupted a London-to-Washington flight yesterday may have been conducting her little own "freelance" dry run. If the bizarre behavior she's reported to have engaged in is true, she definitely has some issues, but she also should be held responsible for doing her part to try to undermine airline security. And James Taranto points out in the link above that the suspect, Catherine C. Mayo, is also a card-carrying member of the hard left suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome:
Passengers on a London-to-Washington flight got quite a scare yesterday, less than a week after the foiling of a massive plot to bomb planes departing from London and the day on which, according to some reports, the plot had been scheduled to be carried out. The Boston Globe reports:
A 59-year-old Vermont woman's behavior aboard a trans-Atlantic flight triggered a massive security response yesterday, with Air Force F-15 jets escorting the plane to [Boston's] Logan Airport, where federal agents seized the woman, authorities interrogated passengers, and police dogs sniffed through luggage for explosives.
The woman was found not to be a terrorist threat. . . . The woman, identified by two local security officials as Catherine C. Mayo, will probably be charged today with interfering with a flight crew, authorities said. Mayo's former husband said she had "emotional issues" and had been on her way home from vacationing in Pakistan. . . .
About an hour into the flight, passengers said in interviews, Mayo began nervously pacing up and down the aisle while wearing an oversized sweatshirt and muttering to herself. At different times, she told passengers that she suffered from claustrophobia and that she was an undercover reporter testing flight security. At one point, Mayo urinated on the floor, passengers said.
Then, Mayo began screaming at flight attendants who were trying to calm her. Two male passengers stepped in, subdued her, and restrained her with handcuffs provided by a flight crew member. The two passengers, a corrections officer and a federal air marshal in training, took the woman to the back of the plane and sat beside her until the plane landed, authorities said. She continued mumbling to herself but seemed calm by the time the plane touched down at Logan, passengers said.
Boston's WCVB-TV adds some details:
"She showed a lighter and was like, 'They let me bring this on the plane. I'm a journalist, and I'm going to try to sneak stuff on the plane,' " passenger Matthew Bolton said.
That account was unconfirmed by authorities, but NewsCenter 5 learned there was a Catherine Mayo from Vermont who wrote for the Daily Times of Pakistan in 2003. The woman who was arrested is a U.S. citizen, authorities said.
Searching the Pakistan Times Web site, we found five of Mayo's columns, all from 2003:
- "State of the Union 2003," Feb. 25
- "The Blue Planet," March 4
- "Value of Dissent," March 18
- "Letter to My Granddaughters," June 24
- "Freedom After 9/11," July 22
Here's a sample of her writing, from the first article listed above:
I think the US people have forgotten that President Bush didn't win the election. He only got the job because they couldn't decide what to do with pregnant chads in Florida. . . . When President Bush announced that God was telling him to bomb Iraq [ed. note -- I'd like to see that transcript], my stomach turned over. He has no right to include God in his State of the Union address. [ed. note -- Huh??] It is forbidden by law; the church and state are completely separate in the United States. [ed. note: obviously not a legal expert here.] No politically elected person can use religion for his own ends. [ed. note: Apparently "using religion" is reserved for persons not politically elected, like Islamic tyrants. Elected leaders are must abandon their religion when they take office, never mention it again, and make up their own moral rules on the fly.]
The government of the US has changed in the last few months, and the citizens of the country haven't noticed yet. It has become an oligarchy. Its leaders rule with a wave of their hands, laughing into their sleeves. They can create any truth they want, and then create proof that it is real. They are accountable to no one. . . .
The people of the US don't have power anymore. That's what the Muslim world needs to understand. When President Bush says that he is God [ed.: Is anyone planning to produce that transcript?], the ordinary people go out and shovel the snow out of their driveways. [ed.: who else should be shoveling the snow from their driveways?] There is nothing else they can do."
So if she's the same "Catherine Mayo," the woman suffers from simultaneous severe cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome and Muslim anti-American hatred.
You are duly warned. There is trouble in the land and in the air. It is being fueled not only by Islamic Arab jealousy and hatred, but also by vocal elements in our own American left. That makes it doubly dangerous, for the menacing enemy abroad has joined ranks with the insidious enemy within. Of course, America's left will be destroyed if the enemy abroad ever prevails, but the left doesn't know that. They are lost in their own world of jealousy and hatred. They want to regain control of the White House, the Congress, and the courts. They are willing to attack our commander in chief in wartime to achieve that goal. They are in the process of attempting to dismantle program after program that is vital to our national security.
And Islamic terrorists want it all -- everything that America is -- for the caliphate, and have demonstrated time and time again that they are willing to do anything, including mass murder of innocent civilians, to achieve that goal.
Perhaps more than any other time in America's history, we are threatened by enemies both foreign and domestic.
Continue to be on the alert and report anything suspicious.
Don't grow weary or bored. We'll need endless stamina to prevail in the war on Islamic terror.
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