|
U.S. Flight Cancelled as FBI Detains Two Passengers
NEW YORK, Oct 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S.-based Delta Air Lines cancelled a flight from New York to Amsterdam on Friday after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detained two passengers, the airline said.
Delta flight 80, which was due to leave New York's John F. Kennedy Airport at around 8:15 pm Friday (0015 GMT Saturday) was canceled because of a "security-related incident," spokeswoman Tracey Bowen said from Atlanta.
"The flight was canceled after two passengers were detained by the FBI," she said, adding that the remaining passengers would be put on later flights to the Netherlands.
Bowen, however, declined to say why the passengers had been detained or to reveal the reason why the flight was canceled.
The United States is on its highest state of alert after the FBI warned Thursday that further terror attacks were possible in the United States in the next few days.
More than 5,000 people are dead or missing following the September 11th attacks here in which hijackers slammed two passenger jets into New York's World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon in Washington.
Airline and airport security have been dramatically boosted, amid warnings by aides to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, Washington's prime suspect behind the strikes, that similar attacks could occur.
In a new statement released by bin Laden's network al-Qaeda, his aide Suleiman Abu Ghaith warned that as long as unjust U.S. foreign policies remained in place, America's security was at risk.
"The storm of airplanes will not be calmed, if it is God's will," Abu Ghaith said in a pre-recorded message broadcast by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television station early Sunday.
"The storm will not calm as long as you [the United States and Britain] do not end your support for the Jews in Palestine, lift your embargo from around the Iraqi people, and have left the Arabian peninsula," he said in Arabic in the fourth such statement since the terrorist attacks in the United States.
"We tell and recommend Muslims not to get on airplanes and not to live in towers and high buildings" in the countries which have carried out or helped with the military strikes against Afghanistan, Abu Ghaith said.
"It's just propaganda," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise told AFP when asked to comment about Ghaith's statement.
She said the White House would issue no further comment at the moment.
He had mentioned the "storm of airplanes" in the last Al-Qaeda message on Tuesday and urged "all Muslims" to join in a
jihad, or holy war, in defense of Afghanistan.
"The Americans must know the storm of airplanes will not stop," he said.
However, U.S. Secretary of State Powell the next day dismissed the threats as a "chilling challenge" that the United States was prepared to face down.
"It's a chilling challenge," Powell said on NBC television's "Today" program. "But I assure you we will meet that challenge. We will pursue this campaign until that spokesman will no longer have any reason to make such boasts."
|
