Posted on 08/11/2006 11:26:54 AM PDT by NoFoxholeAthiests
Six of the 11 Egyptian exchange students who recently entered the United States and failed to show up for their college program were in custody Thursday after three more were arrested, officials said.
Police arrested Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Abou El Ela, 22, at O'Hare International Airport after he tried to check in for a Chicago-to-Montana flight using an invalid ticket marked for a New York departure, Chicago police said.
El Ela raised his voice and became unruly after an employee at a Delta ticket counter refused to let him exchange the ticket for a valid one, said Timothy J. Bolger, the Chicago police officer at the scene. "He was loud and causing people to be alarmed," Bolger said. The officer said El Ela calmed down when police arrived.
After federal officials confirmed El Ela was one of the students they were seeking, police turned him over to immigration agents, Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline said.
Two other students, El Sayed Ahmed Elsayed Ibrahim, 20, and Alaa Abd El Fattah Ali El Bahnasawi, 20, were arrested at a residence in Dundalk, Md., outside Baltimore, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the FBI said.
All are being held on administrative immigration violations because they did not report on time to their monthlong program at Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont.
A group of 17 students, six of whom reported to Bozeman on time, arrived in New York on July 29. After Montana State repeatedly tried to contact the missing students, it notified Department of Homeland Security officials and registered the Egyptians as no-shows in a system developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to track foreign students.
None of the students is considered a terrorism risk, and FBI officials stressed there are no ties between the Egyptians and the alleged terror plot broken up by British authorities.
The other five students were still being sought. Relatives in Egypt explained the students' failure to show up at Montana State by saying they probably wanted to find work in the United States.
"It must have been in his mind to stay where there are plenty of job opportunities," said Ibrahim el-Dessouki, the father of a student arrested Wednesday in Minnesota. "You know how much a dollar is worth here in Egypt."
He said he spoke to his son when he arrived in the United States but has not since.
This plane most likely was shot down from a ship and I am not in any way inferring that it was one of our own planes. That bullship story was put out by the slick administration. Probably concocted by Blumenthal.
Always a good idea when dealing with CPD.
I suspect they are saying this as a way to catch them off guard?
cue Paul Simon's America... NOT!
Ahem...ya do have a point there.
I'm sure they were just engaging in terrorist activities Americans weren't willing to engage in.
uh...how the others been found yet? IF NOT, WHY NOT?
Another article posted here at FR said that the plotters in England were dispersed in 3 separate 'cells', and that the authorities did not know if there were more, despite the surveillance. Also, that this unsureity as to whether they got all the plotters has led to the clamping down on carry-on items on flights just in case.
I'm wondering whether these clowns, and their accompanying highly publicized search which started a few days ago, caused the handlers of the British plotters to give the go-ahead to their plans and this caused the authorities to panic and order the rounding up of the British plotters.
they must be driving across america- visiting wal marts and buying lots of phones so they can call home.....those 4 weeks could get lonely ya know....
and those 4 weeks just happen to fall in the time frame of August 16th........
and the FBI wants to assure us that these students are no threat.....
I am so sick of gov't and media thinking we are that stupid.......
Work that Americans won't do -- e.g., a little aviation bomb-making.
Really, now?
Sorry. I thought they were allowed to work part-time on a student visa.
Savage has pictures of these guys up at www.michaelsavage.com. They look like such nice boys....
What do you want to bet it was a FEMALE who told him he couldn't exchange his ticket?
What is the reporting obligation of a University when one or more of its foreign students goes adrift?
If you live there you can. However, Montana is a bit far away to commute from the cities you mentioned. I've been told they cannot work while here on a student visa. So it doesn't matter.
This guy should be the next Sec'y General at the UN.
The student visa doesn't include work authorization.
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