It looks like this was a "dry run". The article even says that the TSA believes there were "mock bombs" in their luggage. One of them also did some suspicious things, like checking his baggage on one flight and then actually getting on another one.
The TSA probably gave them a little rope to see if they would incriminate someone their handler or other co-conspirators. As others have suggested, they were probably surrounded by air marshals.
These guys were on a trans-Atlantic flight and they knew exactly where they were landing. So, the US didn't need to arrest them until they might get away -- and the Dutch obliged by doing so.
In all fairness, I would have been really upset if I was on that flight. But, I think I can see why the TSA didn't collar these guys right away.
I thought TSA is in security business, not in investigations. It is a little distasteful to use a planeload of passengers as test subjects on which the two may or may not demonstrate their intentions.
Humans are dangerous to themselves and to everything else not because we have weapons, but because we think in a certain way. Do you believe that someone like Bruce Lee needs a 10" knife to kill someone? A pair of martial artists can kill everyone on the airplane if they want to, before anyone will even understand what's happening.
It looks to me like the TSA simply screwed up; those guys raised lots of red flags, but the bureaucracy couldn't figure out what to do... and so they let them go. While they were en route the message propagated to some other bureaucrat who realized what just happened and then ordered the pair arrested as soon as they land.
That is exactly what it was. The Pepto-Bismol is not a coincidence. PB is x-ray opaque. They were testing security.
Entirely reasonable assumptions. The question (among others I have) is: does the fact that their arrest and/or detention has been made public give their associates info? Or, is the govt lying about discovering everything and deciding it was no big deal, when maybe what happened it is we missed it all and it was only Amsterdam that caught them? I am not a knee-jerk ideologue but I do not trust Obama or his peeps.
That depends. At what point did they find the suspicious items in the checked bags?