Resident Finds Backpack w/Arabic Notebook (short Title)

The Sierra Vista Herald | February 12, 2003 | Bill Hess

[HiJinx]

On his property, resident finds backpack
containing diary with Arabic writing

By Bill Hess
Herald/Review

Hereford, AZ -- It is not unusual to find backpacks near their home, but a local man and his wife were surprised to find one that contained a diary written in Arabic.

Click to see a (much) larger scan of this photo.

Walter Kolbe said he was chasing some javelinas away from his home Thursday when he stumbled upon the backpack. He said he brought it home and didn't think much about the find.

He and his wife, May, went away for the weekend. When they returned Sunday, his wife's curiosity led her to look into the backpack. That's when she discovered the diary.

A path used by illegal immigrants is on their property, which is on the east side of the San Pedro River, Walter said.

"I found it (the backpack) about a hundred yards from the house, near a barbed-wire fence," he said. "I was just going to throw it in the trash."

After his wife went through the backpack, which included dirty clothing, they decided not to discard the material because of the diary.

Most of the writing was in Arabic, though there was some Spanish writing in it as well, May Kolbe said.

Looking through the small book, she noticed two names and telephone numbers -- one listing in Canada and the other Iran -- and confirmed the beginning numbers were the international codes for those two countries.

Walter Kolbe called the FBI on Monday morning and agreed to bring the diary by the local office the next time he was in Sierra Vista. The FBI representative also told him that if the agent with responsibility for terrorism investigation thought the diary was important they would make arrangements to pick it up.

Such turned out to be the case. An agent called Tuesday and said they would show up to pick up the material, which they did that morning.

The Kolbes said they wonder how many Middle Eastern people are coming into the United States illegally.

Rob Daniels, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said he is not allowed to talk about the number of non-Mexicans his agency detains.

"We can't get into specifics about the number," Daniels said.

Mario Villarreal, (sic) a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, D.C., said 99.4 percent of the 955,310 people apprehended by the agency from Oct. 1, 2001, through Sept. 30, 2002, were from the Americas, which includes Canada, Mexico and other Central and South American nations. The remainder comes from 140 countries, he said.

"Because of 9-11 (the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001) there has ben restrictions and guidelines when talking about special interest countries," he said.

The decision not to be specific about how many people come from the Middle East is a directive of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, he said.

However, the Border Patrol continues to seek information about illegal immigrants and individuals are encouraged to call (877) 872-7435.

[HiJinx]

This was transcribed by myself from tonight's newspaper.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[A. Morgan]

Thanks for taking the time to enter this. Great work!

[Siobhan]

Declare Islam and enemy ideology, deport every non-US citizen Muslim, and close every mosque and Islamic center.

[TheBattman]

And why is it we haven't closed the borders and increased border patrols ???????

[PoisedWoman]

Thanks! Your hard work was worthwhile.

I wonder whether they gave the entire backpack to authorities or just the diary. If you watch CSI, you know that all kinds of clues, fibngerprints, DNA hair samples, etc most likely dwell in that dingy backpack..perhaps even dust specks that would identify country of origin. Stuff that might not be specified in diary, though that could be a huge find.

[pttttt]

You would know this, but for those who don't live in Sierra Vista - in the desert about 70 miles out of Tucson -- here's what else is there:

US Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca.

Not a lot there for tourists and not a lot of jobs outside the Fort. It's a funny place for Arab visitors to be playing house.

There have been other threads about Arab visitors playing house in Sierra Vista.

[TLBSHOW]

close every mosque and Islamic center.

bump

[HiJinx]

Now, don't be dissin' my home! There's lots to do here...shoot jackrabbits, take pictures of illegals, watch the mountains erode...

Why, just the other day...


LOL!!!!

[HiJinx]

Pinging you two to another installment in our border saga.

But now, it's off to bed for me. Not much sense waiting up for the database maintenance to happen!

See y'all in the AM.

[Illbay]

SO WHAT DID THE DIARIES SAY?!?!?

I understand the FBI might want to be mum about it, but hasn't someone bothered to translate the bit that you can see in the photo, at least?

[piasa]

fyi

[Illbay]

...close every mosque and Islamic center.

And shred the Constitution.

[dagnabbit]

Deporting our enemies and keeping out their friends would be insensitive. Better that we scurry around after duct tape and bottled water.

Tancredo for President.

[John H K]

The writing is Arabic but that doesn't mean the actual text is.

Other languages written in Arabic include Kashmiri, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian/Farsi, Sindhi, Turkish, Uyghur, and Urdu.

[ChemistCat]

Bump to the top because it's an INTERESTING article and promises to be an even MORE interesting discussion.

[John H K]

I suspect it's Farsi(Persian), actually, given the phone # in Iran.

Not that I can read Farsi.

[slimer]

This is great! They don't want us to know how many arabs are sneeking into the country but they tell us to go out and buy duct tape and plastic to cover the windows.

What a freaking joke!

[John H K]

They don't want us to know how many arabs are sneeking into the country

There's a large possibility this wasn't an Arab as there are hundreds of millions of non-Arabs that use languages that use the Arabic alphabet.