Trinidad Muslims Fearful After NY Plot
Muslims in Trinidad, the southernmost island in the Caribbean, fear a backlash in the US after one of there compatriots has been accused of involvement in a plot to attack New York's Kennedy Airport.
"Now that you come from Trinidad, it is going to be hard enough but imagine traveling with a last name like Mohammed," a non-Muslim woman, who had a Muslim last name, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Monday, June 4, on condition of anonymity.
The Trinidadian women, who was scheduled to travel to the US next week, expects special and strict security measures in American airports over her name and nationality.
The US authorities charged on Saturday, June 2, a Trinidadian and three Guyanese, including a naturalized US citizen, of plotting to blow up Kennedy Airport's pipeline network.
They also pointed the finger at Trinidadian Muslim group Jamaat al-Muslimeen, which mounted a bloody coup in Trinidad in 1990s but is not listed by the US as a terrorist group.
Inshan Ishmael, founder of the Islamic Broadcast Network in Trinidad, told a local TV show that his station had been flooded by calls from citizens worried about planned trips to the US.
The fears were not without a ground.
Forty US pilgrims have threatened a boycott campaign against the Northwest Airlines, the fifth-largest US airline, over a recent profiling incident.
The incident came almost two months after six imams were removed from a domestic flight, handcuffed and detained in the airport for questioning for over five hours for what passengers considered suspicious behavior.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesman has recently announced a "Muslim Sensitivity Training" for airport officials.
No Real Threat
Goglia refuted suggestions the alleged plot would have triggered a series of big explosions.
Three days after what US security officials described as "the most chilling terrorist plot", American safety experts insisted the plot had little chance of success and did not pose a real threat to the country.
"The fantasy that I've heard about the people saying 'they will blow the tank and destroy the airport,' is nonsense," Jake Magish, an engineer with Supersafe Tank Systems, told AFP.
American officials had argued that the attack could have resulted in "unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction."
Magish said that even if the plot was successfully implemented, it would have had limited impact.
"There are people there responding to hysteria, I think. But from an engineering point of view, if someone is successful in blowing a hole into a tank, they will just have a fire from one tank," he averred.
"There is no way for the fire to go from tank to tank, that is nonsense. It just won't happen."
John Goglia, a former member of National Transportation Safety Board, concurred.
"You could definitely reach the tank, definitely start the fire, but to get the kind of explosion that they were thinking that they were going to get... this is virtually impossible to do."
He also ruled out a big explosion of the attack.
"There is a difference between just exploding the tank and a huge explosion.
"The tank may explode and blow up some metal, but that certainly wouldn't go very far."
Experts have questioned the plotters' ability to put their plans in place especially since they had neither the explosives nor the financial support.
They also cast doubt on the credibility of the informer, the main source of the probe, citing his background as a convicted drug dealer and a pledge by authorities to curtail his jail term in exchange for cooperation.
"There unfortunately has been a tendency to shout too loudly about such cases," Neal Sonnett, a former federal prosecutor, told The New York Times.
"To the extent that you over-hype a case, you create fear and paranoia."
News Agencies & IOL
The Trinidadian women, who was scheduled to travel to the US next week, expects special and strict security measures in American airports over her name and nationality.
The US authorities charged on Saturday, June 2, a Trinidadian and three Guyanese, including a naturalized US citizen, of plotting to blow up Kennedy Airport's pipeline network.
They also pointed the finger at Trinidadian Muslim group Jamaat al-Muslimeen, which mounted a bloody coup in Trinidad in 1990s but is not listed by the US as a terrorist group.
Inshan Ishmael, founder of the Islamic Broadcast Network in Trinidad, told a local TV show that his station had been flooded by calls from citizens worried about planned trips to the US.
The fears were not without a ground.
Forty US pilgrims have threatened a boycott campaign against the Northwest Airlines, the fifth-largest US airline, over a recent profiling incident.
The incident came almost two months after six imams were removed from a domestic flight, handcuffed and detained in the airport for questioning for over five hours for what passengers considered suspicious behavior.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesman has recently announced a "Muslim Sensitivity Training" for airport officials.
No Real Threat
Goglia refuted suggestions the alleged plot would have triggered a series of big explosions.
Three days after what US security officials described as "the most chilling terrorist plot", American safety experts insisted the plot had little chance of success and did not pose a real threat to the country.
"The fantasy that I've heard about the people saying 'they will blow the tank and destroy the airport,' is nonsense," Jake Magish, an engineer with Supersafe Tank Systems, told AFP.
American officials had argued that the attack could have resulted in "unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction."
Magish said that even if the plot was successfully implemented, it would have had limited impact.
"There are people there responding to hysteria, I think. But from an engineering point of view, if someone is successful in blowing a hole into a tank, they will just have a fire from one tank," he averred.
"There is no way for the fire to go from tank to tank, that is nonsense. It just won't happen."
John Goglia, a former member of National Transportation Safety Board, concurred.
"You could definitely reach the tank, definitely start the fire, but to get the kind of explosion that they were thinking that they were going to get... this is virtually impossible to do."
He also ruled out a big explosion of the attack.
"There is a difference between just exploding the tank and a huge explosion.
"The tank may explode and blow up some metal, but that certainly wouldn't go very far."
Experts have questioned the plotters' ability to put their plans in place especially since they had neither the explosives nor the financial support.
They also cast doubt on the credibility of the informer, the main source of the probe, citing his background as a convicted drug dealer and a pledge by authorities to curtail his jail term in exchange for cooperation.
"There unfortunately has been a tendency to shout too loudly about such cases," Neal Sonnett, a former federal prosecutor, told The New York Times.
"To the extent that you over-hype a case, you create fear and paranoia."
News Agencies & IOL
