Colorado Mom Arrested in Ireland Terror Case Released

Second woman arrested in cartoonist terror plot

UPDATE: Irish police release U.S. woman held in plot. An American woman and three others arrested in Ireland over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish artist Lars Vilks have been freed without charge, Irish police said Saturday.

Seven people — including the American woman, three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian and a Croatian — were arrested Tuesday in Ireland. Irish police said three others who were also arrested remained in custody and were being questioned.

Source

Original Post

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a Colorado mother has been arrested in connection with an assassination attempt on a Swedish cartoonist. This is the second American woman to be arrested in terror investigations this week.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, was arrested in Ireland with several other suspected terror conspirators. She is in the custody of the Irish police, along with six other individuals, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit murder.

Ramirez is described as a mother who had a $30,000-a-year job as a medical assistant in Leadville.

Ramirez disappeared on Sept. 11 and later told her family she went to Ireland with her 6-year-old son and married an Algerian whom she met online, her mother Christine Mott of Leadville told The Associated Press. The Wall Street Journal, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the case, reported on its Web site that Paulin-Ramirez was being held in the alleged plot.

Denver FBI officials said they did not have an open case on Paulin-Ramirez. Her stepfather, George Mott, said the FBI seized a desktop computer in late September but did not tell the family what they found.

WSJ Article Source.

KDVR Denver – Source

NWA Flight 253 – Passengers Recall Details of Terror Incident

Passengers aboard NWA flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit are talking about an apparent failed terror attack and the 23-year-old passenger from Nigeria who they say tried to ignite a powdery substance on board the aircraft. We’ll continue to add additional passenger accounts of the incident as they become available.

Source

From The Wall Street Journal – Routine Turned to Mayhem on Terror Flight

Seconds after passengers spotted flames climbing above the back of a window seat midway down the left side of Northwest Flight 253, Friday’s routine descent toward Detroit’s main airport turned into horror, mayhem and instant heroism.

Just as the wide-body Airbus A330 made a rumbling sound as the landing gear started down, horrified travelers in seats around the young Nigerian later detained as a terrorism suspect started screaming, according to eyewitness reports by passengers. Flight attendants quickly joined the hubbub around the man in seat 19A, repeatedly screaming “What are you doing?”

There was a pop and then smoke wafted through the cabin. A passenger then climbed over several seats, lunged across the aisle and managed to subdue the suspect, the eyewitnesses said. The Nigerian man was placed in a headlock before being dragged up to the first class cabin. Passenger Zeina Seagal told CNN that after the suspect was collared and parts of his burning pants were removed, flight attendants quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and doused the fire at his seat.

“We saw the fear in the flight attendants eyes” when they ran in the aisles and “grabbed the fire extinguishers,” Michelle Keepman, a passenger who had been seated near the back of the plane, recalled.

Many of those seated further back didn’t initially understand the reason for all the commotion. Roey Rosenblith, a director of a solar-power start up in Uganda, was in seat 38J, near the rear exits, when he heard the sounds of a struggle coming from many rows ahead. “People were yelling and screaming,” he recalled hours later in an interview, sipping a bottle of water at a hotel near the airport.

Read Full Article

From The New York Times – From a ‘Pop’ to a Headlock, Passengers Recall Flight 253

“We heard a pop and the next thing you know it was a fire,” Calvin Kakar, a passenger on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, told The Detroit Free Press. He was among the 278 passengers on a trans-Atlantic flight to Detroit that ended with the arrest of a man who tried to ignite an explosive device in what officials are calling an attempted terrorist attack. Travelers recounted the confusing series of events to news organizations waiting for them at the gate of Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

“It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase,” said Peter Smith, who was also quoted by The Free Press.

But after the ignition of the device, the sequence of events as remembered by the passengers grows hazy.

“There was a little bit of light, a little bit of — kind of flamish light and there was fire,” Syed Jafry, who said he was sitting three rows behind the suspect, told CNN. “And people began to panic.”

“There’s a lady shouted, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ ” said Elias Sawaz, in an interview with WXYZ-TV in Detroit.

Some remembered the practical effort to put out the fire.

Read Full Article

Suspicious Letters Containing White Powder Forces Evacuation of WSJ Offices

Two floors of the Manhattan offices of The Wall Street Journal were evacuated Wednesday after the

The suspicious mails, in identical, white envelopes with Tennessee postmarks, were addressed to several New York-based WSJ executives, the paper said in a story on its website.

The two evacuated floors housed news, editorial and executive personnel, the paper said, adding that only a core group of editors remained in the building to ensure production of newspaper for Thursday and that others were sent home or to back-up facilities.

Officials from the New York City Police Department and Department of Environmental Protection are on the scene.

The suspicious envelopes, addressed by hand in pen, arrived with different return addresses in Tennessee. One envelope was addressed to Robert Thomson, the paper’s managing editor. It was opened by one of his assistants.

The Wall Street Journal is published by News Corp.’s Dow Jones &Co.

An executive of Dow Jones emailed the paper’s New York City-based employees, cautioning them not to open any mail.

“While we don’t think there is cause for alarm at this time, we are asking everyone not to open any mail while we investigate,” Dow Jones vice president of communications Howard Hoffman said in the email.

Last October, the New York offices of the New York Times and Reuters had to be evacuated for several hours after receiving letters with suspicious white powder.