WASHINGTON - Two U.S. residents of Yemeni descent who flew from Chicago to Amsterdam on Sunday night were detained by Dutch police after landing Monday in a bizarre episode that U.S. officials feared might have been a dry run for a terrorist plot, though nothing was confirmed.
A search of one of the men by security screeners in Birmingham, Ala., as he waited to board a flight to Chicago on Sunday found that his luggage contained a cell phone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, three cell phones taped together and several watches taped together, a law enforcement official said. Because no evidence of explosives was found, the man, a 48-year-old Detroit resident, was permitted to fly on to Chicago, where he and the second man boarded the flight to Amsterdam.
But officials discovered that at Birmingham, the 48-year-old passenger had checked his luggage on flights to Washington, D.C., and to San'a, Yemen, by way of Dubai.
The luggage was retrieved without incident, but the two men were detained in Holland at U.S. officials' request.
NEW YORK TIMES
