I live in the portland area and can shed a little more light on this subject.
[b]Chaingun wrote:
Well...just a thought, maybe he works in a firecracker shop[/b]
No, this man did not work in a firecracker shop.
Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, 41, was the leader of a South West Portland Mosque that has been under investigation by the FBI, hence the "Sheik" that is before his name. His title would be somewhat similair to say a pastor of a church. This man Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman was the religious leader of the Mosque in South West Portland,Oregon.
FBI spokesperson Beth ann Steele of the Portland,Oregon FBI division has also said publically that Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman has no other job. They found this out by examing transactions in his bank account that showed a total of $85,000 worth of money so they did some research and found this man had no other employment in the area. Red flags went up due to the large amount of money in his account and he has no explanation to were the money came from at this point in time.
[b] 199 wrote:
At the risk of adopting a totally selfish view of this thread, I’m wondering how sensitive these machines are and what exactly constitutes “explosive residue”?
I’ve probably got small amounts of burnt gunpowder residue on everything I own.
And I do occasionally fertilize my yard.
I guess I’d be wise to stop the practice of emptying out my range bag and using it as luggage when flying![/b]
The explosives that were detected on his bag were not consistent with gun powder residue or fertilizer, it was consitent with explosive material that is used in TNT said FBI spokesperson Beth ann Steele of the Portland Oregon FBI division.
This guy has been under investigation for some time. The FBI put an under cover agent in the mosque back in August of 2002. Also concerning this mosque back a few months ago there was another individual that was a muslim of the extreme islmaic faith that was arrested on similar documents fraud, and during his arrest the FBI had found a number of full-automatic AK47's in his vehicle. He had said that he had them for protection due to the bias towards his race after the September 11 terror attacks.
Also concerning Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman, he was trying to get out of the country and was on his way to the United Arab Emerates, with no plans as to come back to the United States. These were plans that he had made out of the spur of the moment. So his trip was not a planned trip!
So given just a few of the facts at hand, this man is not being picked on. Sounds to me that the FBI has been watching him and he got scared and tried to evade before he got busted.
To me this sounds like a man who had some plans in the works for a terror attack possibly in this area, and the FBI might have thwarted it.
But we will most likely never know that aspect of the investigation. So one can only speculate.