LOS ANGELES, 16 August 2003 — Two Pakistanis are being held in the city of Seattle after trying to buy airline tickets while their names appeared on terrorism watch lists, officials said yesterday.
The men, who have not been identified, are being held on immigration charges following their detention last Saturday as officials looked into whether they could have any links with terrorist groups.
“We are investigating how they entered the US and whether they are here legally or not,” said Mike Milne of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “There are no criminal charges filed against them right now.”
Officials at the Transportation Security Administration, set up after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, confirmed the men were on watch lists set up to thwart possible new terror strikes. “Both of the men were on the no-fly list,” TSA spokesman Nico Melendez.
“That lists targets people suspected of posing a threat to civil aviation or national security,” he said. The pair was trying to pay cash for tickets at Seattle Tacoma International Airport for separate flights to New York, one on American Airlines and the other on a small carrier called JetBlue.
One of the men fled the airport when check-in agents became suspicious and security was called, officials said.
Federal officials are now looking into whether either of the men had associates who may have been planning to fly or assisting them to do so, the Seattle Times newspaper said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation however declined to comment on the detentions.
