JammieWearingFool has lots of updates and information on the attempted hijacking of a small commuter plane in New Zealand, by a Somali woman who was curiously not identified in early reports.

Woman passenger attacks pilots on New Zealand domestic flight.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A knife-wielding woman stormed the cockpit of a New Zealand domestic flight Friday, stabbed both pilots and threatened to blow up the plane before she was subdued, police said.

The Air National flight landed safetly at Christchurch in southern New Zealand and the 33-year-old woman was arrested, police said. None of the seven passengers were injured, but the pilot suffered a severely cut hand in the attack and the co-pilot was injured on the foot.

Police did not say who restrained the woman aboard the flight.

The flight took off from the regional city of Blenheim, 70 kilometers (40 miles) south of the capital of Wellington, bound for the tourist city of Christchurch, about 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of the capital.

Christchurch police commander Dave Cliff said the woman— a Blenheim resident but originally from Somalia — entered the cockpit and attacked the pilots before being restrained. She had said there was a bomb on board, Cliff said.

Two men hijacked a plane flying to Istanbul this morning, apparently as a “protest” against the United States. The incident ended without violence, thankfully, but one of the hijackers produced our line of the day.

Turkey’s Transport Minister Osman Gunes said one hijacker is Turkish, while the other is believed to be Palestinian carrying a Syrian passport. Passenger Erhan Erkul told NTV that the hijackers ran toward the cockpit shortly after takeoff, tried to break down the door but failed. “They claimed to have bombs,” Erkul said.

Passengers speaking to NTV and CNN-Turk said the hijackers spoke Arabic to each other and promised not to harm the passengers. “We are Muslims,” the passengers quoted one of the hijackers as saying.

Well, that must have been reassuring.

The Associated Press includes no information whatsoever about the attackers in their article about a bus hijacking in Italy, except that they were “gunmen:” Gunmen hijack bus in northern Italy.

Whenever I see such a deliberately uninformative and obfuscated report, I start suspecting that the media are covering up for Muslim terrorists again.

One line in the BBC’s article strongly suggests that’s the case: Armed men ‘hijack Italian coach’.

Three armed men seized a bus travelling on a motorway in northern Italy, injuring an off-duty police officer before abandoning the vehicle. All the passengers on the bus were released unharmed after the attack.

The attack took place on a stretch of motorway in the province of Alessandria, some 60 miles (90km) northeast of the city of Turin.

Police said they had captured one of the men and surrounded a farmhouse where the second was hiding. The third of the three men, all believed to be of North African origin, is reported to have escaped.

In the post-9/11 world, this is how you deal with airplane hijackers: Mauritania plane passengers beat up hijacker.

MADRID (Reuters) - Passengers on a hijacked Air Mauritania plane ended the ordeal when they stormed the cockpit and beat up the lone gunman after the aircraft landed in Spain’s Canary Islands on Thursday night, Spanish police said.

As armed police surrounded the Boeing 737 on the runway, five passengers and the co-pilot burst into the cockpit and knocked the hijacker to the ground before beating him up, a police spokesman said.

“When we landed at Las Palmas … we entered (the cockpit) and hit him and knocked him down,” one passenger told television station CNN+.

The fight gave the crew time to let in security forces, who swiftly arrested the man, the police spokesman said.

Spanish police could not corroborate reports from a Mauritanian source on Thursday who said the pilot had deliberately braked hard on landing, knocking the hijacker off his feet and that he had then been jumped on by passengers. The source also said the hijacker had fired two bullets during the scuffle, but that no-one had been seriously injured.

The United States is offering a reward for Islamic Jihad kingpin Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad, and the Iranian-backed terror gang is seething: Islamic Jihad threatens to target U.S. over leader.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group on Tuesday threatened to retaliate against the United States if it tried to capture its Damascus-based leader.

Washington said on Monday it would offer a $5-million reward for information leading to the capture of Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, the Islamic Jihad leader. It offered the same amount for a member of Lebanese Hezbollah.

“Violent operations will target all American interests if they attempt to harm the secretary-general, Dr. Ramadan Shallah,” said Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad’s armed wing.

The United States is now offering rewards for an infamous Hizballah member and an Islamic Jihad kingpin: $5 million U.S. reward for Hezbollah, Jihad suspects.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday offered rewards of up to $5 million each for a member of Lebanese Hezbollah and a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both of which the United States regards as terrorist groups.

The State Department identified one of the men as Mohammed Ali Hamadei, saying the alleged Lebanese Hezbollah member took part in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 that resulted in the murder of U.S. sailor Robert Stethem.

Hamadei, believed to be living in Lebanon, was indicted in 1985 on 15 charges for his role in planning and taking part in the hijacking, the State Department said in a statement.

The State Department named the other as Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, saying he is wanted for conspiracy to conduct the affairs of Palestinian Islamic Jihad through activities such as bombings, murder, extortions and money laundering.

Previously at LGF:
Germany Releases Convicted Terrorist
Terrorist Released by Germany Walks Free in Lebanon

The incident we reported last night, in which 6 Muslim men were removed from a plane at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, seems to have been a false alarm—and the Council on American Islamic Relations is right there, seething and complaining of prejudice: 6 Muslim Imams Removed From Plane, Group Was Saying Evening Prayers Prior To Boarding Plane In Minneapolis.

(AP) The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Tuesday for an investigation into the behavior of airline staff and airport security in the removal of six Muslim scholars from a US Airways flight a day earlier.

A passenger raised concerns about the imams — three of whom said their normal evening prayers in the airport terminal before boarding the Phoenix-bound plane, according to one — through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways.

“We are concerned that crew members, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam,” Nihad Awad, the council’s executive director, said in a news release.

The six were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Omar Shahin of Phoenix, president of the group. “They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way,” Shahin said after the incident.

Shahin said Tuesday that three members of the group prayed in the terminal before the six boarded the plane. They entered individually, except for one member who is blind and needed to be guided, Shahin said. Once on the plane, the six did not sit together, he said. …

Police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused, Rader said. Shahin said no one asked the six to leave until police arrived, when the group complied.

“Unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airports, and it’s one that we’ve been addressing for some time,” council spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.

Hooper said the meeting drew about 150 imams from all over the country, and that those attending included Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who just became the first Muslim elected to Congress. Shahin said they went as far as notifying police and the FBI about their meeting in advance.

Shahin expressed frustration that — despite extensive efforts by him and other Muslim leaders since even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — so many Americans know so little about Islam. “If up to now they don’t know about prayers, this is a real problem,” he said.

Why in the world would Americans be suspicious of Muslims loudly, publicly praying on airplanes? Go figure.

Lileks has an interesting note:

According to the TV, the men said they were in town for “a religious conference.” Interesting. I was talking today with a guy I know; he’d been at a suburban hotel for an annual company sales meeting. The regional manager was having a difficult time speaking, since the party in the next conference room was praying about as loudly as is humanly possible, and had followed the prayers with a speaker who expressed in rather … forceful terms the depth of Muslim oppression in America. Unless there are several Muslim religious conferences going on in Minneapolis at the moment, I’d guess that might be the one. If so, I wonder if the reported truculence of the men might have been influenced, or at least reinforced, by the speaker. Whoever he was.

Ellison?

UPDATE at 11/21/06 8:49:01 am:

Omar Shahin, spokesman for the humiliated imams, is affiliated with Kind Hearts for Charitable Human Development…

Muslim Voice Staff - When the Tsunami disaster struck Muslim families in south East Asia, the students of Arizona Culture Academy answered the call and rushed to help. They emptied their piggy banks, brought their allowances, and lobbied their families to participate. In five days, $8,014.00 was collected and given to the Representative Imam Omar Shahin of the Kind Hearts Organization.

…a Hamas-linked organization whose assets were frozen by the Treasury Department earlier this year. (Hat tip: Aaron.)

KindHearts officials and fundraisers have coordinated with Hamas leaders and made contributions to Hamas-affiliated organizations. Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) Usama Hamdan, a leader of Hamas in Lebanon, reportedly phoned a top fundraiser for KindHearts during a September 2003 KindHearts fundraiser. During the call, Hamas leader Hamdan reportedly communicated to the fundraiser his gratitude for KindHearts’ support. The KindHearts fundraiser reportedly also provided advice to Hamdan, telling him not to trust the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

More about KindHearts and their terrorist connections, at Internet Haganah.

UPDATE at 11/21/06 12:42:47 pm:

Omar Shahin is also on record expressing doubt that Muslims were behind the 9/11 attacks, and admitting ties to Osama bin Laden.

Federal investigators questioning six Middle Eastern men removed from flight at MSP. (Hat tip: Red.)

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned that federal investigators and airport police are questioning six Middle Eastern men who had to be escorted off of a plane Monday afternoon at Minneapolis/St. Paul International.

U.S. Airway officials tell 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Aviation Expert Bob McNaney that Monday while Flight 300 was preparing to take off from Minneapolis to Phoenix, a passenger passed a note to a flight attendant saying they noticed ‘suspicious behavior,’ among the men.

The men would not get off the plane when asked, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned, and had to be removed by police.

Ethiopian-born Sisayehiticha Dinssa, arrested at Detroit Metro Airport, is going to stay locked up: Suspicious airline passenger to stay locked up. (Hat tip: Joseph.)

This article has new details about what Dinssa had in his possession, including $80,000 in cash, data about US nuclear power plants, suitcase bomb instructions, a commemorative edition of a newspaper dated September 11, 2002, and a hand-written threatening note.

And perhaps the most appalling thing about the story: a federal judge had to overrule a magistrate’s decision to release him.

A federal judge overturned a lower ruling Monday and ordered detention for a man stopped at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with articles about nuclear plants and suitcase bombs and the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman ruled Sisayehiticha Dinssa, 34, was both a flight risk and a danger to the community. He overturned a ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen, who earlier on Monday ordered Dinssa released under strict supervision.

Dinssa, an Ethiopian-born U.S. citizen who lists his address as Dallas, Texas, was arrested Tuesday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after arriving from Kenya by way of Amsterdam.

He is charged with currency smuggling after telling Customs agents he was only carrying about $18,000 before a search of his luggage turned up nearly $80,000.

Though he faces no terrorism charges to date, Assistant U.S. Attorney Leonid Feller told Borman that evidence found in Dinssa’s luggage and inside his laptop computer makes him a potential threat to national security.

Agents found articles about nuclear plants, suitcase bombs and a hard-copy commemorative edition of the Dallas Morning News from Sept. 11, 2002 — the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Feller said.

Agents also found a hand-written note saying: “This community is angry. Something is going to happen. We are going to see justice. This is a powder keg waiting to go off.”