MORE SERIOUS THAN WE THOUGHT – AT 10:29 P.M. ET:  As we reported earlier, there were a number of "scare" incidents in the United States yesterday, reflecting our nervousness over possible retaliation for our providing rest to Osama bin Laden.  But one incident may be more serious than we'd thought.  From AP:

SAN FRANCISCO – A Yemen native who disrupted a San Francisco-bound flight was portrayed by prosecutors Tuesday as a dangerous and erratic passenger who tried to barge into the cockpit twice, did not carry any luggage and yelled "God is great" in Arabic.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elise Becker said Rageh Al-Murisi, 28, was carrying several valid and expired forms of identification from New York and California, $47 in cash and two postdated checks totaling $13,000 in his wallet. One check was made out to himself, she said, but did not specify where the other was from.

She also said he didn't tell his relatives in California that he was traveling there.

Al-Murisi faces one count of interfering with flight crew members and attendants as pilots on American Airlines Flight 1561 were preparing to land in San Francisco on Sunday, one week after the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of the U.S. military that has raised fears of a possible retaliation.

"He attempted to enter the cockpit right before a critical part of the flight," Becker said in prosecution arguments to withhold bail for Al-Murisi. 

The "God is great" stuff really spooks us.  God is indeed great, but not in the way that this chap thinks.

Becker said that the same Arabic phrase was uttered by the hijackers of Flight 93 as they took over the plane that eventually went down in Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001, and by a Nigerian man who allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his underwear on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas 2009.

Yeah.  It's not the kind of thing you shout to motivate, say, a tennis player.  It's a serious kind of shout.

I suspect we'll be hearing more about this case.  Expect some kind of mental plea.

May 10, 2011