Three More Missing Egyptians In Custody

Quoting another blogger, Gates of Vienna, here:

Friday, August 11, 2006

Three More Egyptian Students in Custody
by Baron Bodissey

Two more Egyptian exchange students were arrested in Maryland, and one was arrested in Chicago at O’Hare airport. The last one is more interesting than the others, since he did not enter custody gently, and raised a stink at the airport:

Police arrested Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Abou El Ela, 22, at O’Hare International Airport after he tried to check in for a Chicago-to-Montana flight using an invalid ticket marked for a New York departure, Chicago police said.

El Ela raised his voice and became unruly after an employee at a Delta ticket counter refused to let him exchange the ticket for a valid one, said Timothy J. Bolger, the Chicago police officer at the scene.

“He was loud and causing people to be alarmed,” Bolger said. The officer said El Ela calmed down when police arrived.

After federal officials confirmed El Ela was one of the students they were seeking, police turned him over to immigration agents, Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline said.

And the mandatory disclaimer, which we can all repeat verbatim in our sleep by now:

None of the students is considered a terrorism risk, and FBI officials stressed there are no ties between the Egyptians and the alleged terror plot broken up by British authorities.

Why is that so certain? How do they know that? What did they do, take the word of the CIA?

Here’s one possible explanation for the Egyptian youths’ truancy:

Relatives in Egypt explained the students’ failure to show up at Montana State by saying they probably wanted to find work in the United States.

“It must have been in his mind to stay where there are plenty of job opportunities,” said Ibrahim el-Dessouki, the father of a student arrested Wednesday in Minnesota. “You know how much a dollar is worth here in Egypt.”

We certainly do. We send - what is it? - two billion of them every year.