Virginia Man On No-Fly List Stuck In Egypt

Yahya Wehelie, 26, who was born in Fairfax, Virginia, to Somali parents was returning from 18 months studying in Yemen, when Egyptian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight to New York saying the FBI wanted to speak with him.

Wehelie said he was then told his name was on a no-fly list and he now cannot board a U.S. airline or enter American airspace.

U.S. authorities have put Americans studying in Yemen under heavy scrutiny after a number of failed terrorist attacks were linked back to Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said the bureau does not comment on whether a particular person is on a watch list. While Bresson did not discuss the FBI's interest in Wehelie, he did note several recent high-profile terror plots, including an attempted car bombing and a failed Christmas Day jetliner bombing, as reminders of the need to remain vigilant.

Wehelie, however, said he had no dealings with the terrorist organization while in Yemen and does not even see himself as a particularly observant Muslim.

"It's amazing how the U.S. government can do something like this," he told The Associated Press Wednesday from his ramshackle hotel in downtown Cairo.

"I'm cool with all their fighting terrorism and all that, I'm cool with that, I like that, more power too them," he said in American accented English, wearing baggy basketball shorts and a long white T-shirt.

"My home is America and I don't know why I can't go back there," he said, adding that he even suggested to the FBI to "put me in like ConAir or something ... in an airplane with a bunch of U.S. marshals or whatever in handcuffs just get me back home."

Wehelie said the US embassy has not given him any indication of how he can get off the no-fly list, but for now is paying the $16 a night for his hotel and gives him coupons to eat at U.S. fast food chains.

In a news conference held in Washington by a Muslim civil rights group, his mother Shamsa Noor, said she sent her sons to Yemen to learn Arabic and get some direction in their lives and now she feels guilty for that decision.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the U.S. government in the press conference to allow him to return home.

An Egyptian security official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media confirmed that there is a Somali-American stranded in Cairo waiting for his name to be lifted from a no-fly list.

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AWOL Man Tries To Enter Fort MacDill With Weapons

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A man arrested as he tried to enter MacDill Air Force Base with weapons and ammunition in his car is a serviceman listed as being absent without leave, base officials said Tuesday.

Air Force Col. Dave Cohen released few new details about Monday night's arrest at the base that houses the U.S. command center for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Cohen said it doesn't appear to have been a terrorism attempt. He did not release the serviceman's name, his military branch or the name of the woman who was with him. Both are in their mid-20s, Cohen said. The woman is not connected to the military.

Investigators were still trying to get to the bottom of the couple's motivation and intent, Cohen said.

"We've been talking to them since last night trying to get information, and we're still trying to put that puzzle together," he said.

The couple's Honda CRV contained three handguns, three rifles and some ammunition, Cohen said. He described them as "military style" but commercially available.

He said they tried to drive onto the base at about 5 p.m. at a remote gate and flashed phony military identification. A security officer working the gate became suspicious, and the couple cooperated when they were asked by officers to get out of the car.

When the weapons were found, a bomb disposal unit was called to examine the car, Cohen said. No explosives were found.

"At no point was the security of MacDill Air Force Base breached," he said. "The system worked exactly as it was supposed to."

Cohen said there was no indication yet that either the serviceman or his companion were connected to the Tampa base. Military and federal prosecutors are discussing charges, he said.

MacDill, situated on a peninsula south of downtown Tampa, is the home of U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also houses the U.S. Special Operations Command that coordinates the activities of elite units from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

Last month, an FBI agent who was at the base on unrelated business fatally shot a Vietnam veteran after an altercation. The veteran had been staying at the family campground on the base. Officials said he came at the agent with a knife before he was killed.

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Beginning Tomorrow More BWI Passengers To Go Through Imaging Machines

The chances the government will ask to see through your clothing before you board a plane at BWI Marshall Airport will be a lot higher starting tomorrow.

Advanced imaging technology, which until now has been used as a backup method for screening passengers at BWI, will become a routine matter this week, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

The difference will be subtle at first. TSA spokeswoman Lauren Gaches said the four advanced screening machines now deployed at the airport will each be moved about 5 feet forward at their security checkpoints. Instead of a limited number of passengers being pulled from the herd at random and asked to go through the machines as a secondary screening, the imaging will now be the primary method.

"It will be the first technology for the passengers that they encounter," said Gaches, who could not give an estimate of the percentage of passengers who will be directed to the machines but said it would be higher than the current numbers.

The move is part of a gradual shift toward making the more revealing technology, which the government considers superior for its ability to detect non-metallic and well as metallic "threat items," the gold standard of security screening at U.S. airports.

There are now about 80 of the advanced imaging machines deployed at U.S. airports, but the TSA expects to have about 450 by the end of the year. And BWI is expected to get its share of that increase.

As of now, passengers will not be required to go through the machines if they object. Those who don't want to be screened that way can say no, but they can expect to receive a pat-down search as well as the familiar metal detector screening. That isn't a change from current procedure for those who decline, but more passengers will be confronted with the choice of what critics have called an "electronic strip search" or a manual exploration by a TSA officer.

Those who choose the machine will have images of their bodies transmitted to a computer screen in a small, stark, windowless room off the checkpoint where a TSA officer will view the shadowy images with facial features blurred over.

At a screening demonstration on Monday at BWI, a TSA volunteer passed through an imaging machine at Pier B, which like the others at BWI uses millimeter-wave technology.

Looking at the image, it was possible to determine the gender and general shape of the female volunteer, as well as the suspicious item strapped to her waist, but there was nothing titillating about the display. It resembled a full-body X-ray, though the millimeter wave technology uses radio waves rather than penetrating radiation.

According to Gaches, the TSA officer in the room never sees the passenger passing through the machine, and the officers dealing with the passengers never see the images of those they encounter face-to-face. She said the radiation from the millimeter wave machines amounts to about one-10,000^th of that emitted by a cell phone. The images are permanently deleted once the screening is over, Gaches said.

Despite the TSA's well-publicized precautions, the use of the technology has drawn criticism from privacy advocates and others since it was first introduced in 2007. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Ralph Nader have urged Congress to suspend the practice, contending the technology is ineffective, too costly and unnecessarily intrusive. EPIC is suing the department in an effort to gain access to documents concerning the scanners.

But the TSA and its parent Department of Homeland Security have rejected such arguments and have intensified their efforts to implement the technology after an attempt to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit last Christmas Day.

For many passengers, privacy concerns take a back seat to worries about the time it takes to get through the checkpoints. Gaches said the TSA does not expect the use of the scanners to add time to the process, and some passengers who went through the devices said they thought it went faster than the alternatives.

However, the advanced imaging procedure does not eliminate the step in the screening process where passengers kick off their shoes for screening with carry-on luggage. That remains unchanged.

Gaches said the first machine will be moved into the primary position Tuesday at Pier A. The two at Pier B and the one at Pier D will be moved by the end of the week, she said.

Passengers who were randomly selected to go through the imaging machines today saw no problems doing so.

"If it works to do what they want it to do, then it's fine," said Nanette Ackerman of Coconut Creek, Fla.

Tara Adlesic of Ellicott City went through whole-body screening for the first time and said it didn't bother her.

"It's probably less intrusive than to have somebody pat you down," she said.

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