Washington:
Two United States residents of Yemeni descent who flew from Chicago to Amsterdam on Sunday night were detained by the Dutch police after landing on Monday in a bizarre episode that American officials feared might be a dry run for a terrorist plot.
But American law enforcement officials cautioned on Monday night that the men had not been charged with any crime and that the episode might be a misunderstanding. "There's nothing at all confirmed at this point that's associated with terrorism," one official said.
A search of one of the men by airport security screeners in Birmingham, Ala., as he waited to board a flight to Chicago earlier on Sunday found that he was carrying $7,000 in cash and that his luggage contained a cellphone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, three cellphones taped together and several watches taped together, a senior law enforcement official said.
Because no evidence of explosives was found, the man, 48, was permitted to fly to O'Hare Airport in Chicago. He was joined there by the second man, a 37-year-old, and they both boarded United Airlines Flight 908 to Amsterdam.
American officials said federal air marshals had been aboard the flight, which continued to its destination without incident.
But officials discovered that at Birmingham, the 48-year-old passenger had checked his luggage on a different set of flights, to Dulles International Airport outside Washington and on to Sana, Yemen, by way of Dubai. After security agents realized that he had not boarded the flight from Chicago to Dulles, they ordered the airliner back to the gate and retrieved his luggage, which contained the suspicious items.
"The items were not deemed to be dangerous in and of themselves, and as we share information with our international partners, Dutch authorities were notified of the suspicious items," said Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. "This matter continues to be under investigation."
ABC News first reported the incident on Monday night.
A Dutch official said the two men had been detained by the police upon their arrival at Schiphol Airport at the request of the American authorities "on the basis of suspicions of preparation for terrorist attacks." The official said the men were being questioned by the police.
Omar Sufi of Detroit, who said he was a cousin of the passenger who boarded in Alabama, said his relative's actions did not sound unusual.
He said that his cousin had most likely been trying to take medication and phones back to his family, and that it was common to bind together items meant for the same recipient. "This is our culture," he said.
He described his cousin as "a nice guy" who worked as a cashier in Alabama and spoke little English.
Pakistanis Removed From Flight
A delegation of Pakistani military officers, traveling to the United States Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., was removed from a flight at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, a Pakistani official said Monday night.
The nine passengers were removed before takeoff from United Airlines Flight 727 after one of them made what a flight attendant considered to be an "inappropriate remark," a spokesman for the airline said. (An American military official confirmed the accounts.)
Members of the delegation, led by a two-star general, were offended by their treatment and canceled the Central Command meeting, the official said. He said Defense Department officials had apologized for the incident.
Nick Bunkley contributed reporting from Detroit.