#7 A spokesman for the local Islamic community said he hopes the incident won't fuel distrust for people with Middle Eastern or Muslim-sounding names.
A federal magistrate ordered Saleh Al Suwailem, 45, held by the U.S. Marshals Service after a hearing Tuesday in Columbus, Ga. He is charged with making a terrorist threat against an airplane, and is due back in court Tuesday.
According to a criminal complaint, Al Suwailem was at Fort Benning on Monday, where he was going through the process to become an Arabic interpreter for a communications division that hires interpreters for operations in Iraq.
After he was told he would not be hired because he was denied a security clearance and that he would have to fly home to Idaho the next day on a Delta flight, he started drinking with some acquaintances, the complaint says.
"OK, I'm going to bomb the plane," he blurted out, according to the complaint.
When he was questioned by Fort Benning officials about the remark, he said it was a joke and that he did not actually plan to bomb the flight.
The FBI was alerted and Al Suwailem was arrested. In their request to have the defendant detained, the government argued that he poses a flight risk. The magistrate who ordered him held also described him as a security risk. The order did not say why.
Every time there is an arrest like Al Suwailem's or the recently uncovered alleged plot to blow up Canadian buildings involving people with Middle Eastern-sounding names, it raises the spectre of a backlash against the community, said Boise State University Professor Said Ahmed-Zaid, who is a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Boise.
"People are nervous and frightened, but they need to realize that the Muslim community here in Boise is also frightened," Ahmed-Zaid said.
A number listed under Al Suwailem's name was disconnected when the Statesman called Wednesday.
Reached at his office Wednesday, Al Suwailem's lawyer, David Roberts, said, "I'm just not going to comment."
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US authorities have arrested a Saudi national who threatened to blow up an airliner after he was turned down for a job as a translator for the US military in Iraq. Saleh Nasser Al Suwailem, 45, admitted he had made the threat at the US Army's Fort Benning base in Georgia on Tuesday, but said he had no intention to carry it out, according to court documents.