Are There Dots to Connect?

WASHINGTON—A Nigerian passenger on board the same Northwest Airlines route that was attacked on Christmas Day was taken into custody in Detroit on Sunday after locking himself in the bathroom for an hour and becoming verbally disruptive upon landing, officials said.

From a news article posted just a little while ago.

As we review,

• Both chaps flew out of Amsterdam on the same Northwest Airlines flight number (different days).
• Both are from Nigeria
• Both locked themselves into the bathroom for an exceptionally long period (20' and 60' respectively)
• Nigeria, where the north has been Sufi Muslim for hundreds of years (and the south Christian), is finding that Wahhabis are making inroads, although most Muslim Nigerians reject this approach to Islam.

What is it with this second person?  I am thinking the options are:

1. He was a follow-up bomber
2. He was a probe to see if security really had tightened (perhaps it had not)
3. He was an innocent person who got sick and needed the toilet and then panicked
4. He is someone who is just clueless
5. He doesn't exist and this is just all a big misunderstanding.

I am doing with "4".

In its own way, "5" is as scary as "1" or "2".

The most important thing is to not panic.  The purpose of terrorism is to cause terror, which then results in the breakdown of economic and governmental services.  Then-President George Bush had some wisdom in his words when he told us all to go shopping after 9/11.  If we panic the other side wins.  If we scream "What can we do to make this stop?" we are helping the other side—a very small minority of Wahhabi Muslims, who are a very small minority of all Muslims—think they are winning.

UPDATE:

I guessed wrong. It was "3", according to an anonymous source.  I am often dubious of anonymous sources, and when not dubious, I am irritated that a Government official would speak out of turn, for his or her own aggrandizement.

The official says the passenger was taken into custody after becoming verbally disruptive on landing.  Subsequent interviews by investigators determined he was a businessman who became ill during the flight.

The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity.

The source is the AP and the Detroit Free Press.

Regards  —  Cliff