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DUTCH POLICE HAVE arrested a teenage girl after she allegedly tweeted a threat to American Airlines posing as an al-Qaeda member, a police spokesman said today.
The 14-year-old girl named Sarah “reported to the police this morning accompanied by a relative”, Rotterdam police’s Roland Ekkers said.
“She’s been taken into custody with a hearing against her to start soon,” he told AFP.
Sarah apparently posted the message that landed her in hot water on social network Twitter on Sunday morning.
“hello, my name’s Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I’m gonna do something really big bye,” read the message, which has since been deleted together with her account.
Politie Rotterdam eo / TwitterDutch girl (14) from Rotterdam arrested after American Airlines threat. Investigation continues. #Rotterdam #Police #Force @americanair
— Politie Eenheid Rotterdam eo (@POL_Rotterdam) April 14, 2014
American Airlines then responded, saying “Sarah, we take these threats very seriously. Your IP address and details will be forwarded to security and the FBI.”
Dutch public broadcaster NOS said Sarah, whose tweet earned her thousands of new followers, then furiously tried to rectify the situation.
She tweeted:
I’m really sorry. I’m really scared now. I made a joke, please… I’m just a girl.
Another tweet read:
I’m not going to tell my parents. They’ll tell me to delete my acc (account) omg (oh my God) that will be the end of my life.
I always wanted to be famous, but I meant like (teen idol) Demi Lovato famous, not Osama bin laden famous.
Ekkers said police were investigating “because of the uproar caused over the weekend”.
It is not sure how long Sarah will still be under arrest, he added. “We would like to find out what her motives were.”
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We need to teach our kids that jokes traditionally have some sort of a punchline, and are funny.
No Neal, we just need to remember that a teenagers mind is different
Actions Have Consequences.
Rightly or Wrongly, Actions Have Consequences.
That is the lesson.
We need to teach the authorities that it’s not acceptable to arrest, detain, and probably charge a 14 year old for clearly making a stupid joke. She was a one year old in during 9/11 ffs.
Lex, a refreshing voice of common sense and proportionality in the face of a lot of over the top condemnation.
Bomb Bomb Jihad Kill All Infidels……..I eagerly await my door to be kicked in by security services
She’ll be grand. They won’t charge her with anything and she’ll have thousands of new followers. That last tweet about not wanting to be Osama Bin Laden famous was actually pretty funny, far funnier than bomb threat jokes which are so 2002.
Lex there are 14 year old boys around the world taking part in wars, there are 14 year old girls having babies and they are all old enough to learn if they have not already that they have to take responsibility for their actions. The airline has to take the threat seriously. That costs money and causes inconvenience to customers. I wonder if you woukd be so generous and understanding if it was you who was delayed because of a 14 year old’s joke. I doubt it.
It’s scary that the ” intelligence” services can’t distinguish between juvenile silliness and real and credible threats. I doubt that many terrorists announce in advance their specific plans on Twitter.
Indeed it is, neurologically different! Neuroscience tells us that their pre-frontal cortex (the bit that regulates risk-taking and impulsive behaviour and allows us to consider the consequences of our behaviour) is not fully developed until the mid-twenties. So this girl’s mind is literally not as capable as an adult of controlling impulsive behaviour and considering consequences.
I posted this a few hours ago.. Update.. Her twitter account is now suspended. Police in Rotterdam reporting on Monday afternoon that they had arrested a 14-year-old girl in relation to the American Airlines threat and that the investigation continues… but no selfie lol!
https://twitter.com/Politie_Rdam/status/455715116903047168 … on the other article http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/al-qaeda-airline-joke-american-airlines-twitter-1413169-Apr2014/ ..they could of just updated the other article.
It looks Like American Airlines should have learned a thing or two about inappropriate tweets based on this gem today…
http://www.joe.ie/news/world-affairs/pic-us-airways-posted-probably-the-most-inappropriate-tweet-a-brand-will-ever-post-earlier-today-very-very-nsfw/
Different airline, it was US that posted the inappropriate tweet not American.
Lighten the hell up, she’s a teenage girl.
Same airline. Us Airways now own American Airlines
How she thought this was funny is beyond me, just someone looking for attention at any cost. Silly girl.
Kids be kids….she obviously wasn’t aware of how seriously these kind of things are taken. 14 year olds, in general, don’t do common sense.
No at 14 you should have a certain amount of common sense and know right from wrong. No one in their right mind would tweet something like that to an American airline given what happened at 9/11 it’s not as if the world isn’t aware of that or other events such as Boston last year.
Exactly, Stephen doesn’t seem to realise that
She would have no actual memory of 911 as she was a baby! We more remember the “is this real!” Side of the event, similar to how our parents remember Kennedy being shot Vs me knowing about the event…. Leaves very different impression in your mind
That’s no excuse there have been other terrorist attacks since 9/11.Either way sharp lesson for her take away her social media and she’ll learn. She should at 14 have a modicum of sense and know right from wrong.
Emperor , how did she know the other bad names???
Dutch police have no common sense.
Terrorists tend not to announce surprise attacks in advance on Twitter.
Such silly, disproportionate and paranoiac reactions serve the agenda of terrorists.
It is worrying that such a mindset is actually part of international security.
It’s another example of security hassling elderly women and young mothers with babies who are unlikely to fit the profile of terrorists.
The young girls may have been silly and lacked common sense bu the Dutch police are sillier and even showed less common sense.
Exactly
Well Peter given that young females fit the target profile of terrorist groups as they are less likely to be hassled if they have a baby in their arms, and young female converts to Islam are the highest numbers and become the most fundamental I’d say they were right to investigate.
Maybe the arrest is taking it too far the parents should have been allowed deal with it but it’s a lesson she will never forget.
A silly and unnecessary lesson which will have members of Al Qaida gleeful that their terrorist outrages have a continuing terrorist effect.
Real terrorists don’t pre-announce their intentions and plans on Twitter.
@Bridget, I’m not saying she isn’t fully aware of 911 and who was responsible as she obviously is but her memory of events would be very different to yours or mine (hers is from a history book essentially). When we were in school we would have pretended to be Hitler etc without thinking you might offend someone….. Long and short is that she is 14 and it was obviously not one of her better ideas but the authorities need to take it for what it was meant to be and move on.
Emperor_vid, reasonable and sensible.
Don’t you remember being in your teens making prank phone calls? Well this is the modern day equivalent… How screwed up civilisation is if they don’t just send her home with a “don’t do it again” warning
Oh yeah, I forgot phones don’t exist anymore. I used to make terror threats ALL the time when I was 14……
In all fairness, the airline have to have all their bases covered. What happens if they didn’t act on it and then suddenly something happened on the day. Their reaction can’t satisfy everyone but I’m sure it’s something she won’t do again in the future. Who’s to say it wasn’t a troll account when they first got the tweet. They couldn’t see the girl writing it, – all they see is a threat that came in and they had to report it.
Is calling in a bomb hoax a prank call? This is the modern day equivalent. Slap on the wrists, scare the bejaysus out of her, and make her AND OTHER TEENAGERS aware that this craic isn’t funny.
imagine an irish accent ringing(pranking) an english telephone number, it would of got some reaction in the troubles
I agree with Alan, but I can see her being punished in a completely over the top American anti-terror threats manner…..
When I was a young teen I knocked on doors and ran away, how times change.
Paul, a refinement to the door knocking was to carefully balance some stink bombs inside the letter box so that if you were lucky to have a chap who would give chase, he would swing open the door …..and return home to a stinky hallway after recovering from his apoplexy at failing yet again to catch his local ‘ terrorists’ :-)
Ring a butcher shop and ask him had he pigs feet, when he’d say yes – the funniest thing in the world to a gang or bored 13 year olds
**of
Mountains and molehills comes to mind
Doesn’t seem like the best use of police resources.
Deport her back to Afghanistan…
Send her off to Guantanamo like the rest of these Hardened Terrorists. Water Boarding is too good for her, for what she done.
Exactly lol
yes no hardened terrorists in Guantanamo at all -all terrorist cell members are completely innocent (unless they are fighting against Assad, then that Hero and friend of Putin is keeping us all safe from terror)…I do agree it is stupid to arrest her, she deserves a warning for being an idiot…and then for her parents to take away her phone and laptop -that’s far worse than a Dutch prison…
To be fair, she’s committed more ‘terrorist’ actions by posting that stupid Twitter comment than many of the detainees in Gitmo.
Rob, do you know how the US gets their hands on many of these ‘terrorists’? They pay cold, hard cash to armed militias to round ‘em up. Naturally, the militias aren’t opposed to grabbing a random man of the street. One rendition flight later, and they’re being tortured for information they never had in a dungeon a world away. If they weren’t radical before, a few weeks of sensory deprivation would do the trick, I imagine.
It’s okay though, the US has a solution to that problem of possibly creating ‘terrorists’ where there were none before- locking them up indefinitely without trial. After all, it’s public knowledge that the Bush administration continued to detain individuals that they categorically knew were in no way associated with terrorism.
Gitmo is an appalling blight on the honour of the US. The fates of men like Dilawar of Yakubi shouldn’t be forgotten.
So they’ve arrested her, now what lock her up for life
Anything to stop her from having kids in the future.
Yes what she did was stupid and very immature, but she’s a kid and when we were that age we all did stupid things as well just that we didn’t have technology like it is today.
It was a joke. Yeah, I know, she’s young and immature. I done stupid shit too. I was punished for what ever I was caught doing. Nothing will come of this. She’ll get told off and will hopefully learn her lesson from it.
The Dutch police displayed stupidity, lack of common sense, lack of proportionality and served the terrorist agenda of paranoia.
So they’ll be consequences for her but none for the US for recording and spying on its own, and likely everyone elses communications too.
Lex, that places the issue in a proper context. People spring to outrage over the trivial but tend to ignore the very real erosion of freedom and privacy.
One wonders if this excessive reaction is exactly what Al Qaida wish to achieve in the introduction of illiberal, restrictive and hard line governments.
Peter I agree given American Airlines would have the where with all to trace the laptop a discussion with the parents a punishment decided ( perhaps a private visit by the police) but no publicity would be the correct course of action.
I do think they needed to investigate though, and that the girl should know right from wrong and that there would have been consequences from the tweet. After all she tweeted it to become famous she certainly got her wish albeit not in the way she wanted.
A private visit, as you suggest, would have delivered the effective message. I would not be surprised to see copycat tweets by kids who think that they are too smart and untraceable to be caught. Making a fuss only attracts attention.
Ridiculous! The fact that there was obviously no threat in this situation really shows how stupid the Americans are in the fact that they actually reported it and pursued her.
Get a grip people, and a sense of humour.
How’s that funny exactly?
It’s funny because she is a 14 year old girl in Holland (not America) and clearly is not a member of Al Qaeda (unless you are stupid) as the group does not exist as an organisation and never did but it was just created a as a way of keeping people around the world full of fear and vulnerable.
Whether it’s funny or not to you or anyone is besides the point, there was obviously no threat and her questioning from the police due to the FBI is stupid.
it was the Dutch that arrested her and no threatening to blow up airliners (especially with the Malaysian airliner mystery not solved) isn’t funny or smart. She will get a warning and invaluable life lesson…don’t think she will end up in Gitmo.
btw Premium nice generalisation there….’Shows how stupid Americans are’. They did put man on the moon and probably designed most of the video games you play.
Oh, you’re one of them ‘conspiracy theory’ people. No point in arguing with you anymore.
Sorry Rob, I’ll hedge my bets majority of games have come from aisa
It’s a warning to everyone that these kind of threats will not be taken lightly. Her tweet was kind of racist then she tried to use the white privilege to escape repercussion. I think they’re acting in the right manner. From what it sounds like, she gave herself in so obviously she shows some remorse. However, back on point; if she got away with it, then others will chance their arms to the point where terrorist threats would be largely ignored. Then what society do you have?
“Al Qaeda as the group does not exist as an organisation and never did” *Sigh*
Seriously? You think Al Qaeda doesn’t exist? That is a new level of conspiracy theory lunacy.
He’s a clown.
Liam, you are so naive, maybe if you did a bit of research on such matters you wouldn’t be blatantly ignorant.
The actual CIA operative in charge of the Creating of Al Qaeda – Michael Scheuer has admitted that Al Qaeda was a well created hoax to keep control over people through fear. (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Scheuer)
I suggest you have a read about him as it will provide you with some well needed information and stop your ignorant misinformation posting.
Your a clown you thundering idiot, educate yourself about topics before commenting ignorantly. Have a look at Michael Scheuer and quit posting sh*te
LOL. You’re the only clown around here with your conspiracy theory crap ! You’re some nut job alright. LOL.
Good entertainment though !
Hmmm I’m a bit sceptical, remind me again who writes Wikipedia pages again?
Loop, educate yourself and stop posting crap that you have nothing to back it up with.
It would do you a lot of good to actually believe the actual person who worked for the CIA in that division and who admitted that it was all created.
If you refuse to believe this then the world is better off without narrow minded people like yourself as you serve no useful purpose.
I’m sure you also believe that “Iraq had weapons of mass destruction” and that Russia were going to attack the US with nuclear missiles back in the 50s.
Go back to watching Sky Lies, it suits people like you who cannot think for themselves.
Remind me again, who is it that watches Sky News?
Naive, narrow minded people like yourself who believe anything the media says.
Laughing at you even harder now. I haven’t stopped since you said Al Qaeda don’t exist. Finished with you now, you’re away with the fairies !
I’ve got better things to be doing with my time than worrying about conspiracy theories & playing video games, you’re alright thanks.
Are you aware how Wikipedia works ? Anyone can put information on Wikipedia whether it’s fact or not. Please don’t use Wikipedia as your source if you wish to be credible .
Scared the crap out of her. Fair play to the airline. She’ll think differently next time.
Jokes nowadays have obviously changed since I was young, it was a very childish and disgusting act.The availability of social media for minors is also very scary nowadays!
The youth have been going to the dogs since Cicero complained about their conduct in Ancient Rome.
The thing to do is to learn to distinguish between the silly but natural actions of an adolescent from the covert and sophisticated methods of real terrorists.
The remoteness of social media promotes such conduct but at least others will learn that the Internet is never anonymous. Posting any nonsensical but apparently threatening material will result in your IP address being almost instantly capable of being identified and the consequences of that.
Back in my day we would of had to buy a stamp, write a letter and then find out the address of American airlines before we could threaten to blow up anything… Just wasn’t worth the feckin effort! Social networking… Making stupidity a crime all the time!
Jeez, send down the local sergeant to have a stern word in her and her parents ear, don’t arrest her and leak the story to the world media. This girl can kiss away any visit to the US she might have had for future! We will be putting 9 month babies on trial like Pakistan if this continues. Her last tweet is funny but only if she meant it to be…otherwise its tragic
The worlds gone mad, talk about an over the top response..
A good talking to by the police might do her the world of good , no harm done but also no harm in teaching her some cop on
The yanks have so much control n Europe bends over for them all the time…
The yanks are a paranoid nation.. And always over react…
No wonder so many nations hate america and their bullshit they are the biggest terrorist the world has
Its a 14 year old girl for god sake..
The dutch should cop on n realise it was a bored teenager who ment nothing
Hope the NSA and FBI are reading this
So they can come and kiss my Irish arse
The cops displayed a remarkable lack of cop on. Discernment and discretion are sensible attributes.
What a silly and completely over the top response. It shows that terrorists win when silly tweets can provoke such paranoiac responses.
It’s a pity that members of the so called “intelligence community” are lacking the attribute of intelligence.
Is “Dutch police intelligence” an oxymoron.
Well said, that is what I was saying earlier on, apparently most people commenting on this article have no sense, logic or intelligence at all and believe that it was a legit threat and she deserved to be arrested
Premium Gamerz, they seem to have read her tweet literally and fail to recognise that she is only 14.
It’s symptomatic of a move to a more extremist outlook in the West and, sadly, that plays to the agenda of the terrorists who are trying to provoke a more politically and security repressive regime in the West.
Sad.
I’m sure the Dutch police knew well she was trying to make a silly joke but the reason she was arrested is to show her and everyone other teenager that these jokes are not funny and are serious ..by arresting her will hopefully teach other kids to think before trying to post such a stupid and serious joke ..trust me I think she will have learned her lesson by the end of this …
Other kids will be more likely to emulate than to be deterred.
Sadly, the unfortunate girl is being held in custody and the police have refused the parents’ request to take her home.
Of course, this serves the terrorists’ agenda by showing fear, paranoia and the willingness to be repressive. Death and injury is not the primary objects of terrorists. The objective is to cause terror.
Sounds like a ‘bad dose of sarcasm’ tweet … I’d be prepared to give her a second chance on the basis that she never does it again. We’ve all did stupid things that we regret when we were that age.
The Truth Hurts, you read her tweet and understand the tone.
A second chance seems reasonable and proportionate to me. I don’t think that she is a terrorist. As in the Life of Brian “she’s just a very naughty girl” and that is not yet an imprisionable offence, I hope.
God, wouldn’t you hate to be fourteen now? It was hard enough when I was fourteen in 1985/85 dealing with hormones and teenage angst but at least when you did some dumb stuff (and we ALL did let’s be honest) the worst that could happen would be being grounded for however long, or, in the case of school, detention, your parents called and 500 ‘lines’. Now the whole world knows.
She’s a bloody 14 year old, not a serious threat to anyone only herself, by that I means she’s possibly feeling punished enough by the mere fact her parents will disable her Twitter account. Come on when is this bullshit going to stop, she’s obviously made a mistake but isn’t that part of growing up. Obviously a teenagers brain is still developing so there’s no possible way that we can call her stupid, possibly, perhaps a risky ome, but like most teenagers they are prone to taking risks, God knows I made a few prank calls at 14 and thaught it was funny. I blame Fox TV, Bart Simpson led the way in pranks of this sort. It’s called adolesance!
Gerry, humane and enlightened.
It really should have been left to the parents to punish her, yes investigate it privately by all means; but we all know your parents punishing you is going to hurt like hell because they know you best and take away what you love most and you learn your lesson best.
If any of you are about to fly American Airline when this poor innocent 14 year old girls tweet came out. Would you continue your flight? Most would probably assume its just a silly joke and continue on right?
I would continue.
It’s when the terrorists don’t tweet their intentions that you worry!
I’d still be getting on board but in saying that I try not to use any American airlines when I’m flying, which is not that often.
A quiet word in her ear will do. Claiming to be a part of the resistance to US imperialism on Twitter is not a great idea..
I guess the Americans have to be seen to be following up thoroughly on every “threat” of this nature, notwithstanding the fact this particular one was a clear prank by that 14 yo kid in Holland.
They are probably correct in adopting this zero tolerance approach, to get the strong message out there: no jokes…
It has already been well documented, that prior to 911, US intelligence agencies screwed up big time in failing to join-up-the-dots on the earlier activities of those guys in the build-up to events of that fateful day in 2001. ie flying lessons, agencies not swapping notes on suspects etc. Apparently, had there been basic vigilance, 911 could have been avoided.
We all want safe flights. I mean it’s stressful enough hurtling along at 500 mph in a glorified sardine can 38,000 ft off terra firma, without the worry of whether some dozy security service has done its job.
Yes, Zero tolerance is best, I think.
That young girl will get off with a warning, but global publicity on the prank will reiterate the underlying message.
While I do agree she is only a kid, how would people react if something did happen on the date she said. Would we not all be saying why did the FBI not react to her comments.
On top of that, if they do nothing then you would get lots of stupid teens pulling stunts like this. It then makes it very hard to filter the fun from the real treat.
So you think that kids won’t be attracted by the publicity on this and try to post anonymous tweets. Terrorists don’t give prior announcements of their specific plans fir two reasons. First, surprise is more terrifying, which is the objective. The second is that giving away your plans will likely frustrate them.
Semantic and linguistic analysis gives an indicative pointer of age and gender.
We need to be smarter and more discerning about threats or else random noise will blot out real threats.
Not true Peter, the IRA always gave prior announcements. In fact they are famous for it.
I think its nice of the FBI to give al queda a heads up that they traced their IP address.
She blocked the FBI “just in case”. lol
A bit much
Don’t care what age she is – mine always knew what not to say r do at airport r similar – some kids are not parented r the parents think they can do no wrong
Parenting is not going to stop one stupid tweet from a child of the internet age. She seemed regretful and apologetic afterwards, good parenting probably had more to do with that.
She should be made stand for hours with her finger stuck in a dyke.
Arrested her? A little girl? FFS!
If she’s old enough to post crap like that, then she’s old enough to suffer the consequences. Besides 14 is more than old enough to know what is appropriate to post.
The yanks should nuke all of holland
There is a little coffee shop that I should like them to re-locate first.
Ott response by authorities, all they had to do was call to her home, confirm that she sent it and that there’s no actual threat and give her a telling off.
Too much Dutch Gold , gives one, too much Dutch courage
I hope Ibrahim in Afghanistan does something really big on June 1st – like graduate from college, play a big concert, run a marathon, perform open heart surgery….
There’s always a lot of talk about “terrorism”, and terrorist threats and dangers, but you never see talk about the root causes of “terrorism”. It’s as if it springs forth for no apparent reason, mysteriously and is impossible to counter, unless you give up all your civil liberties and private information and march in step.
We are told that we are the object of terrorism because “terrorists hate freedom” (according to Gw Bush).
So to combat terrorism, we apparently give up our freedom and somehow that is supposed to make sense.
Then there is the slipping definition of “terrorist” and “terrorism”. It used to be that a terrorist was someone who used fear/terror to leverage what they want from others. Then it was pointed out that some countries use the fear their thousands of nucelar weapons generate as a means of persuasion and global domination. So it had to be redefined and expanded to include so-called “militants” and people who demonstrate against the state–any state, it seems. Witness Ukraine, or Egypt. Doesn’t matter. Those who want to take power are “terrorists”.
If there are historians in another hundred years, they will doubtless point out that the era of “terrorism” was marked by the complete absence of any discussion of the root causes of what is touted as the biggest social problem of the day. A problem we took to locking up 14 year olds, rather than trying to resolve in an intelligent and thoughtful manner.
Just something interesting regarding FBI and American government and terrorist attacks, search “Boston bombings what you’re not being told” on youtube and you will find yourself shocked. Very, very strange.
Send her to the gallows
“What her motives were?” A bored teenager thinking she was being funny, it happens! Usually in the classroom instead of Twitter unfortunately for her. I hope the authorities take any threat seriously but this girl needs to be shown the error of her ways and discreetly released, I have a lot of sympathy for her.
That’s the problem with teenagers these days, people are too willing to let them off easily. I DON’T Think She Was remorseful…Just scared once She Was Informed the fbi was going to be involved. She knew there was going to be consequences for the severity of what she posted & she wanted to get out of any trouble it was going to cause her. What she tweeted was NOT something you joke about, especially when you consider what has happened almost 13 years ago. It is not something to just overlook, and we certainly don’t need another 9/11 On our hands. I’m glad she got arrested! Whether she is “just a girl” or not. Maybe now she’ll learn her lesson and make wiser decisions about what she posts.
She is 14 and it is a bit harsh, but if they let her go soon enough and treat her with respect she can overcome the experience. Let it be a lesson to all parents, 14 years old should not use technology unattended, they are not mature enough and something very wrong can happen. I personally think those parents should cover half of the cost American Airlines incurs for the joke.
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