Al-Qaeda, Are they regrouping?

[CelticRadio]

I ran across a very interesting article about a U.S. jailed al-Quaeda operative - Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. Here is the complete article - its a long one say grap a cup of coffee:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19859636/

I am sure hundreds of people ran across individuals like this leading up to the 911 attacks. For myself, I have always been bothered by an incident that my family experienced in June of 2001 when we were driving to Troy New York to drop the kids off at their Highland Dance camp.

We stopped at a rest area that was being renovated on the Mass Pike - probably west of Worcestor. My wife bought a few sandwiches for the kids and went back inside the make shift rest area to bring my daughter to the rest room. As I am sitting in my van eating a pre-made lobster roll I notice this weird looking dude in 70's orange clothing just staring at me with disgust.

This guy was defintely middle-eastern, but man he was one ugly dude. He looked like he had a permanent cold as he had his mouth opened he a weird strange sort of way.

Now most people that stare at you, do so only for 15-20 secs at the most. But this guy just kept staring at me. I really did feel threatened and chose not to look back at him because with kids in the car the last thing I want to do is start a confrontation.

My wife gets in the car and right behind her where maybe 2 or 3 other people. I only remember 1 of them which was a middle eastern girl dressed in the same type of weird orange, but definitely middle eastern and her clothes looked a lot better than the weird dude with the nose problem.

What stands out the most is that she had a tatoo on her back which the same exact pattern of the tatoo was on her clothing garb! I call it a garb because it was not a dress, but more like what middle eastern woman wear.

We actually left the parking lot at the same time and followed behind them. My wife and I had a discussion because it seemed so strange and suspicious type behavior.

I've look for photos of this individual on the news site, but never could say for sure it was one of the terrorists. I do know that I have his image of his face permanently in my mind and I am sure I could recognize him in a photograph.

[maisky]

Except for the mention of the clothing color and being "obviously middleastern", they I met some folks recently that matched the description closely. This was in rural Georgia. Saw some a lot like them in West Virginia, too.