Well, here we go.

September 17, 2001 12:51 AM

Well, here we go. Macau authorities have arrested five Pakistanis of (officially) overstaying their visas. They also may be (again, speaking officially here) robbery suspects. But about halfway down the page, we find this little three-liner: ''According to preliminary investigations, the documents seized [in the arrest] appear to contain instructions to attack American targets in the SAR and Macau in the case of an American attack on Afghanistan,'' the [government] source said.
posted by Bixby23 (7 comments total)

Sorry to post to my own post, but right after I found the article, I came across this photo, which, if these guys really were intending to carry out attacks against the U.S., I find really creepy.
posted by Bixby23 at 1:38 AM on September 17, 2001

SCMP requires registration...

uname:  meta
passwd: filter
posted by brantstrand at 2:23 AM on September 17, 2001

Oops. My bad. My apologies to MeFiers, and thanks, brantstrand.
posted by Bixby23 at 2:28 AM on September 17, 2001

After plenty of reports recently shaking up confidence in the perceived levels of intelligence services info/awareness in the region this comes as welcome relief that their ears really are to the ground and that their grapevine tapping skills are enough to stop some serious shit occurring. Good find Bixby.
posted by Kino at 2:55 AM on September 17, 2001

Sorry to be a posting freak (especially to my own post), and I promise to cool it after this, but neither the situation in Macau, nor this is getting any kind of attention, at least that I can find, in the Western press. Will kindly shut up now. Many apologies.
posted by Bixby23 at 3:27 AM on September 17, 2001

Some reasons why they might not be getting much press: (1) an anonymous source claiming that "preliminary investigations" make it "appear" that the documents contain instructions to attack, a claim which has been flatly contradicted by two official sources, is just a little too *maybe* (most big media outlets stopped publishing the rumours after a day or two after the attacks); (2) the second story just isn't particularly newsworthy outside of the local area: "12 Islamic zealots entered Japan before terror attacks". There are thousands of members of various organizations in one way or another tied to bin Laden in various countries around the world. Everytime they travel internationally, they leave one country and enter another. Most of this travelling will have occured before 9/11 since most of human history occured before 9/11.
posted by sylloge at 3:59 AM on September 17, 2001

True, but ain't rumours fun? I remember that case of the Bukhari bro's, one of whom had been dead for a year ::shakes head sadly::
posted by Mossy at 4:08 AM on September 17, 2001