Scott Johnson at Power Line posted a story today about Mohammed al-Madadi, the diplomat from Qatar who set off a bomb scare by smoking his pipe in the bathroom on an airplane.  When confronted by the crew, he joked that he was trying to light his shoes and refused to give up his lighter to the crew.  At that point, he was apprehended by the Federal Air Marshalls on the flight.  The article points out:

“Madadi’s mission is also worthy of note. Madadi was going to meet Ali Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who is serving eight years in prison after pleading guilty last year to conspiring to support terrorism. Fox News assures us that such diplomatic visits are routine.”

Scott Johnson at this point asks some very relevant questions–“Al-Marri as an imprisoned al Qaeda agent. How many of these guys do we have incarcerated in the United States? What countries are they from? Are diplomats from these countries in fact routinely meeting with them?”

Using diplomatic immunity for purposes other than diplomacy is not a new game.  The Russians did it during the cold war, and I suspect we have done it on occasion ourselves.

The article further reports:

“The Fox News account states that no explosives were found on the flight and that officials were satisfied that Madadi was not trying to hurt anyone. But might he have been probing airline security in the aftermath of Umar Abdulmutallab’s attempted bombing of the flight to Detroit this past Christmas? Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom just before he sought to ignite the explosives he was wearing.”

Is anyone at Homeland Security paying attention?