Jihad by the bladder

I was wrong.  I thought he was angry that the airline no longer offered peanuts, I did not think it could be a bladder control problem. 

From the Mail Online May 10 by Daniel Bates

AP

May 8: In this image captured by citizen journalist Andrew Wai, passengers,

top right, subdue a man identified as Rageh Almurisi (not seen) on board an

American Airlines flight headed to San Francisco

The Yemeni man who was wrestled to the floor after pounding on the cockpit door of a plane approaching San Francisco may have mistaken it for the bathroom.

Rageit Almurisi cannot speak English very well and could have misunderstood the signs inside the jet, his cousin claimed.
The maths teacher, who was heard yelling 'Allahu Akbar' as he allegedly battered the door, had also only been on three planes in his life and would have been unfamiliar with the layout.
 His family also claimed that Almurisi, 28, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and could also have reacted badly when an air stewardess told him to sit down.

I always rush the cockpit door on an airliner as it prepares to land because I didn't like what the stewardess told me, don't you?
His painful joint condition meant he had to take regular walks on flights, they claimed. ‘I would not be having that,’ his cousin Rageh Almoraissi said.

By informing the airline of his condition, as his family could have helped him with, there would have been accommodations made for him to ease the discomfort of his malady.
‘If a flight attendant has the nerve to grab me and try to force me to my seat, believe me, you would hear about other people having injuries.’

Set up the victimization early...and often.

Almurisi sparked panic when he started yelling and banging on the cockpit door on American Airlines Flight 1561 from Chicago, just ten minutes before it was due to land on Sunday night, according to police.

But the suspect's cousin, Rageh, 29, said he was a university educated, easygoing person who had arrived in Northern California a year-and-a-half ago from Yemen in search of a better life.

He told the Bay Citizen newspaper he probably overreacted when he was told to sit down.

‘There's a lot of things I'm guessing, you know, I'm just trying to figure it out,’ said Rageh. ‘I know he wasn't trying to harm anyone. I know that for sure. He's not a terrorist. He's a nice guy.’

He added that his cousin, who has a bachelor’s degree from a Yemeni university, could speak some English but had problems understanding it, especially when he was under stress and that he was ‘sometimes naïve and ignorant about American culture’‘He's been in a third world country, in a village, for most of his life,’ he told the Bay Citizen. ‘The first Asian he saw, he didn't mean it, he wasn't trying to be funny, he was being serious.‘He said: "Are you related to Jackie Chan?" I was like, whoa. Luckily, the guy didn't understand what he said.’

Rageh added that his cousin had 'been under a lot of stress' lately and probably 'cracked'.

'His parents died when he was young and he was raised by his grandfather but he recently passed away too,' he said.

'Whilst he was living in New York with his brother he had $13,000 stolen from him as well, so he has been going through some tough times. He must have had a mental breakdown on that flight.

'I'm pretty sure he would have been provoked and badly treated - it would not have been the first time. Under the stress he was, being provoked would have sent him over the edge.'

Rageh added that his cousin was not especially religious and that he 'followed the rules' of being a Muslim but nothing more.

Well, that's not comforting.  Following the rules of Islam entail jihad, sharia law and all the commensurate behavior that comes with being a true follower of Muhammad.  But he was a decent fellow and a nice guy.  Remember that for the next time something like this happens.

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