Those Syrian Musicians

[rowyn]

I know koogrr was interested in the group of musicians suspected of one reporter of being terrorists.

They appear to have been the backup band for "Nour Mehana" (a.k.a. Noor Mehanna, Nour Mhanna, or Noor Mhanan, or probably some other spellings, take your pick).

Thanks to Scott Kellogg and Snopes.com for the link.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Ah, so what's the wrong article, then? Is the article you just posted a link to supposed to be a fake article, or what? Just confused by the comment and ... well ... having no background context for this whole thing. (I've never heard of this before your post.)

[rowyn]

The original article is here. The one I linked to in my original post is a follow-up article.

While the broad details of her story (eg, the flight she took did exist and did have 14 Middle Eastern men on it) are confirmed, the other details -- ie, how suspicious was their behavior? Were they loitering by the bathroom door? etc. have not been independently verified, and air marshalls say that they checked the lavatory after the men used it, which the reporter specifically said didn't happen. It's possible that she was hysterically overreacting (that's certainly the official version of events) and invented details that didn't actually happen.

But if exactly what she described did happen, I wouldn't blame her for being paranoid.

Snopes debunks the story here.