UPDATE: Never mind. Move along. Nothing suspicious in backpack or car, police say. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Police took a person into custody Friday morning in connection with a vehicle containing a suspicious device stopped close to the Pentagon. Pentagon police say they are looking for accomplices who may have fled the scene.
ABC reports that one man was detained near the Pentagon’s 9/11 memorial after he was found to be carrying a suspicious device and al Qaeda literature. Apparently a U.S. citizen of Ethiopian ancestry, his backpack contained what police believe to be ammonium nitrate and spent 9mm shells. CBS reports that the device has been “rendered safe,” but said the suspect was taken into custody overnight in Arlington National Cemetery, which is adjacent to the Pentagon complex. Police seized his vehicle, which they located near the Pentagon. The man has been suspected of planting similar devices in the cemetery and at the Marine Iwo Jima memorial in the past.
Police rushed to the scene, and closed the web of highways near to the Pentagon: routes 27 and 110 around the five-sided building, the ramps to and from interstate 66 and 395 that run near the building. Metro subway service to and from the building continues.
It was nearly 10 years ago that a hijacked airliner plowed into the Pentagon’s western limestone facade, killing 184 people. Emergency vehicles raced by the stainless steel benches Friday morning that now serve as a memorial to those lost on that September day in 2001. Last fall, a series of bullets was fired from highways at the Pentagon and several other military-related buildings in the region.