West Coast e-mailers have been buzzing about this curious incident:

Authorities today detained an Iraqi national who was carrying a suspicious object at Los Angeles International’s Terminal One.

Los Angeles airport police held the man in a passenger screening area after security agents discovered at 5:40 a.m. that he was carrying a metal object, officials said.

A preliminary investigation of the man’s bags — which were taken off a flight that was scheduled to go to Philadelphia but diverted to Las Vegas — found nothing hazardous or dangerous, authorities said.

The man has been turned over to Immigration and Customs authorities for additional questioning, officials said at an afternoon news conference.

The man was identified as Fadhel Maliki, 35, of Atlantic City, N.J., an Iraqi national who has been in the United States since 1994, according to Ethel McGuire, the FBI assistant special agent assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Maliki was going through preflight screening when he was pulled aside after acting suspicious, officials said. He had been previously flagged based on a travel profile, but officials refused to discuss details.

According to Larry Fetters, federal security director at LAX, Maliki was concealing objects connected to wires from his body.

I leave the rest to Allah.

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