This past Friday, the FBI announced through a bulletin what the Associated Press is calling “foreign extremists” have applied to become school bus drivers in the United States. The FBI notes “recent suspicious activity” of foreigners who drive school buses or are licensed to do so, but either the FBI or the AP doesn’t bother to list that suspecious activity.

Foreigners under recent investigation include “some with ties to extremist groups” who have been able to “purchase buses and acquire licenses,” the bulletin says.

But Homeland Security and the FBI “have no information indicating these individuals are involved in a terrorist plot against the homeland,” it says. The memo also notes: “Most attempts by foreign nationals in the United States to acquire school bus licenses to drive them are legitimate.”

Also in the bulletin was the following: “There are no threats, no plots and no history leading us to believe there is any reason for concern.”  Which is why, I presume, there was a bulletin made?

So what exactly would an ‘extremist’ want with a school bus?  There are numerous possibilities, but there’s no way to tell if by extremist the FBI means FARC or a radical Islamic group.  The Investor’s Business Daily ponders if this is a warning for an American Beslan.

[Recent events that raise the ire of the FBI] include last year’s surprise boarding of a school bus in Florida by two Saudi men dressed in trench coats. Authorities suspect they were making a dry run to see how easy it would be to hijack or blow up a school bus filled with American children . . .

Authorities fear the school massacre that took place in Beslan, Russia, in 2004 may be a dress rehearsal for what al-Qaida plans to do here. Chechen terrorists tied to al-Qaida seized a building in Beslan on the first day of school and slaughtered 338, including 172 kids.

That’s the first I have heard the Beslan school siege could have been a dry run, and in no way do I believe that.  The school siege in Beslan was carried out by radical Islamists in Chechnya that are linked with Al Qaida, but that group has their own gripe against the Russian government which was the supposed reason for taking nearly 1,000 people, mostly children, hostage.  It is more than reasonable to assume Al Qaida learned from that incident, but the school siege didn’t exactly increase sympathy for the Chechen terrorists’ cause, which is the main reason why there are terrorist attacks in the first place.

While I listen to talk radio throughout the day, I never listen to Rush Limbaugh.  But Limbaugh provides commentary on the FBI bulletin that is worth the read.  There’s even a story of the over-hyped patriotism of Shamu if you can believe it.