FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) — An airliner was diverted to Fort Smith on Wednesday because four passengers behaved strangely on the flight, including at least three who locked themselves in a restroom, possibly shaving their body hair.
No injuries were reported.
Federal officials, speaking on a condition of anonymity, said the incident was not believed to be related to terrorism.
However, KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, where Northwest Airlines is based, quoted an unidentified source as saying the men were ‘‘shaving themselves clean.’’ A source speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that people aboard the airplane gave investigators similar accounts.
After last year’s terror attacks, documents found in the luggage of attack leader Mohamed Atta gave what appeared to be instructions for the suicide hijackers: ‘‘The previous night, shave the extra hair from the body (and) pray.’’
The men appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, said Jim Harris, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Scott Brenner said some people were detained by the FBI at Fort Smith, but he didn’t know how many. The FBI office at Little Rock said the men were taken off the plane but their whereabouts were unknown.
The Bush administration had raised the nation’s terror alert warning to its second highest level Tuesday — code orange — signaling a ‘‘high risk’’ of attack on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Northwest Airlines Flight 979, an Airbus A320 traveling from Memphis, Tenn., to Las Vegas with 94 passengers and a crew of five, landed at Fort Smith late Wednesday morning, Northwest spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert said.
No fighter jets were launched to accompany the aircraft, said Maj. Douglas Martin of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
The Northwest pilots decided themselves to land at Fort Smith as a precaution, the airline said in a statement.
Schubert said she could not elaborate on what alarmed the crew and could not confirm information about the alleged shaving.
Police and firefighters surrounded the aircraft, sitting at the end of a runway, and other passengers were taken to a terminal.
No other air traffic in the area was affected, said Dave Steigman, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Agency.

SHANGHAI, China (AP) — Call it an upgrade of the Great Fire Wall of China.
In the last week and a half, China has begun using more sophisticated, expensive technologies in an effort to keep its growing number of Internet users from viewing undesirable content on the Web.
Starting about Sept. 1, users of the U.S.-based search engine Google have found themselves rerouted to a half dozen Chinese-run search engines that are less effective. Google has a feature for finding Chinese-language material online.
A few days ago, users of another American search engine, Altavista.com, also found they were being rerouted to the same heavily censored Chinese sites.
This week, users have begun complaining of an increase in selective blocking — being able to visit Web sites but not being able to see specific articles or other content of a politically sensitive nature.
A common complaint has been that users can access a foreign media site but find only a blank screen when they try to call up an article on, for example, Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
In its usual secretive way, Beijing made no announcement of the new measures and refused to confirm their existence.
But analysts say the measures represent a technological leap from the earlier ‘‘Great Fire Wall’’ of China, which had clumsily tried to block entire Web sites deemed politically dangerous or pornographic.
‘‘Blocking has been escalated in the last week or so. It’s a new high-water mark in Internet controls,’’ said Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a Beijing-based Internet consulting firm.
Clark and others said the new blocking seems to be related to a Communist Party Congress scheduled for November — a time when restrictions on speech are often tightened.
This congress is especially sensitive because Jiang is expected to give up his post as secretary-general, beginning a process of handing over power to younger leaders.
Ben Edelman, a Harvard University researcher who has been documenting Chinese online censorship, said China’s recent filtering modifications ‘‘show in new clarity their dedication to restricting access to content they deem undesirable, inappropriate or simply illegal.’’
Analysts say they’re more interested in whether the controls will be eased after the congress.
Pressure to do so will be intense because of the economic costs, analysts said. Installing and upgrading new censorship software is expensive, and the restrictions lead to less comprehensive searches and bog down all Internet use.
On the other hand, authorities may be reluctant to give up their new powers. Chinese Internet companies may also want the restrictions kept in place to block foreign competitors.
‘‘It’ll be an early test of the tenor of the new administration’’ that replaces Jiang, Clark said.
The decision highlights a contradiction at the core of Beijing’s Internet policy: it encourages commercial and educational use by China’s 30 million-plus users while restricting it as a forum for political discussion.
Many Chinese users are already complaining that the Internet’s business utility is being damaged.
‘‘Without the English search engines, users in China are at a dead end,’’ said Ben, a 36-year-old employee at a foreign company in Shanghai who uses the Internet for work. He asked that his family name not be used for fear of official retaliation.
‘‘Chinese engines don’t provide sufficient information on Chinese-language sites, let alone English sites,’’ he said.
An operator at the customer service center of Shanghai Online, the largest service provider in China’s largest city, said the company has been deluged with complaints.
‘‘Users are quite angry. They rely on foreign search engines as a work tool,’’ said the operator, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ‘‘We can only tell customers that the Web sites were shut down by the government and that we can do nothing about it.’’
A marketing executive at Shanghai Online, who also asked not to be named, said use of its Chinese-language search engine has surged this month.
The government’s early blocking of entire sites was technologically fairly primitive and involved placing filters at what were then a handful of international gateways — where China’s piece of the Internet merged with the broader global supernetwork.
But gateways are proliferating, and the site-specific blocks are too easily sidestepped by proxy servers, computers abroad that help mask a user’s true destination.
The new, selective filtering technologies make it much more difficult to access forbidden information, Clark and others said. Yet they are technologically more difficult to administer — and more costly. Data requests are free to leave China, but many incoming Web pages are blocked based on certain keywords.
‘‘The Chinese have been working on these new technologies for years,’’ Clark said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian Cabinet resigned Wednesday after Yasser Arafat lost a showdown with parliament — the most serious challenge to the Palestinian leader since he returned from exile in 1994.
Earlier in the day, Arafat had set Jan. 20 as a date for presidential and parliamentary elections in an attempt to defuse the confrontation with disgruntled legislators who accused him of making only halfhearted efforts to reform his administration.
The maneuver failed, and legislators insisted on moving forward with a no-confidence vote on the 21-member Cabinet.
‘‘There is a crisis of confidence,’’ said lawmaker Salah Taameri, a veteran member of Arafat’s Fatah movement. ‘‘Believe us when we say it’s serious.’’
Arafat now has two weeks to present parliament with a new Cabinet list.
The day began with Arafat summoning Fatah legislators, who dominate the 88-seat parliament, to his office to try to persuade them to back the Cabinet.
He reshuffled portfolios in June, dismissing some ministers and naming five new ones as part of what he said would be major internal reforms. However, legislators complained the changes were largely cosmetic, and that many ministers considered incompetent or tainted by suspicion of corruption had been allowed to stay on.
In Wednesday’s meeting, many of the Fatah legislators told Arafat they would not back the Cabinet.
Afterward, hoping to avoid a confidence vote on the whole government, Arafat issued a decree setting Jan. 20 as the date for presidential and parliamentary elections — a move at variance with U.S. wishes for a delay that might help in sidelining the Palestinian leader.
Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said setting an election date was part of a compromise floated at the Fatah meeting. Under the deal, which failed, Arafat would set a date for elections, rendering the current Cabinet a temporary one. In that case, the Fatah legislators said, they would be willing to hold a vote only on the five new ministers appointed in June, who have reputations as honest and diligent administrators and enjoy wide support.
Arafat, apparently fearing defeat, accepted the deal, the officials said.
But parliament’s legal committee decided later that the entire Cabinet must be presented for approval. Legislators apparently did not believe Arafat was sincere in setting an election date and feared he might revoke the decree later.
By mid-afternoon Wednesday, 32 of 35 legislators had addressed parliament, saying they would vote no-confidence in the government. In all, 65 lawmakers attended, either in Ramallah or by video conference from Gaza.
Just before the vote was to begin, Cabinet ministers submitted their resignations to Arafat, who accepted them.
The setting of an election date came as something of a surprise. The United States had been seeking a delay to gain time to find ways of diminishing Arafat’s position. President Bush has urged the Palestinians to elect a new leadership.
One floated proposal calls for appointment of a prime minister who would run day-to-day affairs, while Arafat would be turned into a figurehead. While the Palestinian leader earlier appeared to be considering the idea, in recent days he has blocked all efforts to bring it about.
A U.S. official said Wednesday that the United States supported the Palestinians’ right to choose their own leader, but suggested the elections were coming too soon. ‘‘We think the ground has to be prepared before that (elections),’’ said Paul Patin, spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
It is widely assumed that the earlier the elections are held, the greater Arafat’s chances of winning re-election.
While many Palestinians find fault with Arafat, they say they resent U.S. efforts to try to push him aside and will not accept meddling in their affairs.
Reuven Rivlin, an Israeli Cabinet minister, said the Palestinians must know that if they re-elect Arafat, ‘‘we will continue to treat them as a people led by a terrorist.’’ Rivlin was appointed Tuesday to the Israeli team that has been meeting with Palestinian Cabinet ministers.
No serious contender against Arafat has emerged.
Arafat has said in the past that the elections would be held in January, but until Wednesday refused to set a specific date.
In other developments Wednesday, Israeli troops, backed by about 60 armored vehicles, raided a town in the Gaza Strip, searching mosques and homes for suspected Islamic militants and exchanging fire with Palestinian gunmen.
Despite extensive gun battles, there were no reports of injuries, and Israeli forces withdrew from Beit Hanoun, a town of about 30,000 Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip, after six hours. Islamic militants said they detonated explosives near a tank, and reporters saw a deep crater on the outskirts of Beit Hanoun.
The army said four Palestinians wanted for questioning were arrested, and that there were no casualties among the soldiers.
Also Wednesday, Israel’s Security Cabinet decided that Rachel’s Tomb — a disputed holy site in the West Bank town of Bethlehem — would remain under its control to ensure access to it from nearby Jerusalem. The move could require the seizure of some Palestinian territory.
Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the tomb — where Jews believe the biblical matriarch Rachel, wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph, is buried — would remain under Israeli control under an emerging plan to ring Jerusalem with walls, fences and roadblocks.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — For many of the 598 detainees at this U.S. outpost thousands of miles from ground zero, Sept. 11 was just another day behind bars.
The men from 43 countries — all of whom are accused of links to either Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network or Afghanistan’s fallen Taliban regime — have no calendars and were not told what day it was.
‘‘We’re not making any special announcements to them,’’ said Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, in charge of the detention mission in Guantanamo.
The 1,600 U.S. military personnel at the U.S. naval base on Cuba’s eastern tip honored those killed in last year’s terror attacks in the United States with somber ceremonies.
Dozens of soldiers guarding the detainees stood as taps was played Wednesday, but the tent housing the ceremony near the Camp Delta prison was half-empty on a day that remained largely business-as-usual.
About 70 soldiers prayed and observed a moment of silence.
‘‘Every day, we remember why we’re here. But today is a day of remembrance. It’s a day of mourning,’’ said Army Spc. Blair Winner, a 20-year-old guard from Mentor, Ohio.
The ceremony began about 7:30 a.m., with the national anthem and the hymn ‘‘Amazing Grace’’ blaring from a loudspeaker. The soldiers watched a slide show of the attack on the World Trade Center and of people fleeing the destruction.
‘‘The terrorists are learning the hard lessons that many of the world’s powers have learned before them: this country will not be paralyzed by fear because we are united to destroy this threat,’’ Baccus told the troops.
Army Capt. Sandra Orlandella, a New York police officer, wore her blue police uniform and wept while addressing soldiers at the ceremony.
‘‘We’re very proud to represent the men and women who gave their all and made the ultimate sacrifice,’’ she said.
The detention mission, nearing its ninth month, is under increased pressure as interrogators squeeze information from the suspects and U.S. officials decide whether there is enough evidence to try them in tribunals or whether some should be freed.
‘‘Although the Department of Defense is preparing to conduct military commissions, no trials are imminent,’’ said Maj. Ted Wadsworth, a Pentagon spokesman. ‘‘No charges have been approved.’’
U.S. officials say the detainees are being treated humanely under conditions set by the Geneva Conventions, though Washington has refused to classify them as prisoners of war, calling them unlawful combatants.
‘‘While the public debates the technicalities of how these people should be classified, we will continue to follow the traditions of humane treatment,’’ Baccus said.
The legal limbo is taking its toll. Four detainees tried to kill themselves in July and August. Dozens more have received antidepressants.
After the first detainees arrived in January, dozens launched a hunger strike. Recently, they have thrown water at guards or banged on their bunks.
Some have written to their families about late-night interrogations at the prison. Others stopped writing after sending short notes that said that they will see their relatives in heaven, according to lawyers.
‘‘I think the system has started to break down,’’ said Najeeb Al-Nauimi, Qatar’s former justice minister and a lawyer trying to get the detainees sent back to their homelands. ‘‘I believe October will be a time of healing and we will start to see some of the detainees sent home because the United States knows many of them are innocent.’’
On Wednesday, family and friends of Australian David Hicks, who allegedly fought with the Taliban, again called for his release from Guantanamo.
‘‘My son had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks. It is time he was released,’’ said Terry Hicks, his father.
U.S. forces also are holding 81 prisoners in Afghanistan, Wadsworth said, and construction crews are hammering away at more cells in Guantanamo. The prison could hold up to 816 detainees when the work is completed.