"The problem for military intelligence in a war like this is determining who is the enemy," said Mark Ensalaco, an international terrorism expert at the University of Dayton, in Ohio.
But for detainees, citing ownership of a Casio<a href="
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watch as <a href="
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evidence amounts to profiling, a mistake that sweeps up the innocent.
"This watch is not from al-Qaida, it's not used for a bomb," protested Abdul Matin, a prisoner from Afghanistan. "This is just a regular watch. All older, younger men and women use this watch everywhere."
Authorities have, however, documented the use of the watches in several terrorist acts.
In the 1996 trial of Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the first attack on the World Trade Center, a prosecutor described how a Casio attached to a timing device using 9-volt batteries became the "calling card" of Yousef's Philippines-based terror cell.
Yousef, a nephew of detained terror mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, tested the method with a bomb under a seat on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing one passenger. The attack was allegedly a dry run for a plot to blow up 11 jumbo jets. Authorities foiled the plot after the bomb-makers inadvertently set their apartment on fire.
Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian convicted in 2001 of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport around the millennium, bought two model 1663 Casio watches at a Canadian <a href="
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electronics store to use as timers, according to court records.
The Department of Homeland Security advised airport screeners and law enforcement in January 2005 to be aware that some altimeter-equipped Casios, whose model numbers were not disclosed, could be used in explosives, as could another unspecified brand of watch that doubled as a butane lighter.