The NY Post reports that 11 Egyptian students, all males around 20 years old, are being sought by authorities after disappearing from JFK airport in NYC.

Eleven Egyptian students who were supposed to travel to a Montana university after flying to JFK airport late last month disappeared in New York, spurring federal authorities to issue a nationwide alert, officials said yesterday.

The students – who were traveling with six classmates from Mansoura University in Egypt – had their student visas revoked for failing to show up at Montana State University in Bozeman, the officials said.

The other six students made it to the college.

“The FBI and ICE [Immigration and Custom Enforcement] would like to locate these 11 students in order to speak with them,” said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko after the “be-on-the-lookout” alert was issued to all police in the United States.

Kolko said there is no reason to believe the missing students, all men around 20 years old, represent a threat.

“At this point, all they have done is not show up for a scheduled academic program, and their visas have been revoked,” Kolko said.

“We do not know of any association with any terrorist or criminal groups. There is no threat associated with these men. We have simply asked law enforcement’s assistance in locating them so that the FBI and ICE may interview them.”

Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the situation “has to be taken very seriously.”

“Having a number of students from an Arab country arriving on student visas and disappearing is cause for concern,” he said.

Allahpundit at Hot Air points out that this happened one week before al-Zawahiri announced the merger of an Egyptian terror group with al-Qaeda.

There are potentially “innocent” explanations for the young men’s actions — essentially that they could be merely playing hookey — but the fact that 11 of them decided to do the same thing simultaneously is rather interesting.

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