[link|http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/1569829|story]

Excerpt:

The Houston U.S. Customs Service office on Tuesday retracted statements made the day before by its director who claimed a large shipment of cellular telephones seized earlier in the year were tied to al-Qaida.

John Babb, port director for the customs region that includes Houston, "misspoke" when he said the seizure was connected to the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, customs spokeswoman Judy Turner said Tuesday.

"The telephones have not been linked to a terrorist organization," Turner said.

Customs officials provided no other explanation for the large discrepancy between the two versions of the story.

During a media briefing Monday on port security, Babb had said that customs had seized a cache of about 1,000 cellular telephones. However, the actual number of phones that were seized was about 240, Turner said.

She said Babb's 1,000 figure for the number of phones seized was a "guesstimate."