By Mitch Lipka
Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 28 2001
Two weeks after the terrorist attack that killed an estimated 7,000 people, investigators still are not sure who all the hijackers really were.
The 19 terrorism suspects used stolen identities, multiple identities and fake names, obfuscating their trail so successfully that even thousands of federal agents are having difficulty sorting it out.
On Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller released a stack of photographs and a laundry list of aliases, and reached out for help in tracking the true identities of the suspects.
"It should be noted that attempts to confirm the true identities of these individuals are still under way," the FBI said in a statement.
Many of the suspected terrorists, it is becoming increasingly clear, swapped identities as part of their preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to a Sun-Sentinel review of documents, interviews and published reports.
At least six of the suspected terrorists had two sets of driver’s licenses issued by Florida — which could have allowed two or more people to use the same identity. Once they had licenses, the terror suspects rented cars and traveled on domestic airline flights without the scrutiny faced by travelers who show a foreign license or a passport.
They used our libraries, worked out in our health clubs, ate next to us at restaurants and restaurants, and flew little planes over our houses. They chose landlords who didn’t require background checks. They changed apartments before anyone could take much notice of their activities.
In the case of several of the South Florida-based suspects, they got duplicate licenses issued after they simply filled out change of address forms. A second license was sent, as is routine, with the request to the license holder to destroy the previous ID.
Some of the suspects apparently used the stolen identities of at least five Saudis who worked in the airline industry as pilots, mechanics and flight attendants — people who would have had increased access in airports, a Saudi government official told the Sun-Sentinel.
The stolen and phony IDs have created problems for investigators. "Obviously that’s been a concern," said Judy Orihuela, spokeswoman for the FBI in Miami.
"We are fairly certain of a number of them," FBI Director Robert Mueller said at a news conference Thursday, though he wouldn’t specify which.
Some have been linked to the terrorist network operated by Osama bin Laden, Mueller said.
Mueller said the FBI believes the names and photographs released Thursday match those on the manifests of the four hijacked planes. But questions remain over whether those are the true names of the hijackers.
"What we are currently doing is determining whether, when these individuals came to the United States, these were their real names or they changed their names for use with false identification in the United States," said Mueller.
The FBI has only identified nine of the suspected hijackers who they would even assign a possible country of origin. Eight were Saudis, the other an Egyptian.
"It is our hope that the release of these photos will prompt others who may have seen the hijackers to contact the FBI with any information they may have that would be helpful to the investigation," said Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The release of the photos, which come from passports, driver’s licenses and other documents identified with the suspected hijackers, marked a change for authorities. Until now they’ve kept the pictures under wraps so potential witnesses and others could get a fresh look at the men.
It is easy to convert a forged document into a legitimate state ID, said Lt. David Myers, who runs the fraudulent ID section of the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco. He is a national expert on fake IDs and the use of counterfeit documents to obtain IDs.
"There’s 242 valid state-issued ID documents in the United States right now," he said.
Once an ID is in someone’s hand, there’s little chance it will be detected as a fake, or a valid one obtained under false pretenses, Myers said.
"Do you think that airline lady knows when I hand her my Idaho license that it’s no good anymore? There’s no record. There’s no nothing," he said. "We pay 53 cents for that document, yet we’re putting all of our trust into that document.
"The United States has the lowest standard of ID documents of probably any country in the world." Most nations, he went on, have national ID cards, with information collected in a central database.
For most of their time in the U.S., the 19 lived in places where they wouldn't draw much attention — areas that attracted transients and were outside the view of the intelligence operatives, said Whalid Phares, a Florida Atlantic University professor.
Phares, a terrorism expert and author of numerous books and papers on Islamic fundamentalism, said it was likely that most of the suspects set up in southern states because federal agents were more likely to be paying attention to Mexicans and Cubans.
"It’s not going to provide 100-percent protection," he said, but it would allow some comfort.
A study of their movements, as traced so far, shows they lived together in small groups, or cells. Their actions were probably controlled by someone who was not among them, — someone who has yet to be identified, said Larry Johnson, former deputy-director of counter-terrorism for the U.S. State Department and now a security consultant in Maryland.
“These guys were just committed zealots and willing to give it up for the cause without really being key members of the network,” Johnson said. “They were told what to prepare for, what to train for. They were not the ones calling the shots.”
They were, however, extremely well organized, Johnson and Phares said.
“We don’t have anything in history to compare with this,” Johnson said. “The only thing that comes close to it is a former Soviet intel [intelligence] operation.”
To investigators on several continents, who have pursued hundreds of thousands of leads, it seems clear the plot was laid out before the terror suspects ever entered the U.S. and began forming their cells to put into motion the nightmare of Sept. 11.
Their trail zig-zagged from their homelands in the Middle East to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Britain, Malaysia and, ultimately, the United States.
They moved constantly — staying at cheap hotels and transient apartments, rarely for more than two months at a time — in California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Maine, Nevada, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey, while keeping the base of their operations in South Florida.
Of the 19 suspected terrorists, 15 used South Florida addresses in the months leading up to the attacks, according to witnesses, published reports and such documents as rental agreements and driver’s licenses. A man with the same name as a 16th hijacker stayed in Miramar in 1996.
An examination of their movements — pieced together from investigators, media reports from around the world, witnesses and public records — reveals how a handful of conspirators organized themselves into small groups, avoided detection by blending into the background of ordinary life, and then executed their synchronized shock attack on America.
Manila, the Philippines
A plot resembling the Sept. 11 attacks emerged in January 1995, when Philippine authorities investigated a Manila apartment fire. The flat turned out to be a bomb-making nest, rented by Abdul Hakim Murad and Ramzi Yousef — terrorists associated with bin Laden.
From interrogations and coded files from the suspects’ computer, Philippine intelligence officials learned of a plan that then seemed outlandish:
Conspirators wanted to kill the Pope on a visit to Manila, bomb 11 U.S. passenger jets over the Pacific Ocean (killing an estimated 4,000 passengers heading to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and New York City), and crash a plane into CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.
Murad, a pilot, brought a bomb aboard a Philippine Airlines jet in 1994 in a dry run. A Japanese businessman was killed.
Details of their scheme came out in a 1996 trial in federal court in New York, resulting in the conviction of Muran, Yousef and a third man, Wali Khan Amin Shah. All three men were sentenced to life in prison. Yousef later was convicted of being the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Hamburg, Germany
In a city of 1.7 million people with a quarter-million foreigners, Egyptian-born Mohammed Atta, his nephew Marwan al-Shehhi from the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon native Ziad Jarrah could have been any three foreign students in 1999 and 2000.
In Germany — a melting pot of nationalities that Johnson said makes it a haven for terrorists — they attracted little attention.
Atta had dropped out of sight in the middle of his eight years at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, where he began studying urban planning in 1992.
By all accounts, the Atta who returned in 1999 had a newly found devotion to Islam. He sported a long beard and founded an Islamic student group.
And he had his younger nephew in tow.
At the same time, Jarrah had an apartment in Hamburg and was studying for a pilot’s license.
Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah reported their passports stolen in 1999during a trip to Bavaria in southern Germany, the German newspaper Bild reported.
“They presumably wanted to get rid of visa entries from Iraq and Afghanistan to make it easier to travel to the United States,” the newspaper quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman.
Atta completed his studies at the end of spring semester of 2000, and was soon on the move.
He got his visa from the U.S. consulate in Berlin on May 18, 2000. He landed in Newark, N.J., on June 3.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Three men were captured on surveillance video in January 2000.
One was arrested in connection with the bomb attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000. U.S officials believe the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded more than twice that many, to be the work of bin Laden.
The CIA said other two men were Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — both of whose names appear on the FBI list of suspected terrorists on American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
The American West and Southwest
Al-Midhar and al-Hazmi arrived in the U.S. in early 2000, setting up in San Diego.
In February, the two paid $3,000 cash for a 1988 Toyota Corolla. They were spotted at a local flying club in May with someone named “Hani,” possibly Hani Hanjour, another of the suspected terrorists.
A man with Hanjour’s name had received some flight training in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1996 and 1997 but didn’t receive a pilot’s license. He asked for advanced training in 1999, saying he got his license elsewhere, but the school rejected him.
In San Diego, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi met Abdussattar Shaikh, a local Muslim leader and retired professor. He rented them a room in his house from September through December, although al-Midhar was gone much of that time.
Shaikh told the San Diego Union-Tribune he thought he was offering shelter to two young men who were in the country to learn English.
Al-Midhar, he said, could barely speak English and appeared standoffish. Al-Hazmi had a better command of the language, Shaikh said, and became quite friendly.
Oklahoma to Florida
Flight school operators in Norman, Okla., said they briefly met Atta and al-Shehhi while the pair were scouting their operation. After a short stay in the U.S. heartland, the two decided on a flight school in multi-ethnic Florida.
They picked Huffman Aviation in Venice.
Living in nearby Nokomis, uncle and nephew spent July through November, getting a feel for airplanes.
Also in Venice was Jarrah, registering a car in November.In December Atta and al-Shehhi relocate to Florida’s East Coast and trained in Opa-Locka. At the SimCenter, they paid $1,500 to use a Boeing 727, and experienced being at the controls of a commercial jet.
Europe
On Jan. 4, Atta took the first of many trips to Europe, flying from Miami to Madrid, returning about a week later.
Then, neighbors and investigators said, Atta and al-Shehhi returned to Hamburg, moving back to Atta’s old apartment.
As many as 11 of the terror suspects were in London at various times this year, The Times of London reported.
South Florida
Many of the suspected hijackers started to appear here by April.
Using a Mail Boxes Etc. address in Hollywood, al-Shehhi got his Florida driver’s license on April 12. He got a duplicate license two months later.
He and his uncle, Atta, were living in an apartment in Coral Springs. On April 26, Atta got a traffic ticket in Tamarac and gave the Coral Springs address. He was cited for driving without a license.
On April 23, Jarrah rented a small apartment at 1816 Harding St. in Hollywood. He stayed for two months.
A man calling himself Waleed al-Shehri rented a room on April 28 at the Bimini Motel on Ocean Drive in Hollywood. He got his Florida driver’s license May 4 — and a duplicate the next day.
Al-Shehhi arrived at Miami International Airport on May 2 on a flight from Amsterdam, according to the Boston Globe. It is not clear where he’d traveled in Europe or what he was doing.
Atta got a Florida driver’s license on May 2, using the Coral Springs address. Jarrah got a license that same day, saying he lived in Lauderdale-by-the Sea. He got a duplicate on July 10 — the same day that a man calling himself Ahmed al-Haznawi got his Florida license, using the same Lauderdale-by-the Sea address.
(Al-Haznawi got a duplicate of his license on Sept. 7.)
On May 13, al-Shehhi and Atta moved into an apartment on Jackson Street in Hollywood. They stayed a month.
Phoenix
On June 23, a man using the name Hani Hanjour and three other unidentified men began a series of sessions in a flight simulator at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Sawyer Aviation, a Phoenix flight school, told the Arizona Republic the men spent hours in the simulator until July 29.
South Florida
On June 21, Waleed al-Shehri and two other men, Wail al-Shehri and Satam al-Suqami, rented a room at the Homing Inn on Federal Highway in Boynton Beach, staying until July 26.
On July 3, both Wail al-Shehri and al-Suqami got driver’s licenses using the motel’s address.
In Delray Beach, meantime, al-Shehhi rented an apartment for Atta and himself in the gated Hamlet Country Club off Atlantic Avenue. They stayed there from June 13 to Aug. 12.
Using an address on Dotterel Road in Delray Beach, a man calling himself Ahmed al-Nami got a driver’s license on June 29.
Nawaf al-Hazmi, who’d been captured on the CIA surveillance tape with the Cole suspect and al-Midhar before going to San Diego, got a Florida driver’s license using a fictitious address in Delray Beach.
Hamza al-Ghamdi, a man living at the Delray Beach Racquet Club, got his Florida license on June 27 and then received two duplicates, most recently in August.
Las Vegas
Atta took two quick trips in the summer to the glitzy gambling city, staying in a budget motel.
At least four other hijacking suspects in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks stayed in Las Vegas, the Associated Press reported. In addition to Atta, authorities have evidence that al-Shehhi, Hanjour, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Jarrah visited Las Vegas between May and August, the wire service said, quoting an anonymous source.
That would place at least one man from each of the hijacked planes in that city.
Europe
On July 9, Atta flew from Miami to Madrid. He spent 11 days in Europe before returning to the U.S. Spanish intelligence officials said his rental car had more than 1,200 miles on it, the Spanish newspaperEl Mundo reported.
Intelligence officials have said Atta was meeting with suspected members of bin Laden’s organization at a hotel in Salou, Spain July 17 and 18 and at other locations around Spain. He returned to the U.S. on July 19.
At some point in the summer, Atta and al-Shehhi checked into a hotel in Zurich. They bought knives and box-cutters used in the hijackings, according to the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick.
Former counter-terrorism official Johnson theorized why they were there:
“If you’re going to Switzerland you’ll be talking about financial activities,” he said.
The Eastern Seaboard
In August, the CIA alerted the FBI to be on the lookout for al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi because of the suspected connections to the Cole bombing. That month, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hanjour reportedly rented at least three cars from Borough Jeep Eagle Chrysler Plymouth in Wayne, N.J. In suburban Washington, Hanjour, Salem al-Hazmi, Majed Moqed, Ahmed Saleh al-Ghamdi and Abdulaziz al-Omari applied for licenses at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office in Arlington.
In Bowie, Md., Hanjour flew three training flights in early August with instructors from Freeway Airport. But the instructors said he flew too poorly to rent a plane — even though a Saudi man of that name had a FAA commercial pilot’s license.
Later in August, Jarrah checked into the Pin-Del Motel in Laurel, Md. Less than a mile away, at least two other suspects were in a room at the Valencia Motel, where they stayed Aug. 23 to Sept. 11.
Five days later, Nawaf al-Hazmi checked into the Pin-Del Motel.
Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi and Hanjour all visited a Gold’s Gym in Greenbelt, Md.
South Florida
Atta and other suspected hijackers looked into crop dusters in Belle Glade in August, according to people at the airport. Some say they saw him there as early as February.
Atta rented cars from Warrick’s Rent-A-Car in Pompano on Aug. 6 and Aug. 15. On Aug. 29, he and al-Shehhi exchanged a car that had some problems, returning the newer one Sept. 9.
In Lantana, Atta practiced flying in a rental plane at Palm Beach County Air Park.
In Deerfield Beach, al-Shehhi checked into the Panther Motel on Ocean Boulevard on Aug. 26 with another man. They were sometimes joined by a third. They stayed until Sept. 9.
On Aug. 26, Waleed M. al-Shehri and Wail al-Shehri bought tickets for American Flight 11 for Sept. 11. They gave a Mail Boxes Etc. address in Hollywood.
The next day, Mohand al-Shehri and a man the FBI now says is Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan al- Qadi Banihammad bought tickets for United Flight 175 on Sept. 11. They used a Delray Beach Mail Boxes Etc. address.
One day later, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi, using another Mail Boxes Etc. address in Delray Beach bought their tickets for that same flight.The next day, Atta and al-Omari got tickets at the same time for Flight 11 on the American Airlines Web site, using the same frequent flyer number. Al-Omari gave a Mail Boxes Etc. address in Hollywood.
That same day, al-Shehhi bought a ticket for Flight 175 and al-Suqami bought one for Flight 11. Al-Midhar, Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi and Hanjour bought tickets for the Pentagon-bound plane through the online travel agency Travelocity and giving a Mail Boxes Etc. address in New Jersey, according to CNN.
The hijackers paid as much as $4,500 for a first-class one-way ticket, according to an FBI memo obtained by the German magazine Der Spiegel.
Boston
The first of the suspected hijackers arrived Sept. 6. The Boston Globe reports a car rented by one of them was seen at the Logan International Airport garage. The car was seen again at Logan on Sept. 9 and 10th, the newspaper reported.
On the 10th, Atta and al-Omari drove a rental car to Portland, Maine, where they awaited a flight back to Boston early the next morning. Security experts have suggested they wanted to avoid being seen arriving with the other suspected terrorists at the airport.The other eight Boston suspected hijackers spread out to hotels around the Boston area.
South Florida
On Sept. 7, Atta, al-Shehhi — and by some reports, a third man — drank and played video games at Shuckums, a Hollywood bar and grill.
According to a waitress and the night manager, they quarreled over the $48 tab.
Maine, Boston, Newark, Washington
A video camera in the Portland, Maine, airport caught two men racing to get on a 5:45 a.m. flight to Boston on Sept. 11. Authorities have identified them as Atta and al-Omari.
They arrived, as the other suspects did, just before the end of boarding for their connection in Boston. A bag that Atta had checked did not make the connection to Flight 11.
In it were airline uniforms, a video on commercial aircraft and a five-page handwritten document in Arabic that included Islamic prayers, instructions for a last night of life and reminders to bring “knives, your will, IDs, your passport.” And the words: “Make sure that nobody is following you.”
Also on board were al-Suqami, Waleed al-Shehri and Wail al-Shehri.
At Washington’s Dulles Airport, American’s Flight 77 took off at 8:10 a.m. The passengers included al-Midhar, Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi and Hanjour.
In Boston, United’s Flight 175 took off at 8:14 a.m. In their seats were al-Shehhi, Banihammad, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Mohand al-Shehri.
At Newark Airport, United’s Flight 93 departed at 8:44 a.m., with Saeed al-Ghamdi, al-Haznawi, al-Nami and Jarrah on board.
At 8:45 a.m., Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s north tower.
Twenty minutes later, Flight 175 exploded on impact with the WTC south tower.
At 9:39 a.m., Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
At 10:10 a.m., Flight 93 crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pa.
Staff writers Alan Cherry and Stacey Singer and wire services were used in this article. Mitch Lipka can be reached at mlipka@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6653.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Feds: Evidence suggests hijackers' support in U.S.
September 20, 2001, Los Angeles Times
by Richard A. Serrano and John-Thor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities are gathering evidence that suggests a small network of Islamic men helped fund and protect some of the 19 suicide attackers by providing cash, documents and possibly even safe houses, a high-ranking law enforcement official said Wednesday.
The official added that among the handful of individuals arrested so far, three are receiving particular scrutiny: a man arrested on immigration charges in Minnesota last month and two others pulled from a train in Texas on the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Authorities also are interested in the prior activities and associates of a physician arrested in San Antonio, Texas, who also is in federal custody.
Officials said they think that the two men on the train, Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, were headed to San Antonio to meet with Dr. al-Badr al-Hazmi. The source also said that FBI and CIA intelligence officials were advised in August that as many as 200 Islamics with terrorist leanings were slipping into this country and planning "a major assault on the United States."
The advisory, passed on by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, cautioned that it had picked up indications of a "large-scale target" in the United States and that Americans would be "very vulnerable," the official said.
How U.S. authorities reacted to the warning is not known, but the official said the advisory linked the information "back to Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden."
"There was a connection there," he said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has said that authorities suspect that more airplanes were going to be hijacked, and that other co-conspirators -- possibly handlers and associates of the 19 suicide attackers -- remain at large.
Mindy Tucker, spokesperson for the Justice Department, said Wednesday that "we believe there are associates of the hijackers that have connections to the terrorist network that are present in the United States."
Other law enforcement authorities said such logistical support is typical within many Islamic terrorist cells.
Some participants help others slip unnoticed from city to city, and country to country, by providing them with fake or fraudulent passports, cash gained through bank- and credit-card fraud, and safe havens in their homes or in apartments rented under aliases, the authorities said.
On the morning that the Trade Center towers were destroyed, Habib Zacarias Moussaoui was in a Minnesota jail on an Immigration and Naturalization Service violation. According to one jailer, Moussaoui saw the disaster on television, and then stood and cheered.
Moussaoui's parents were born in Morocco, and he is a French citizen, born in the southern town of St. Jean de Luz in May 1968, according to an official at the French embassy in London. It was reported earlier that he was a French Algerian.
According to press reports, Moussaoui earned vocational degrees in automotive mechanics. On his university application, he expressed particular interest on his university application in learning business English so he could travel and "work in an international business."
French officials confirmed that Moussaoui was on a special immigration watch list because of his suspected ties to Islamic terrorists and because he had made several trips to Afghanistan.
Moussaoui spent at least three years in Britain in the late 1990s, according to French officials. He came to the French embassy in London in September 2000, and had his French passport extended. At the time, he described himself as unemployed and said he had lived at several addresses in the suburbs of London.
By this year, however, he was able to afford to journey to the United States and begin flying lessons. He was arrested Aug. 17 after the staff at a flight school grew concerned about his offer of thousands of dollars in cash for instruction in how to fly jumbo jets and his lack of interest in learning to take off or land jets.
The two men authorities removed from the train in Fort Worth, Texas -- Khan, 51, and Azmath, 47 -- also had a large sum of money with them -- $20,000 in cash, the official said -- as well as box cutters similar to those allegedly used by the hijackers on at least one of the commandeered planes.
The men had boarded a flight in Newark, N.J., that was bound for San Antonio on the morning of the attacks. But the flight was diverted to St. Louis after the World Trade Center was hit, and Khan and Azmath then took an Amtrak train to Texas.
The train was stopped in Fort Worth on a routine check for drugs, and Khan and Azmath were detained because of the materials and cash they were carrying. The train's final destination was San Antonio.
In San Antonio, federal authorities are continuing to scrutinize al-Hazmi, a 34-year-old Saudi physician. He was arrested after a search of his home and the medical school where he was finishing a five-year residency in radiology.
Officials of the University of Texas Health Science Center, where al-Hazmi studied, said he did not show up for his rounds on the day after the attacks, but they added that that was not noteworthy since he may have been studying for an important test.
Also Wednesday, owners of fitness clubs in Florida and Maryland said several of the suicide hijackers had worked out in their gyms.
"They may have been told to go get as strong as they could get in case of body conflict or a fight," said Jim Woolard, who owns eight World Gyms in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
Ziad Jarrah, a hijacker on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, made no secret of his aim: to learn how to fight.
On May 6, he signed up for a two-month membership, later extended to four, at the U.S. 1 Fitness Center in Dania Beach, north of Miami.
"He told me that he was from Germany, that he was visiting," said Roxanne Caputo, in charge of sales. "He would come in every day, sometimes twice."
Jarrah took classes in various combat techniques, including full-contact boxing, kick-boxing and the Brazilian martial art of Kopthaikido, Caputo said. He made two cash payments of $500 each to owner Burt Rodriguez to get some private one-on-one instruction.
Rodriguez recalled that his former pupil was soft-spoken, physically fit and a diligent learner, but that he lacked the "spark" of a born combatant.
"I've seen a lot of guys with the gloves on, and he was the kind who just wanted to survive," Rodriguez said.
During 17 lessons with the Cuban-born instructor (Jarrah missed the three final sessions he had paid for), he was taught how to grapple, defend himself in close quarters and protect himself from somebody wielding a knife or stick.
A hijacker could have used those same skills to overwhelm a flight crew or fight with airline passengers, his former teacher acknowledged with regret.
"To defend yourself, you obviously learn how to attack, which is the other side of the equation," Rodriguez said. "If he wasn't one of the pilots, he would have done quite well in thwarting the passengers from attacking."
In the summer, five hijackers on the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center -- Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi, Wail M. Alshehri, Waleed M. Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami -- purchased one-month memberships at Woolard's gyms. Atta and al-Shehhi paid to work out at the Delray Beach gym; the others in Boynton Beach.
"They may have been doing it for social reasons, or to get strong for the upcoming battles," Woolard said of the men.
Five men identified as the hijackers of the plane that slammed into the Pentagon also worked out in the week before the attacks. While living in a rundown motel on the outskirts of suburban Laurel, Md., they showed up in various groupings every day from Sept. 2-6 at a nearby Gold's Gym. Three of them -- Khalid al-Midhar, Majed Moqed and Hani Hanjour -- paid $30 in cash for a week-long membership, while two others -- Salem and Nawaq Alhamzi-- paid $10 for each visit.
They spent their time training with weights and resistance machines, said Gene LaMotta, president and CEO of Gold's Gym. The fitness counselor said the men had "wads" of cash. And when the counselor asked if they could translate their Arabic names into English, Hanjour said his first name meant "warrior."
by Richard A. Serrano and John-Thor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities are gathering evidence that suggests a small network of Islamic men helped fund and protect some of the 19 suicide attackers by providing cash, documents and possibly even safe houses, a high-ranking law enforcement official said Wednesday.
The official added that among the handful of individuals arrested so far, three are receiving particular scrutiny: a man arrested on immigration charges in Minnesota last month and two others pulled from a train in Texas on the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Authorities also are interested in the prior activities and associates of a physician arrested in San Antonio, Texas, who also is in federal custody.
Officials said they think that the two men on the train, Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, were headed to San Antonio to meet with Dr. al-Badr al-Hazmi. The source also said that FBI and CIA intelligence officials were advised in August that as many as 200 Islamics with terrorist leanings were slipping into this country and planning "a major assault on the United States."
The advisory, passed on by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, cautioned that it had picked up indications of a "large-scale target" in the United States and that Americans would be "very vulnerable," the official said.
How U.S. authorities reacted to the warning is not known, but the official said the advisory linked the information "back to Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden."
"There was a connection there," he said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has said that authorities suspect that more airplanes were going to be hijacked, and that other co-conspirators -- possibly handlers and associates of the 19 suicide attackers -- remain at large.
Mindy Tucker, spokesperson for the Justice Department, said Wednesday that "we believe there are associates of the hijackers that have connections to the terrorist network that are present in the United States."
Other law enforcement authorities said such logistical support is typical within many Islamic terrorist cells.
Some participants help others slip unnoticed from city to city, and country to country, by providing them with fake or fraudulent passports, cash gained through bank- and credit-card fraud, and safe havens in their homes or in apartments rented under aliases, the authorities said.
On the morning that the Trade Center towers were destroyed, Habib Zacarias Moussaoui was in a Minnesota jail on an Immigration and Naturalization Service violation. According to one jailer, Moussaoui saw the disaster on television, and then stood and cheered.
Moussaoui's parents were born in Morocco, and he is a French citizen, born in the southern town of St. Jean de Luz in May 1968, according to an official at the French embassy in London. It was reported earlier that he was a French Algerian.
According to press reports, Moussaoui earned vocational degrees in automotive mechanics. On his university application, he expressed particular interest on his university application in learning business English so he could travel and "work in an international business."
French officials confirmed that Moussaoui was on a special immigration watch list because of his suspected ties to Islamic terrorists and because he had made several trips to Afghanistan.
Moussaoui spent at least three years in Britain in the late 1990s, according to French officials. He came to the French embassy in London in September 2000, and had his French passport extended. At the time, he described himself as unemployed and said he had lived at several addresses in the suburbs of London.
By this year, however, he was able to afford to journey to the United States and begin flying lessons. He was arrested Aug. 17 after the staff at a flight school grew concerned about his offer of thousands of dollars in cash for instruction in how to fly jumbo jets and his lack of interest in learning to take off or land jets.
The two men authorities removed from the train in Fort Worth, Texas -- Khan, 51, and Azmath, 47 -- also had a large sum of money with them -- $20,000 in cash, the official said -- as well as box cutters similar to those allegedly used by the hijackers on at least one of the commandeered planes.
The men had boarded a flight in Newark, N.J., that was bound for San Antonio on the morning of the attacks. But the flight was diverted to St. Louis after the World Trade Center was hit, and Khan and Azmath then took an Amtrak train to Texas.
The train was stopped in Fort Worth on a routine check for drugs, and Khan and Azmath were detained because of the materials and cash they were carrying. The train's final destination was San Antonio.
In San Antonio, federal authorities are continuing to scrutinize al-Hazmi, a 34-year-old Saudi physician. He was arrested after a search of his home and the medical school where he was finishing a five-year residency in radiology.
Officials of the University of Texas Health Science Center, where al-Hazmi studied, said he did not show up for his rounds on the day after the attacks, but they added that that was not noteworthy since he may have been studying for an important test.
Also Wednesday, owners of fitness clubs in Florida and Maryland said several of the suicide hijackers had worked out in their gyms.
"They may have been told to go get as strong as they could get in case of body conflict or a fight," said Jim Woolard, who owns eight World Gyms in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
Ziad Jarrah, a hijacker on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, made no secret of his aim: to learn how to fight.
On May 6, he signed up for a two-month membership, later extended to four, at the U.S. 1 Fitness Center in Dania Beach, north of Miami.
"He told me that he was from Germany, that he was visiting," said Roxanne Caputo, in charge of sales. "He would come in every day, sometimes twice."
Jarrah took classes in various combat techniques, including full-contact boxing, kick-boxing and the Brazilian martial art of Kopthaikido, Caputo said. He made two cash payments of $500 each to owner Burt Rodriguez to get some private one-on-one instruction.
Rodriguez recalled that his former pupil was soft-spoken, physically fit and a diligent learner, but that he lacked the "spark" of a born combatant.
"I've seen a lot of guys with the gloves on, and he was the kind who just wanted to survive," Rodriguez said.
During 17 lessons with the Cuban-born instructor (Jarrah missed the three final sessions he had paid for), he was taught how to grapple, defend himself in close quarters and protect himself from somebody wielding a knife or stick.
A hijacker could have used those same skills to overwhelm a flight crew or fight with airline passengers, his former teacher acknowledged with regret.
"To defend yourself, you obviously learn how to attack, which is the other side of the equation," Rodriguez said. "If he wasn't one of the pilots, he would have done quite well in thwarting the passengers from attacking."
In the summer, five hijackers on the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center -- Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi, Wail M. Alshehri, Waleed M. Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami -- purchased one-month memberships at Woolard's gyms. Atta and al-Shehhi paid to work out at the Delray Beach gym; the others in Boynton Beach.
"They may have been doing it for social reasons, or to get strong for the upcoming battles," Woolard said of the men.
Five men identified as the hijackers of the plane that slammed into the Pentagon also worked out in the week before the attacks. While living in a rundown motel on the outskirts of suburban Laurel, Md., they showed up in various groupings every day from Sept. 2-6 at a nearby Gold's Gym. Three of them -- Khalid al-Midhar, Majed Moqed and Hani Hanjour -- paid $30 in cash for a week-long membership, while two others -- Salem and Nawaq Alhamzi-- paid $10 for each visit.
They spent their time training with weights and resistance machines, said Gene LaMotta, president and CEO of Gold's Gym. The fitness counselor said the men had "wads" of cash. And when the counselor asked if they could translate their Arabic names into English, Hanjour said his first name meant "warrior."
Saturday, February 5, 2011
AMERICA'S ORDEAL: Murky Facts Plaguing Probe,
September 21, 2001, Newsday, "Murky Facts Plaguing Probe,"
[Newsday 9/21/01]
by John Riley and Shirley E. Perlman,
On Sept. 1, a man using the name Nawaq Alhamzi registered at the Pin-Del Motel in Laurel, Md. He was recorded as having an address of 161 Lexington Ave. in New York City, and holding New York driver's license number 3402142-D.
On Sept. 14, the FBI identified Alhamzi as one of the 19 hijackers involved in last week's terrorist attacks, and investigators eventually found their way to the Pin-Del Motel.
But the records, apparently, led nowhere. The address turned out to be a Quality Hotel in Manhattan, whose records show they never had a guest by that name. New York's Department of Motor Vehicles says that it never issued a license to anyone with that name, and uses numerical codes that don't resemble the one in the motel's records.
Such dead ends, by most accounts, have become commonplace as FBI agents and reporters try to pin down murky facts about the hijackers, and yesterday - amid reports that some of those identified as hijackers are alive and well - FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged that his agency still is confused about the true identity of several of the hijackers named last week.
"I know I said at the outset that I had a high level of confidence on the identities of the hijackers. We have several hijackers whose identities were those of the names on the manifests," Mueller said. "We have several others that are still in question. The investigation is ongoing, and I am not certain as to several of the others."
Mueller's comments followed interviews earlier this week in which the father of Mohamed Atta - identified as a hijacker of one of the flights that destroyed the World Trade Center and a key player in the entire plot - said from Egypt that he had spoken to his son after the crashes, and reports in both Arab and American newspapers that Saudi Arabian officials have been in touch with men who have the same names as several suspected hijackers.
Among them: Waleed Alshehri, the son of a Saudi diplomat and a pilot with Saudi Arabian Airlines. After the FBI identified a man by that name as a hijacker, it seized records from Embry Riddle Aeronautical College in Daytona Beach, Fla., of a graduate by that name, and some press reports identified him as the son of a Saudi diplomat.
But Saudi Arabia's al-Medina newspaper quoted Saudi diplomat Ahmed Alshehri as saying that his son was still alive and a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines. Saudi papers have reported that other men with the same names as hijackers had been victims of passport theft.
Another sign of the confusion: An alert issued Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Board asking banks to supply information about financial transactions in the names of the suspected hijackers indicates that one hijacker named by the FBI - Khalid al-Midhar - is now believed to be alive. The spelling of the names of several other suspects has been changed from the list the FBI released Sept. 14.
Similar uncertainties, according to the Department of Defense, continue to surround the possible association of hijackers with training programs for foreign military officers at U.S. military installations around the country. Although the Defense Department has acknowledged that people with the same names as those attributed to hijackers were associated with such programs at bases in Florida, Alabama and Texas, a spokeswoman said yesterday they weren't sure whether those individuals were in fact hijackers.
"There are some discrepancies of ages used by the hijackers that don't match with the people who went to our schools," said Air Force Lt. Col. Ginger Blazicko. "The FBI is specifically investigating that."
Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said at a briefing yesterday that the hijacker names issued by the FBI were based on the "best information available" last week, and that investigators were looking into questions of stolen identities. However, she refused to specify how many names or which names were in doubt.
Experts said the confusion probably reflected a mixture of difficulties with Arabic spellings, confusion of people with identical names, identity theft and purposeful efforts to sow confusion by the hijackers.
"These people are clever," said Michael Gunter, a terrorism expert at Tennessee Technical University. "This is another world of changing identities and false identities. We may not ever know who some of these people were after all the name changes, the transliterations, the spelling differences."
In other developments in the hijacking investigation yesterday, federal agents outside Chicago arrested Nabil al-Marabh, a man they have been seeking because of reported contacts with two of the hijackers. Agents arrested three other men in Detroit on Wednesday during a raid on an apartment they believed was occupied by al-Marabh.
The FBI said al-Marabh, who was working at the Seven Day Liquor Store, was being held on an Immigration and Naturalization Service request, and on a warrant issued in Massachusetts for assault with a knife. A FBI spokesman said the agency was working to make sure that the al-Marabh who was arrested was the man agents were looking for.
Besides his reported contacts with two of the hijackers, investigators also reportedly have found links between al-Marabh and Raed Hijazi, an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden who is jailed in Jordan on charges that he plotted to blow up a hotel there during the millennium celebration on Jan. 1, 2000. The Detroit News reported yesterday that it had located a Michigan driver's license issued last year to a Nabil al-Marabh to drive trucks carrying explosives and radioactive material.
Also yesterday, police in India provided new information on two Newark men who were on a flight out of Newark Airport to San Antonio on the morning of the hijackings, and were held after an altercation with Drug Enforcement Administration resulted in the discovery of box cutters and cash in their possession. They are being held in New York.
Indian police said both men had obtained more than one passport. The man identified by U.S. officials as Ayub Ali Khan was actually Gul Mohammed Shah, and had obtained a false passport under the name Khan in 1992. The other man, Mohammed Jaweed Azmat, had obtained a passport in 1991, giving false names for his parents and dates of birth different from those on a 1984 passport.
Tom Brune of Newsday's Washington bureau contributed to this story, which was supplemented with wire reports. http://www.newsday.com/ny-usprob212376908sep21.story
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
[Newsday 9/21/01]
by John Riley and Shirley E. Perlman,
On Sept. 1, a man using the name Nawaq Alhamzi registered at the Pin-Del Motel in Laurel, Md. He was recorded as having an address of 161 Lexington Ave. in New York City, and holding New York driver's license number 3402142-D.
On Sept. 14, the FBI identified Alhamzi as one of the 19 hijackers involved in last week's terrorist attacks, and investigators eventually found their way to the Pin-Del Motel.
But the records, apparently, led nowhere. The address turned out to be a Quality Hotel in Manhattan, whose records show they never had a guest by that name. New York's Department of Motor Vehicles says that it never issued a license to anyone with that name, and uses numerical codes that don't resemble the one in the motel's records.
Such dead ends, by most accounts, have become commonplace as FBI agents and reporters try to pin down murky facts about the hijackers, and yesterday - amid reports that some of those identified as hijackers are alive and well - FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged that his agency still is confused about the true identity of several of the hijackers named last week.
"I know I said at the outset that I had a high level of confidence on the identities of the hijackers. We have several hijackers whose identities were those of the names on the manifests," Mueller said. "We have several others that are still in question. The investigation is ongoing, and I am not certain as to several of the others."
Mueller's comments followed interviews earlier this week in which the father of Mohamed Atta - identified as a hijacker of one of the flights that destroyed the World Trade Center and a key player in the entire plot - said from Egypt that he had spoken to his son after the crashes, and reports in both Arab and American newspapers that Saudi Arabian officials have been in touch with men who have the same names as several suspected hijackers.
Among them: Waleed Alshehri, the son of a Saudi diplomat and a pilot with Saudi Arabian Airlines. After the FBI identified a man by that name as a hijacker, it seized records from Embry Riddle Aeronautical College in Daytona Beach, Fla., of a graduate by that name, and some press reports identified him as the son of a Saudi diplomat.
But Saudi Arabia's al-Medina newspaper quoted Saudi diplomat Ahmed Alshehri as saying that his son was still alive and a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines. Saudi papers have reported that other men with the same names as hijackers had been victims of passport theft.
Another sign of the confusion: An alert issued Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Board asking banks to supply information about financial transactions in the names of the suspected hijackers indicates that one hijacker named by the FBI - Khalid al-Midhar - is now believed to be alive. The spelling of the names of several other suspects has been changed from the list the FBI released Sept. 14.
Similar uncertainties, according to the Department of Defense, continue to surround the possible association of hijackers with training programs for foreign military officers at U.S. military installations around the country. Although the Defense Department has acknowledged that people with the same names as those attributed to hijackers were associated with such programs at bases in Florida, Alabama and Texas, a spokeswoman said yesterday they weren't sure whether those individuals were in fact hijackers.
"There are some discrepancies of ages used by the hijackers that don't match with the people who went to our schools," said Air Force Lt. Col. Ginger Blazicko. "The FBI is specifically investigating that."
Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said at a briefing yesterday that the hijacker names issued by the FBI were based on the "best information available" last week, and that investigators were looking into questions of stolen identities. However, she refused to specify how many names or which names were in doubt.
Experts said the confusion probably reflected a mixture of difficulties with Arabic spellings, confusion of people with identical names, identity theft and purposeful efforts to sow confusion by the hijackers.
"These people are clever," said Michael Gunter, a terrorism expert at Tennessee Technical University. "This is another world of changing identities and false identities. We may not ever know who some of these people were after all the name changes, the transliterations, the spelling differences."
In other developments in the hijacking investigation yesterday, federal agents outside Chicago arrested Nabil al-Marabh, a man they have been seeking because of reported contacts with two of the hijackers. Agents arrested three other men in Detroit on Wednesday during a raid on an apartment they believed was occupied by al-Marabh.
The FBI said al-Marabh, who was working at the Seven Day Liquor Store, was being held on an Immigration and Naturalization Service request, and on a warrant issued in Massachusetts for assault with a knife. A FBI spokesman said the agency was working to make sure that the al-Marabh who was arrested was the man agents were looking for.
Besides his reported contacts with two of the hijackers, investigators also reportedly have found links between al-Marabh and Raed Hijazi, an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden who is jailed in Jordan on charges that he plotted to blow up a hotel there during the millennium celebration on Jan. 1, 2000. The Detroit News reported yesterday that it had located a Michigan driver's license issued last year to a Nabil al-Marabh to drive trucks carrying explosives and radioactive material.
Also yesterday, police in India provided new information on two Newark men who were on a flight out of Newark Airport to San Antonio on the morning of the hijackings, and were held after an altercation with Drug Enforcement Administration resulted in the discovery of box cutters and cash in their possession. They are being held in New York.
Indian police said both men had obtained more than one passport. The man identified by U.S. officials as Ayub Ali Khan was actually Gul Mohammed Shah, and had obtained a false passport under the name Khan in 1992. The other man, Mohammed Jaweed Azmat, had obtained a passport in 1991, giving false names for his parents and dates of birth different from those on a 1984 passport.
Tom Brune of Newsday's Washington bureau contributed to this story, which was supplemented with wire reports. http://www.newsday.com/ny-usprob212376908sep21.story
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
Friday, February 4, 2011
"Hijack Suspects' Profile: Polite And Purposeful, Neighbors Remember Quiet Lives, Determination in Flight School"
September 14, 2001, The Washington Post,
by Amy Goldstein and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 14, 2001; Page A18
The Washington Post has a wonderful, new-to-me, archive up at Highbeam The Washington Post articles July-September 2001 where a comprehensive search is possible. I'm discovering many things I'd missed along the way, But then when I went on a specific search for this article, it wasn't available. So boo WAPO. I thought you started to change your old ways, but I guess, not yet.
Two of the suspected hijackers in Tuesday's suicide attacks on New York and Washington had lived in Hamburg, where they organized a terrorist cell before moving to Florida for flight training and final practice in the cockpit.
Another suspect, who sometimes roomed with them, is believed to be the son of a Saudi diplomat with a former home in Vienna, Va., According to people who knew them in the Washington area and Florida. Some of the suspects and their associates in Florida sent their families back to the Middle East shortly before this week's attacks. Then they hurriedly purchased expensive furniture to ship home -- or, alternatively, threw out all their belongings.
Certain shadowy ties, certain patterns of geography and behavior, are beginning to emerge now that federal investigators have identified at least 18 men who are suspected to have died as hijackers on four airplanes Tuesday. The investigators have not publicly named any of them. Nor have they said how many suspected accomplices have been arrested and how many remain at large.
But law enforcement authorities on two continents, as well as landlords, neighbors and business people who knew the suspects, depict a group of polite and purposeful men.
Several who are remembered in Germany as Islamic fundamentalists who wore traditional Arab garb switched in the United States to typical western attire and were noticed drinking alcohol in bars. Neighbors found them polite, if often withdrawn.
On three days in mid-August, Mohammed Atta rented a four-seat, single-engine plane from a private company at the airport in Palm Beach, Fla. Investigators believe that he was the hijacker who took over the controls of American Airlines Flight 11 -- the first to crash -- and smashed it into the World Trade Center's north tower. He told the owner of the company, Palm Beach Flight Training, that his goal was to log 100 hours in the air as soon as he could.
Atta was one of several suspects who had a pilot's license, or told people they were affiliated with airlines. Sources at the Immigration and Naturalization Service said yesterday that at least two of the hijackers may have entered the country on M-1 visas to attend flight schools.
At least one who is believed to have died on the American flight from Boston, Abdulrahman Omari, and one who remains alive, Amer Mohammed Kamfar, had been roommates for several months in Vero
They listed as their previous employer Saudi Flight Ops, a firm that performs maintenance for Saudi Arabian Airlines at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Kamfar's involvement in the attack became murkier last night, as a Saudi newspaper reported that Saudi Arabian Airlines officials had said an employee with that name was at home in Mecca and suggested that someone else may have taken his identity or his passport. But as the role of some suspects became more ambiguous, the involvement of others came into clearer view.
In Hamburg, police conducted a raid on the second-floor apartment on a residential street that had been the home of Atta, 33, and Marwan Shehhi, 23, who reportedly died on the United Airlines flight from Boston that plowed into the trade center's south tower. Police there also arrested a Hamburg airport worker, originally from Morocco, and searched for associates, some of whom may already have left Germany, according to Hamburg's Interior Minister, Olaf Scholz.
The chief federal prosecutor there, Kay Nehm, said that Atta and Shehhi had organized a terrorist cell in the northern city, which has been the site of arrests over the years of Islamic extremists believed to be associated with Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind this week's attacks.
Atta and Shehhi had been enrolled at times in the local Technical University. Neighbors said they regularly hosted groups of up to 20 Arabic men late into the night.
"These people were of Arabic background and lived in Hamburg and were Islamic fundamentalists," Nehm said. "And they formed a terrorist organization with the aim of launching spectacular attacks on the institutions of the United States."
According to German news accounts, the residents of the apartment at times also included Waleed Shehri, 25, who was trained to fly large aircraft such as the American Airlines flight from Boston on which he died. Property records show that Shehri most recently lived at the same address in Daytona Beach as Ahmed Shehri, a former second secretary of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington. Both men formerly lived in Vienna, Va. simultaneously.
Yesterday, Hamid "Avis" Keshavarznia, who had been the suspected hijacker's landlord in Vienna, recalled that elder Shehri worked for the Saudi Embassy.
Two other pilots from Saudi Arabia, Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari, also have been mentioned widely in media reports in connection with the terrorist strikes.
Adnan Bukhari, 40, was detained by the FBI on Wednesday at his home in Vero Beach while agents searched the residence. He had been receiving flight engineering training at the Flight Safety International school there for months. CNN's Web site quoted his lawyer as saying he was cooperating with the FBI and denied any involvement in the terrorist attacks.
"He left the house voluntarily and at the time he was being cooperative with federal authorities," said Capt. Mary Hogan of the Indian River County Sheriff's Department, which assisted the FBI in the search.
"He was taken to FBI offices in Miami." Ameer Bukhari, a student pilot, was killed on Sept. 11, 2000, precisely one year to the day before
Tuesday's suicide attacks, in a mid-air crash while trying to land a small plane at an airport in St. Lucie County, Fla.
There are some connections between Adnan Bukhari and the suspected terrorists. Kamfar once listed him as a personal reference on an apartment rental application. And his neighbor in Vero Beach was Omari. Omari, also a student pilot, had moved his family into the home several months ago because his wife and
Adnan Bukhari's wife, who don't speak English, are good friends, according to Omari's landlord, Llonald Mixell.
After the FBI searched the Omari home, agents left a list of materials seized, including hair samples and air conditioning filters, Mixell said, adding that he dissuaded them from seizing the light bulbs, apparently for fingerprints.
Adnan Bukhari's wife returned to Saudi Arabia Aug. 30, and the family's lease on the house ended the next day, landlord Paul Stimeling told the Associated Press. But Bukhari asked for a two-week extension, then for another two or three days.
Two employees at Rooms To Go, a furniture store in Vero Beach, said Bukhari made a hasty purchase as news of the bombing was breaking on a television in the showroom. Bukhari bought a $1,795 living room set within five minutes and said the furniture needed to be exported to Saudi Arabia immediately.
Kamfar and his family also disappeared quickly from their Vero Beach home. According to a neighbor, "they took all their stuff and put it out by the trash: clothes, furniture, pots and pans."
Meanwhile, on Aug. 16, Atta arrived at Palm Beach Flight Training to rent a plane, and quickly demonstrated his competence to a company pilot on a test flight. He returned the following afternoon, then again two days later. Each time, he had a different passenger.
According to the company's office manager, Andrew Laws, the only thing that struck workers as unusual was that each of Atta's outings lasted exactly 90 minutes. Each time, he paid the $133 fee in cash.
Last Friday night, Atta, Shehhi and an unidentified man spent 3 1/2 hours at a sports bar, Shuckums, in Hollywood, Fla. While Atta played video games, the other two had about five drinks each and appeared resistant to paying the $48 tab. The manager, Tony Amos, recalled yesterday that he inquired whether they could not afford the bill. Shehhi "looked at me with an arrogant look," Amos said. "He pulled out a wad of cash and put it on the bar table and said, 'There is no money issue. I am an airline pilot.' "
Such brashness, however, seems to have been uncharacteristic. The owner of a car rental company in Pompano Beach, Fla., from which Atta rented cars three times during the last month, said that he and Shehhi, who always accompanied him, were uncommonly polite. "He had very little accent and acted like he was a businessman," said Brad Warrick of Warrick's Rent-A-Car. "He always had a briefcase and books in the trunk."
After renting a Chevy Corsica for a week, Atta switched to a Ford Escort because it cost $10 less, Warrick recalled. Both vehicles have now been impounded by the FBI. At one point, Warrick said, Atta called from Venice, Fla., to say that the oil light had flickered on.
When he returned the car Sept. 9 -- two days before the attacks -- Atta reminded him about the oil light. "The only thing out of the ordinary," Warrick said, "was that he was nice enough to let me know that the car needed an oil change. That was odd since he was planning to die in a matter of days."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
by Amy Goldstein and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 14, 2001; Page A18
The Washington Post has a wonderful, new-to-me, archive up at Highbeam The Washington Post articles July-September 2001 where a comprehensive search is possible. I'm discovering many things I'd missed along the way, But then when I went on a specific search for this article, it wasn't available. So boo WAPO. I thought you started to change your old ways, but I guess, not yet.
Two of the suspected hijackers in Tuesday's suicide attacks on New York and Washington had lived in Hamburg, where they organized a terrorist cell before moving to Florida for flight training and final practice in the cockpit.
Another suspect, who sometimes roomed with them, is believed to be the son of a Saudi diplomat with a former home in Vienna, Va., According to people who knew them in the Washington area and Florida. Some of the suspects and their associates in Florida sent their families back to the Middle East shortly before this week's attacks. Then they hurriedly purchased expensive furniture to ship home -- or, alternatively, threw out all their belongings.
Certain shadowy ties, certain patterns of geography and behavior, are beginning to emerge now that federal investigators have identified at least 18 men who are suspected to have died as hijackers on four airplanes Tuesday. The investigators have not publicly named any of them. Nor have they said how many suspected accomplices have been arrested and how many remain at large.
But law enforcement authorities on two continents, as well as landlords, neighbors and business people who knew the suspects, depict a group of polite and purposeful men.
Several who are remembered in Germany as Islamic fundamentalists who wore traditional Arab garb switched in the United States to typical western attire and were noticed drinking alcohol in bars. Neighbors found them polite, if often withdrawn.
On three days in mid-August, Mohammed Atta rented a four-seat, single-engine plane from a private company at the airport in Palm Beach, Fla. Investigators believe that he was the hijacker who took over the controls of American Airlines Flight 11 -- the first to crash -- and smashed it into the World Trade Center's north tower. He told the owner of the company, Palm Beach Flight Training, that his goal was to log 100 hours in the air as soon as he could.
Atta was one of several suspects who had a pilot's license, or told people they were affiliated with airlines. Sources at the Immigration and Naturalization Service said yesterday that at least two of the hijackers may have entered the country on M-1 visas to attend flight schools.
At least one who is believed to have died on the American flight from Boston, Abdulrahman Omari, and one who remains alive, Amer Mohammed Kamfar, had been roommates for several months in Vero
They listed as their previous employer Saudi Flight Ops, a firm that performs maintenance for Saudi Arabian Airlines at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Kamfar's involvement in the attack became murkier last night, as a Saudi newspaper reported that Saudi Arabian Airlines officials had said an employee with that name was at home in Mecca and suggested that someone else may have taken his identity or his passport. But as the role of some suspects became more ambiguous, the involvement of others came into clearer view.
In Hamburg, police conducted a raid on the second-floor apartment on a residential street that had been the home of Atta, 33, and Marwan Shehhi, 23, who reportedly died on the United Airlines flight from Boston that plowed into the trade center's south tower. Police there also arrested a Hamburg airport worker, originally from Morocco, and searched for associates, some of whom may already have left Germany, according to Hamburg's Interior Minister, Olaf Scholz.
The chief federal prosecutor there, Kay Nehm, said that Atta and Shehhi had organized a terrorist cell in the northern city, which has been the site of arrests over the years of Islamic extremists believed to be associated with Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind this week's attacks.
Atta and Shehhi had been enrolled at times in the local Technical University. Neighbors said they regularly hosted groups of up to 20 Arabic men late into the night.
"These people were of Arabic background and lived in Hamburg and were Islamic fundamentalists," Nehm said. "And they formed a terrorist organization with the aim of launching spectacular attacks on the institutions of the United States."
According to German news accounts, the residents of the apartment at times also included Waleed Shehri, 25, who was trained to fly large aircraft such as the American Airlines flight from Boston on which he died. Property records show that Shehri most recently lived at the same address in Daytona Beach as Ahmed Shehri, a former second secretary of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington. Both men formerly lived in Vienna, Va. simultaneously.
Yesterday, Hamid "Avis" Keshavarznia, who had been the suspected hijacker's landlord in Vienna, recalled that elder Shehri worked for the Saudi Embassy.
A Saudi Arabian official who asked not to be identified said that the embassy did not know if Waleed Shehri was the son of the former embassy official. Echoing the caution of the Saudi airline, he said Saudi officials are concerned that the terrorists may have used forged documents and stolen the identities of innocent people.
Two other pilots from Saudi Arabia, Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari, also have been mentioned widely in media reports in connection with the terrorist strikes.
Adnan Bukhari, 40, was detained by the FBI on Wednesday at his home in Vero Beach while agents searched the residence. He had been receiving flight engineering training at the Flight Safety International school there for months. CNN's Web site quoted his lawyer as saying he was cooperating with the FBI and denied any involvement in the terrorist attacks.
"He left the house voluntarily and at the time he was being cooperative with federal authorities," said Capt. Mary Hogan of the Indian River County Sheriff's Department, which assisted the FBI in the search.
"He was taken to FBI offices in Miami." Ameer Bukhari, a student pilot, was killed on Sept. 11, 2000, precisely one year to the day before
Tuesday's suicide attacks, in a mid-air crash while trying to land a small plane at an airport in St. Lucie County, Fla.
There are some connections between Adnan Bukhari and the suspected terrorists. Kamfar once listed him as a personal reference on an apartment rental application. And his neighbor in Vero Beach was Omari. Omari, also a student pilot, had moved his family into the home several months ago because his wife and
Adnan Bukhari's wife, who don't speak English, are good friends, according to Omari's landlord, Llonald Mixell.
After the FBI searched the Omari home, agents left a list of materials seized, including hair samples and air conditioning filters, Mixell said, adding that he dissuaded them from seizing the light bulbs, apparently for fingerprints.
Adnan Bukhari's wife returned to Saudi Arabia Aug. 30, and the family's lease on the house ended the next day, landlord Paul Stimeling told the Associated Press. But Bukhari asked for a two-week extension, then for another two or three days.
Two employees at Rooms To Go, a furniture store in Vero Beach, said Bukhari made a hasty purchase as news of the bombing was breaking on a television in the showroom. Bukhari bought a $1,795 living room set within five minutes and said the furniture needed to be exported to Saudi Arabia immediately.
Kamfar and his family also disappeared quickly from their Vero Beach home. According to a neighbor, "they took all their stuff and put it out by the trash: clothes, furniture, pots and pans."
Meanwhile, on Aug. 16, Atta arrived at Palm Beach Flight Training to rent a plane, and quickly demonstrated his competence to a company pilot on a test flight. He returned the following afternoon, then again two days later. Each time, he had a different passenger.
According to the company's office manager, Andrew Laws, the only thing that struck workers as unusual was that each of Atta's outings lasted exactly 90 minutes. Each time, he paid the $133 fee in cash.
Last Friday night, Atta, Shehhi and an unidentified man spent 3 1/2 hours at a sports bar, Shuckums, in Hollywood, Fla. While Atta played video games, the other two had about five drinks each and appeared resistant to paying the $48 tab. The manager, Tony Amos, recalled yesterday that he inquired whether they could not afford the bill. Shehhi "looked at me with an arrogant look," Amos said. "He pulled out a wad of cash and put it on the bar table and said, 'There is no money issue. I am an airline pilot.' "
Such brashness, however, seems to have been uncharacteristic. The owner of a car rental company in Pompano Beach, Fla., from which Atta rented cars three times during the last month, said that he and Shehhi, who always accompanied him, were uncommonly polite. "He had very little accent and acted like he was a businessman," said Brad Warrick of Warrick's Rent-A-Car. "He always had a briefcase and books in the trunk."
After renting a Chevy Corsica for a week, Atta switched to a Ford Escort because it cost $10 less, Warrick recalled. Both vehicles have now been impounded by the FBI. At one point, Warrick said, Atta called from Venice, Fla., to say that the oil light had flickered on.
When he returned the car Sept. 9 -- two days before the attacks -- Atta reminded him about the oil light. "The only thing out of the ordinary," Warrick said, "was that he was nice enough to let me know that the car needed an oil change. That was odd since he was planning to die in a matter of days."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
FinnList: 370 Numbered List
[Duplicating the spreadsheet exactly]
- Aalhussain, Hani Yousef 177
- Abdulggfar Hamza M A 167
- Abdulla, Fahad Mubarak R 118
- Abdulla, Saeed Salem
- Abdullah, Rayed 152
- Abukar, Mohammed 193
- Abulgdar, Yagmour 195
- Abusharifah, Ali 001
- Abuznabah, Khaled M S
- Adelekan, Adedayo
- Ahmad, Mustafa 182
- Ahmed, Fayez 003
- Ahmed, Farooq
- Ahmed, Maji M.*
- Ahmed, Mustafah 135
- Ahmid, Abdullah 267
- Akra, Muhammad 363
- Al-Abedin, Zain Muhammad
- Al-Ahmari, Mohammed Hamed 142
- Al-Asmar, Mahmoud
- Al-Aswa, Mohamed
- Al-Attas, Hashim Mohsen 191
- Al-Attas, Hussein Al Hassan
- Al-Bayoumi, Omar Ahmed
- Albutairi, Abdul 156
- Al-Din, Mohamed Khayr 005
- Al-Din, Mohamed Khayr 005
- Al-Faran, Kamal Saleen 006
- Al-Fehaid, Ali 117
- Al-Forahy, Ibrahim 129
- Al-Garashi, Abdul 007
- Alghamdi, Nora Ali 186
- Al-Ghamdi, Ahmed 009
- Al-Ghamdi, Ali A.
- Al-Ghamdi, Hamza 011
- Al-Ghamdi, Hamza 011
- Al-Ghamdi, Saeed 013
- Al-Ghamdi, Saeed 013
- Al-Ghamdi, Abdulrahram 008
- Al-Ghamdi, Othman
- Al-Ghamdi, Sadda 012
- Al-Ghamdi, Tareqsaeed 283
- Al-Gurashi, Abdul Rahman 014
- Al-Hajri, Meshal 119
- Al-Hallak, Motaz 015
- Al-Handi, Nawaq
- Al-Hazmi, Albadar 017
- Al-Hazmi, Albadar 017
- Al-Hazmi, Salem
- Al-Hazmi, Afan 016
- Al-Hazmi, Ebtehal 018
- Al-Hazmi, Nawaf 019
- Al-Haznawi, Ahmed 021
- Al-Hulaisy, Ahmed 258
- Al-Jabir, Mohammed 022
- Al-Jadawi 023
- Al-Jahdali Fahd 024
- Al-Jahini, Ahmed Salayman 376
- Al-Jahini, Tareq 375
- Al-Jahini, Yaser
- Al-Kharji, Nasser 278
- Al-Khoater, Rayani 025
- Al-Khorayef, Khalid 026
- Al-Maktari, Samir
- Al-Maqsud, Sayyid
- Al-Marabh, Nabil A 027
- Al-Mehairbi, Saif Salem 248
- Al-Metuiri, Mohammed 028
- Al-Midhar, Khalid 029
- Al-Mihdham, Khalid 030
- Al-Mosrati, SA Saltan 197
- Al-Nadar, Khalid 031
- Al-Najami, Raniah L 223
- Al-Najmi Leen M 222
- Al-Nawi, Ahmed 032
- Al-Nefaie, Mashhour A.F.
- Alojabi Khaled 048
- Al-Omari, Abdulaziz Aziz 033
- Al-Omari, Saleh 390
- Al-Otaibi, Majid 035
- Al-Qarni, Khalid Abdullah 307
- Alqahtani Fahad 173
- Alqahtany Moham 163
- Alquraishi Maan A. 185
- Al-Ravani, Hadi Mohammed 139
- Al-Rayyis, Ahmad 362
- Al-Refai, Mohammed 036
- Al-Sagri, Mohannd Saleh 198
- Al-Sagri, Fares Saleh 202
- Al-Salmi, Faisal M.S. 150
- Al-Shahri, Khalid Ali 157
- Al-Sharbi Ghassan 254
- Al-Shehri, Abdullah 037
- Al-Shehri, Aisha 038
- Al-Shehri, Mamdouh 143
- Al-Shehri, Marwan 039
- Al-Shehri, Mohald 040
- Al-Shehri, Suliman 144
- Al-Shehri, Waleed 041
- Al-Shehri, Wail 042
- Alshomrani, Abdul 179
- Al-Suqami, Satam 043
- Al-Syaadi, Basil Ali 044
- Al-Taha, Hisham
- Al-Towayan, Abdullah
- Al-Turayif, Ahmad A
- Al-Yahya, Esam 045
- Al-Yusuf, Entsar 046
- Al-Zahabi, Abdel Rahman 351
- Al-Zahabi, Marwan 353
- Al-Zahabi, Mohamad 357
- Al-Zahabi, Mounir 352
- Al-Zahabi, Muhammad Kamal 350
- Al-Zahabi, Souheil 356
- Alameddine, Bassam 354
- Alamri, Fahad 168
- Alari, Ali 132
- Alassaf, Mohammed 175
- Alazmi, Salem 138
- Albadawi, Ahmed 344
- Albutairi, Abdul 156
- Aldimashqi, Nedal 280
- Alghadmi, Mahasaad 279
- Alghamdi, Ahmedsaeed 288
- Alghamdi, Lamasaeed 282
- Alghamdi, Monaahmed 281
- Alghamdi, Saeedali 286
- Alghamdi, Saeedayed 291
- Alghamdi, Saeedhiliam 285
- Alghamdi, Saeedjuman 287
- Alghulam, Abdul Latif 251
- Alghulam, Alymar A.221
- Alharthi, Mohsalih 289
- Ali, Mukkaram 047
- Alizaddadi, Abdul Aziz 154
- Aljuhani, Ammar Farraj 349
- Aljunaibi, Ahmed 172
- Alkahtani, Waleed 184
- Alkhaldi, Abdul 169
- Almehdhar, Khaled 253
- Almotairi, Mokhlidmazid 290
- Almudahi, Abdullah 161
- Alnami, Abdulmahhab 299
- Alnami, Llama 298
- Alnami, Shahaed 300
- Alnuaimi, Suhail 171
- Alojabi, Khaled 048
- Alolayan, Khaled 337
- Alomar, Aida 297
- Alqahtani, Fahad 173
- Alqahtany, Moham 163
- Alquraishi, Maan A 185
- Alshahri, Khalid 157
- Alturairi, Ibrahim 324
- Alyamany, Rafat 342
- Alzeedi, Khaled 332
- Andesha, Afshan 260
- Arakgui, Farid 049
- Arakji, Mohamad 050
- Arara, Mohammad 051
- Arda, Alper 23 *
- Arrabi, Mazen Mohammed 207
- Ashfaq, Mohammad 052
- Assiri, Yahya Mohammed 309
- Ateef, Hashmi 053
- Atlaf, Hussein 134
- Atta, Bouchra 155
- Atta, Mohammad 055
- Awadallah, Osama 23 *
- Azmath, Mohamad 125
- Badokhon, Hesham 339
- Bagader, Manal Ahmed 228
- Bahamdan, Ammar 159
- Bahamdedin, Mohammed 336
- Bajnaid, Omer 335
- Bakarbashat, Omar Salam Saleh 018
- Bakhsh, Khalid 059
- Bashjar, Mohammad Yemen 201
- Bedoui, Maryem 060
- Belhadj, Ali Moham 164
- Ben Jannet, Yunis Ben Mohammed 386
- Bibek, Bose 136
- Biermann, Thorsten 203
- Binalshibh, Ramzi Mohammed 187
- Binlidah, Abdulaziz 162
- Breshna Daoud 270
- Chawla, Mandeep 314
- Cheema, Ashfaq Ahmad 320
- Darkazanli, Mamoun 209
- Duah, Kwaku 315
- El Abd, Nader 264
- El-Maati, Ahmad 367
- El-Maati Amer 368
- El-Maati, Badr 369
- El-Sherif, Hilmi 27*
- Elanir, Mohammad 64*
- Eldefrawi, Mohab Mohyee 373
- Eldimiati, Alexander H.M. 245
- Elkheir Ahmed Mahmoud Lotfy Abou 217
- Esiktas Selim 065
- Fadin, Suhail Hussein
- Fakeh, Mahir 066
- Fayed, Tarek 127
- Ghandoura, Maha Osman A 141
- Ghazawi, Ghada A. 219
- Ghazway, Fayez 257
- Ghazzawi, Majid 366
- Gholam, Abdul Lateif 067
- Ghulam, Torki 224
- Graninawi, Khaled 358
- Hajji, Zied 069
- Hamade, Riad 355
- Hamiri, Abderrahin 265
- Hanbali, Hassan 341
- Hanjour, Abdul Rahman Saleh 329
- Hanjour, Hani 070
- Hashmi, A 246
- Hassan, Masood 316
- Hassan, Hani Saleh 181
- Hayba, Jamal Abu 361
- Hazmiri, Abderrahin 214
- Homidh, Sameer 343
- Hussein, Sayeed 075
- Iqbal, Mohammed 271
- Jabran 239
- Jarrah, Ziad 077
- Jeddawi, Farouk 078
- Kamfar, Afaf 230
- Kebe, Franck 206
- Khadr, Ahmad Sa'id 371
- Khafefa, Almad 081
- Khalefa Ahmad 137
- Khan, Ayub Ali 126
- Khan, Nasrullah 321
- Kifmy, Othman Jtimy 082
- Lachiheb, Raouf 268
- Laghed, Hishan Wahab 084
- Lekrab, Marwan 140
- Limaiem, Maha 085
- Maar, Ali 160
- Madani, Abdul Wahab 086
- Maghrabi, Ashraf Abeel Khalid 147
- Malik, Nawaz 238
- Mehmood, Tahir 240
- Menepta, Mujahid Abdulqadir 087
- Mitchell, Sevda 151
- Modasser, Mahmood 088
- Modesh, Sameer A.
- Mogadam, Rami Gamil 089
- Moktar, Mamdooh 325
- Moqed, Majed 090
- Moussa, Khaled Ben 091
- Moussaoui, Zacarias 093
- Nagy, Hoddam 334
- Nakshbandi, Abdul Labur 096
- Nasser, Al-Sabeh 333
- Natto, Dawood 097
- Navid, Rafay 023
- Omar Jr, Hady Hassan 098
- Piran, Farhad 273
- Qassim, Abdullah 387
- Qudsi, Adbudlrahman
- Rahim 242
- Rahman, Mohammad 317 & 385
- Rahman, Mohammad Mizanur 382
- Rahman, Mohammad Refiqur 383
- Rahman, Sheikh Tashdique 378
- Raissi, Lotfi 153
- Rambo, Ayman 174
- Rawa, Aiman 231
- Razack, Niaz 284
- Refai, Mohammed I
- Saadawi, Nabil 101
- Saleh, Ismaeel Alwi 131
- Salie, Rahma 102
- Salim, Mahfoodh 388
- Saritas, Sesat 274
- Satir, Ahmed 346
- Sayeed, Mumtaz A 311
- Sayeed, Syed M 310
- Sayeed, Zabe R 312
- Sebeh, Youssef 374
- Seif, Malek Mohamed Ben Mohamed 392
- Serradeji, Salmie 103
- Shabouni, Mohammad A 105
- Shah, Subhash 107
- Shah Syed Pir Rahim
- Shaikh, Arif U 303
- Shaikh, Asif A 304
- Shaikha, Abdussattar 302
- Shaikha, Safia 301
- Shamim, Khurram 256
- Sharaf, Falsal 176
- Shawis Ahmed I 225
- Shayestchkheslat, Kamran 272
- Sherdil, Abdullah 243
- Shubaili, Abdullah Ahmed M 170
- Shubaili, Ageel 158
- Souheil, Seddik 110
- Talfit, Rabie 165
- Tshabay 113
- Tujjaralshahey, Adel 326
- Ubaid 241
- Ullah, Zia 322
- Vatsraj, Umesh 318
- Waheeb, Hatim 178
- Waheed, Abdul 319
- Yamani, Shawgi 327
- Yassin, Manar 115
- Yousaf, Salah Saeed Mohammed Bin 196
- Zafar, Faheem 380
- Zafar, Nadeem 379
- Zakhour, Widiaa 116
- Zamka, Jalal 166
- Zelitny, Abdolmonem A 381
- Alomari, Abdulrahman 034
- Alojaibi, Khaled 035
- Al-Shehra, Aisha 038
- Abu Zubaida
- Ahmed Zouaioui, Rachid
- Altimi, Omar
- Beghal, Djamal
- Berkous, Mohamed Tahar
- Cichosz, Stanilas
- Courtailler, Jerome
- Courtailler, David
- El Haddouti, Said
- El Haddouti, Abdelkarim
- Ferkous, Mohamed Tahar
- Galtier, Serge
- Ibrahim, Saad
- Ibrahim, Salman
- Lakhal, Radouan
- Lakhal, Tarik
- Mezbar, Amine
- Ouahed, Mochtar
- Oussama, Rabih
- Poirier, Sebastien Guy Jerome
- Prajasemita, Mathieu Miladi
- Rabia, Abdelghani
- Slimani, Abdelkader
- Tilman, David
- Bahaji, Said 208
- Belfas, Mohamed
- Rajih, Mohammed 263
- Senguer, Aysel 216
- Zammar, Mohamed Haydar
- Trabelsi, Nizar
- Al-Ghamdi Ahmed Saleh
- Al Meshajer, Salem Abdulla Saeed
- Al-Shehri, Mohano
- Avraham, Alona
- Ayoub, Usamma Saddiq Ali
- Barkazanli, Mamoun
- Belouze, Yakhlaf
- El Motassadeq, Mounir
- Essabar, Zakariya 262
- Jemrani, Driss
- Musleh, Bashar Ahmad Ali
- Mzoudi, Abdelghani 212
- Tokhi, Ahmad
- Al-Ansar, Asbat
- Al-Hadi Abd al-Iraqi
- Al-Sayyid, Tariq Anwar Ahmad
- Al-Shaykh, Ibn al-Libi
- El Adouki, Fauzi Abdelkrim
- Hafs, Abu
- Salah, Muhammad
- Shihata, Thirwat Salah
- Zubaydah, Abu
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Washington Post News Archive for September 2001
Well it's all available now. Finally, right at our fingertips. The rest of the decade too. All it takes is an account at HighBeam,
Tuesday, September 11
Wednesday, September 12
Thursday, September 13
Friday, September 14
Saturday, September 15
Sunday, September 16
Monday, September 17
Tuesday, September 18
Wednesday, September 19
Thursday, September 20
Friday, September 21
Saturday, September 22
Sunday, September 23
Monday, September 24
Tuesday, September 25
Wednesday, September 26
Thursday, September 27
Friday, September 28
Saturday, September 29
Sunday, September 30
One of my favorite finds was in an article by Dan Eggen and Vernon Loeb from September 14th,
"U.S. Intelligence Points To Bin Laden Network," with this quote from Paul Bremer:
Tuesday, September 11
Wednesday, September 12
Thursday, September 13
Friday, September 14
Saturday, September 15
Sunday, September 16
Monday, September 17
Tuesday, September 18
Wednesday, September 19
Thursday, September 20
Friday, September 21
Saturday, September 22
Sunday, September 23
Monday, September 24
Tuesday, September 25
Wednesday, September 26
Thursday, September 27
Friday, September 28
Saturday, September 29
Sunday, September 30
One of my favorite finds was in an article by Dan Eggen and Vernon Loeb from September 14th,
"U.S. Intelligence Points To Bin Laden Network," with this quote from Paul Bremer:
"Some U.S. officials and terrorism experts noted that other suspects were possible, most notably Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed guerrilla force based in southern Lebanon that is suspected of involvement in the 1983 bombings against the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon. L. Paul Bremer III, chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism and former ambassador at large for counterterrorism in Reagan administration, noted that Hezbollah hijacked a TWA airliner in 1986 with the intention of crashing it into buildings in Tel Aviv."So nobody could imagine them flying airplanes into buildings could they? Even when it's your job to catch on before its 15 years too late.
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