-Caveat Lector-
The Empire State Building has just been evacuated becuase of
threats. Penn Station was just searched by bomb-sniffing dogs.
There are 'credible' threats against more targets. This may not be
over yet.
Now it was said that we would bomb the country that trained the
pilots. Does this mean we have to bomb Flordia? This is why we
need to get a grip! Do we have proof who did this yet? Looking
like a concerted effort attack. I do not think we will be able to
blame Bin Laden entirely when all the information comes out.
~Amelia~
Terror pilots were trained in U.S.
At least three underwent
flight training in Florida, sources tell MSNBC.com
Sept. 12 -- Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday that
authorities are embarking on what promises to be "the most massive
and intensive investigation ever conducted in America."
By Mike Brunker and Robert Windrem
MSNBC
Sept. 12 - One day into what promises to be the biggest criminal
investigation ever, authorities have determined that at least a
dozen terrorists took part in the assault on America, including
pilots who were trained in the United States, Attorney General John
Ashcroft said Wednesday. Meanwhile, FBI agents fanned out in
Florida, Massachusetts and elsewhere to question associates and
obtain evidence about who was behind the plot to commandeer four
airliners and use them as flying bombs.
"THE FOUR PLANES were hijacked by between three and six
individuals per plane, using knives and box cutters, and in some
cases making bomb threats," said Ashcroft, speaking at a news
conference in Washington. "A number of the suspected hijackers were
trained as pilots in the United States."
Ashcroft's comment means that a minimum of 12 people - and
maximum of 24 - were involved in the attacks.
Agents fanned out across the country in a massive effort to
learn everything possible about the suspects and to prevent their
associates from vanishing, FBI Director Robert Mueller said at the
briefing.
Mueller disputed reports that associates of the suspected
terrorists had been arrested, but allowed that some individuals had
been detained and questioned.
Among the conflicting reports was an account published by
the Boston Globe that three people were taken into custody
Wednesday during a police raid on a Boston hotel.
BOSTON HOTEL RAID
Guests were ordered to evacuate the 36-story Westin Hotel in
Boston's Back Bay section, according to a guest leaving the hotel
who declined to give his name. As a large crowd gathered outside,
one person was taken out of the hotel and put in a van.
"SWAT teams were all around holding machine guns," said R.J.
Ryan, who was among hundreds of onlookers. "They put somebody in
the van. Then they started moving everybody."
The Boston Globe said three people were arrested in the raid
after they had been linked to a credit card used to purchase
tickets for hijackers who took over the flights that later crashed
into the World Trade Center, both of which originated in Boston.
It said it was not known whether they were considered
suspects in the bombing.
Media outlets also reported that a train that had passed
through Boston was halted, evacuated and searched Wednesday in
Providence, R.I. One man wearing a green turban was led away in
handcuffs.
Col. Richard Sullivan, the Providence police chief, said
later that the man did not appear to have any connection with the
terrorist acts. But he was charged with a weapons violation for
carrying a knife, Sullivan said. He remained in custody on
Wednesday afternoon.
NBC News also reported that two people believed to be
connected to the attacks had been arrested in Portsmouth, Va. No
details on their relationship to the case were immediately
available.
Earlier in the day, law enforcement officials who spoke to
NBC News on condition of anonymity said people were being arrested
as material witnesses if they declined to answer questions or
otherwise cooperate.
CLUES FOUND AT LOGAN AIRPORT
Within hours of Tuesday's devastating attacks,
investigators launched a massive manhunt for the perpetrators. They
quickly uncovered their first leads at Boston's Logan airport.
U.S. intelligence sources told MSNBC.com that FBI agents had
located a car that apparently carried some of the terrorists to the
airport, where the two hijacked flights that destroyed the World
Trade Center originated.
Video from surveillance cameras showed that five men, all
apparently of Arabic origin, left the rented car in an airport
garage, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Flight manuals in Arabic and paperwork were found in the vehicle.
The Boston Herald, quoting a source close to the
investigation, said the FBI had obtained a warrant to further
search the Mitsubishi sedan rented from National Car Rental.
Intelligence officials also said that the FBI has determined
that at least two of the suspected terrorists were carrying
passports from the United Arab Emirates, the tiny Arabian Gulf
sheikdom known as a major banking and commerce center. The Herald
reported that the two were brothers and that one was a trained
pilot.
FLIGHT FROM MAINE
In addition to the five men from the car, authorities said
two men apparently flew to Logan International Airport from
Portland, Maine, to rendezvous with the rest of the group.
Portland police Chief Michael Chitwood said the FBI had
asked his department to focus on the men, who left Portland on a 6
a.m. US Air flight and arrived in Boston at 6:30 a.m.
He did not identify the men, but said investigators had been
able to obtain photos of them from airport security cameras.
The Associated Press quoted unidentified federal authorities
as saying that at least one group of hijackers is believed to have
crossed from Canada and had ties to Osama bin Laden, the
America-hating Saudi dissident believed to be hiding in
Afghanistan. Those officials said they were investigating whether
four separate terrorist "cells" were involved in the attacks.
STUDENT AT FLIGHT SCHOOL
In addition to the action in the Northeast, agents were
searching a number of locations in Florida, where at least three of
the terrorism suspects were believed to have been living in recent
months.
Law enforcement sources told MSNBC.com that one of the
trails agents were following in Florida was that of Ali Muhammed
al-Darmaki, one of the U.S.-trained pilots believed to have
perpetrated and died in Tuesday's attacks on the Pentagon and the
World Trade Center.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
al-Darmaki had attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in
Daytona Beach, though he never completed his training because of
bad grades. It was not known how far he got in the course.
A second student, who like al-Darmaki was originally from
the Middle East, did not show up for classes on Tuesday, the
sources said.
University spokeswoman Lisa Ledewitz said one out of every
four commercial airline pilots was trained at Embry-Riddle.
Students train in single-engine planes and until last December the
school used a Boeing 737 simulator.
Ledewitz said all international students who enroll in the
pilot program have to receive prior approval from the U.S. State
Department.
FLORIDA INVESTIGATIONS
Sources also told NBC that the name of one passenger
obtained from the flight manifests - Mohammed Atta - drew the
immediate attention of the FBI because of suspected links to a
terrorist organization. He and a third man, Marwan al Shehhi, also
underwent flight training in Florida, the sources said.
Suspected terrorist Mohammed Atta, in an undated file photo.
Atta's former residence near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was
among the locations where FBI agents were searching for clues on
Wednesday, the sources said.
Agents carted away eight to 10 boxes of records from a
flying school in Venice, Fla., where the 33-year-old Atta and al
Shehhi, 23, took lessons to obtain their commercial flight rating.
A bookkeeper at the school told NBC News that the men, who
said they were cousins from Hamburg, Germany, graduated in January.
The men kept to themselves and did not mingle with other students,
the bookkeeper said.
Atta and Shehhi lived briefly with a local couple, Charles
and Drew Voss, but Drew Voss told NBC that she kicked them out
after about a week because they were rude.
She said the men also told her they were German, with Atta
saying his name was Otto.
In Coral Springs, FBI agents visited an apartment complex
that Atta listed as his last address with the state motor vehicle
agency.
The FBI in Miami issued a national bulletin for law
enforcement agencies to look out for two cars. Records with the
Florida Division of Motor Vehicles show that one of the vehicles
the FBI was pursuing - a 1989 red Pontiac - was registered to Atta.
Another search warrant was executed Tuesday night in the
Davie area of Broward County, west of Fort Lauderdale, the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel reported without providing details.
LINKS TO BIN LADEN
Terrorism experts, both in and outside the U.S. government,
remained confident that the clues obtained in the United States
eventually would lead to Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden has strong family ties and a group of supporters
in Boston and those connections are now being closely scrutinized,
said Robert Fitzpatrick, the former second-in-command at the FBI's
Boston office.
One of bin Laden's brothers set up scholarship funds at
Harvard, while another relative owns six condominiums in an
expensive complex in the Charlestown section of Boston. Two bin
Laden associates once worked as Boston cab drivers, including one
who was jailed in Jordan on charges of plotting to blow up a hotel
full of Americans and Israelis.
Investigators are interviewing drivers from Boston Cab Co.,
where the two known associates of bin Laden once worked, to see if
they had ties to baggage handlers, who in turn may have supplied
weapons to the hijackers, Fitzpatrick said.
Newsweek: Taliban defends bin Laden
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that the United States had
intercepted messages of congratulation exchanged by bin Laden
supporters after the attacks.
Government officials were unhappy that Hatch made the news
public, but they confirmed for NBC News that the National Security
Agency had intercepted electronic communications from members of
bin Laden's organization. Similar intercepts were reported after
the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania - a crime
that the Saudi is believed to have orchestrated.
BID LADEN'S DENIAL
On Wednesday, bin Laden congratulated the people who carried
out the attacks, but denied that he was involved, Palestinian
journalist Jamal Ismail said. He said he spoke with a bin Laden
aide early Wednesday by satellite telephone.
A Pakistani newspaper also reported that bin Laden had
denied responsibility for the attacks.
"The terrorist act is the action of some American group. I
have nothing to do with it," the newspaper Khabrain quoted bin
Laden as saying, through "sources close to the Taliban."
Osama bin Laden: FAQ
But terrorism experts said the complex and precise nature of
the attack - hijackings, multiple airplane crashes into the World
Trade Center and into the Pentagon, and another jet taken and
crashed in Pennsylvania - is a strong indication that bin Laden is
behind the terror.
Oct. 12, 2000
Terrorist bombing kills 17 U.S. sailors aboard the USS Cole as it
refueled in Yemen's port of Aden. The United States says Saudi
exile Osama bin Laden prime suspect.
Aug. 7, 1998
Car bombs explode outside U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania, within minutes of each other, killing 224
people and wounding thousands. Bin Laden is again blamed.
June 25, 1996
Truck bomb explodes outside the Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi
Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and wounding hundreds of
other people. Members of a little-known Saudi militant group,
Hezbollah, were indicted for the attack.
Nov. 13, 1995
Car bomb detonates at a U.S. military headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, killing five American service personnel.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
April 19, 1995
Bomb rips through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City, killing 168 and wounding more than 500. Former U.S. soldier
Timothy McVeigh is convicted of carrying out the attack; he was
executed earlier this year.
Feb. 26, 1993
A bomb explodes in a parking garage below the World Trade Center in
New York, killing six people and wounding more than 1,000. Six
Islamic militants were convicted in the bombing and sentenced to
life in prison.
Dec. 21, 1988
Pan Am Boeing 747 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, on a flight
from London to New York, killing 270 people, including residents of
the town.
Sept. 5, 1986
Hijackers seize Pan Am jumbo jet carrying 358 people at Karachi
airport. Twenty people killed when security forces storm the plane.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Oct. 8, 1985
Crippled American Jew Leon Klinghoffer is killed by Palestinian
militants who had seized the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro.
June 14, 1985
Shiite Muslim gunmen seize a TWA Boeing 727, forcing it to Beirut,
Lebanon. They demand the release of 700 Arabs held by Israel. A
U.S. Navy diver is killed and 39 Americans are held until they are
released on July 1 that year after Syrian mediation.
Sept. 20, 1984
Car bomb at U.S. Embassy annex in east Beirut kills 16 and injures
the ambassador.
Dec. 12, 1983
Shiite extremists set off car bombs in front of the U.S. and French
embassies in Kuwait City, killing five people and wounding 86.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Oct. 23, 1983
Shiite suicide bombers blow up the French military headquarters and
a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and 58 French
paratroopers.
April 18, 1983
Suicide car-bomber blows up U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 17
Americans.
Nov. 4, 1979
Islamic students storm U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, holding 52
Americans hostage for 444 days.
Source: The Associated Press
Printable version
U.S. intelligence officials said many of bin Laden's
reported terrorist schemes have involved multiple strikes over
multiple days, including a planned attempt to disrupt U.S.
millennium celebrations. Algerian native Ahmed Ressam was caught
shortly after he entered the United States from Canada and
convicted of trying to plant explosives on targets in Los Angeles.
He offered prosecutors evidence of a bin Laden link in the case.
A terror strike in Yemen succeeded in October 2000 when a
boat filled with explosives rammed the USS Cole, killing 17
sailors. That attack was also reportedly linked to bin Laden.
When U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were blown up in
1998 - again allegedly by associates of bin Laden - U.S.
intelligence reported that other blasts were planned for the same
time in Uganda and Albania. Some 224 people died in the embassy
attacks. In response, the Clinton administration used cruise
missiles to destroy the site believed to be bin Laden's camp in
Afghanistan, as well as a chemical factory in Sudan. Bin Laden
escaped.
Intelligence officials have described other attempted
attacks by al-Qaeda, including a January 1995 effort to plant bombs
on 11 U.S. jetliners flying over the Pacific.
reporter Robert Windrem
Target: World Trade Center, New York City
When: February 1993
Plan: Cause the north tower of the World Trade Center complex to
collapse into the south tower, a plan which - according to Bin
Laden's calculations - might have killed as many as 250,000 people.
Outcome: Explosion limited to north tower, killing six but injuring
1,500.
Target: Planes over the Pacific
When: January 1995
Plan: Plant bombs on 11 U.S. airliners, all timed to go off during
a 48-hour period as the planes fly over the open Pacific.
Outcome: Plot uncovered when Manila bomb factory catches fire. One
Japanese businessman killed during test of bomb on Philippine
Airline flight in December 1994.
Target: Pope John Paul II, in the Philippines
When: January 1995
Plan: Assassinate the pontiff as he drove through Manila, the
capital, to celebrate Mass for a million people.
Outcome: Plot uncovered when Manila bomb factory catches fire. Plan
would have failed since crowds forced the pope to fly to site of
the Mass in a helicopter rather than ride through the streets.
Target: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in Ethiopia
When: June 1995
Plan: Assassinate the president during a state visit to Ethiopia.
Outcome: Attempt fails despite attack on Mubarak's motorcade in
Addis Ababa, the capital. Security personnel killed.
Target: President Clinton, in the Philippines
When: November 1996
Plan: Assassinate the U.S. leader during the APEC summit in Subic
Bay.
Outcome: Plot foiled after documents discovered in abandoned
computer showing that terrorists had tracked Clinton's November
1994 visit to Manila, detailing his security arrangements.
Target: U.S. embassies in Europe, Asia, Africa
When: Aug. 7, 1998
Plan: Carry out bombings at U.S. embassies in Kampala, Uganda;
Tirana, Albania; Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania; and Nairobi, Kenya,
killing U.S. diplomats.
Outcome: Twelve Americans and 212 Africans killed in Tanzania and
Kenya. Plots foiled in Uganda and Albania, with arrests made in
both countries.
Target: U.S. facilities in London
When: January 1999
Plan: Several attacks on U.S. locations in the British capital.
Outcome: Alleged Bin Ladin associates arrested in Ecuador, Uruguay
and France in the months preceding the planned attacks.
Target: Millennium celebrations in the Middle East and the United
States
When: Jan. 1-5, 2000
Plan: Carry out bombings at three locations in Jordan, as well as
Los Angeles International Airport, and Aden, Yemen, killing
hundreds of Americans, including U.S. sailors on board the USS The
Sullivans.
Outcome: Jordan plot foiled with arrests of 12 accused bombers in
Jordan in early December 1999; Los Angeles plot foiled with arrest
of two accused bombers in Port Angeles, Wash., and Brooklyn, N.Y.,
in late December 1999; attack on USS The Sullivans ends with
bomb-laden boat sinking in Aden Harbor. (USS Cole later attacked,
on Oct. 12, 2000, killing 17 sailors.)
And according to testimony at the trial of suspects in the
1993 World Trade Center bombing, bin Laden associates contemplated
flying a small plane into CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. - going
so far as to train a pilot in San Antonio, Texas.
There is no indication that security officials had advance
notice of Tuesday's attack, leading one U.S. official to label the
attack "the worst intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor." The
official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, noted
such attacks take "months, if not years" to plan.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------
MSNBC.com's Jon Bonn�, NBC's Andrea Mitchell and Kerry Sanders and
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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