Terror target ... army of firefighters,
rescuers and engineers hard at work
Posted on 09/17/2001 2:17:43 PM PDT by SlickWillard
KILLERS FLYING IN FIRST CLASS
TERROR IN AMERICA
Terror target ... army of firefighters,
rescuers and engineers hard at work
From ANDREW PARKER
in New York
HIJACKERS who smashed into the World Trade Center paid up to £3,100 each for first class seats, it emerged yesterday.
FBI documents also revealed that some bought their one-way tickets on the internet after registering as "frequent fliers".
Dance of death ... Ziad Jarrah
pictured at a wedding in Beirut
Investigators piecing together the build-up to the attack have so far named 19 terrorists who spent a total of £35,000 on tickets between August 25 and 28. Seven were paid for on the same credit card.
All the gang - believed to have been led by Mohammed Atta, 32 - are thought to be well-educated Egyptians or Saudis. One, Waleed Al Shehri, was the son of a wealthy Saudi diplomat in the US.
They mingled with passengers in VIP and business class lounges, speaking together in German before boarding the planes.
All had ties to south Florida - 12 living there at one time during the past two years and almost all attending flying schools in the area. Seven, including Ziad Jarrah, 26, are known to have had pilot licences.
Maniac's passport found in rubble</FONT SIZE>
RESCUERS searching the rubble of the World Trade Center have found one of the hijackers' passports.
The charred, torn document was picked up several blocks from the twin towers carnage.
It also emerged yesterday that two of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al Shehhi, recently bought knives while staying in Zurich, Switzerland.
Air crew were attacked with blades during Tuesday's horror.
Meanwhile shattered rescuers yesterday continued searching for survivors amid fading hopes.
Police said there was still a slim chance that people were trapped in airpockets, but no one had been pulled out alive since Wednesday.
Just one per cent of the estimated 450,000 tons of debris has been removed. Heavy rain and hundreds of rats were adding to the hazards facing rescuers.
Officials may now switch the operation to recovering the dead.
Mayor Rudy Giuliani said body parts might be all that remain.
Relatives are being asked to bring in combs or other personal items that might contain hair so that DNA tests can identify victims. Officials have already taken more than 500 samples from close relatives.
Workers were allowed into Lower Manhattan offices to retrieve computer data ahead of today's stock exchange reopening.
FBI were hunting terror two</FONT SIZE>
THE FBI was hunting two of the kamikaze hijackers for a fortnight before they launched their attacks.
Agents had been trying to find Khalid Al Mihdhar and Salem Al Hamzi - who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon last Tuesday - Newsweek magazine claimed yesterday.
The hunt was launched after the CIA tipped off the FBI that the pair were Osama bin Laden's henchmen.
A second man was yesterday arrested by cops hunting those behind the attacks. He was nabbed at a New Jersey flat. The first arrest was made on Friday.
TERRORIST Mohammed Atta used a laptop to buy his American Airlines ticket from Boston to Los Angeles on August 28. The website required a frequent flier number which he had established three days earlier. Atta, who used two Florida addresses, paid with a Visa card. Abdulaziz Al Omari, 22, booked at the same time. They travelled from Portland, Maine, to Boston for the flight. A bag belonging to Atta, 32, found at Boston's Logan International Airport contained a note, but the FBI have not revealed what it said. Atta sat in seat 8D. In seat 10B was Satam Al Suqami, 25, who had paid cash. Fellow hijackers Waleed Al Shehri, 27, and Wail Al Shehri were in 2B and 2A. They had used post office boxes to get their tickets. Both Al Shehris had pilot licences and were living in the Daytona Beach area of Florida. Waleed Al Shehri graduated from a four-year course in 1997 with a degree in aeronautical science. Their Boeing 767 took off at 7.45am local time and smashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower at 8.48am. |
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Marwan Al Shehri, Hamza Al Ghamdi and his cousin Ahmed Al Ghamdi paid £1,000 for business class tickets Marwan Al Shehri, 23, from the United Arab Emirates, had studied with terrorist Atta at a flying school near Miami from last December. Instructor Henry George said they spent three hours each in an airline simulator after claiming they wanted to be commercial pilots in their home countries. He said they had mentioned Egypt, but did not reveal exactly where they had come from. He added: "They did not seem to have the skill to pilot jet liners - though they could turn the planes. "All they were doing was making themselves prepared for that task." Faiez had attended a flight school and Mohaid Al Shehri, 28, was a qualified pilot. Their Boeing 767 took off at 7.58am and hit the Center's South Tower at 9.03am.
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FBI agents have less information about the hijackers of the American Airlines flight from Washington to Los Angeles. But documents provided to German police involved in the worldwide inquiry show that Nawaf Al Hamzi booked his ticket through internet travel agents Travelocity on August 25. The 31-year-old, who had an address in San Diego, paid with a Visa card. Then, as an apparent back-up, he bought a second ticket using a different address. Another to book through Travelocity was Salem Al Hamzi, with addresses in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as well as New Jersey and San Antonio. Meanwhile Khalid Al Mihdhar, who had been staying at Florida's Daytona Beach, booked on the American Airlines website, then picked up his ticket on September 5, paying cash. He was in seat 12B next to fellow hijacker Majed Moqed whose address was traced using his mobile phone to Caldwell, New Jersey. Also on the flight was 28-year-old Hani Hanjoor - another of the gang to have a pilot's licence and to have stayed at Daytona Beach. Their Boeing 757 left Washington at 8.10am and crashed into the Pentagon at 9.39am.
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ONE hijacker of the United Airlines flight from New York to San Francisco was qualified pilot Ziad Jarrah. The 26-year-old had rented a bungalow in Hollywood, Florida, for six months. Neighbours described him as a "flash young man" who dressed well and drove a sporty red Mitsubishi Eclipse. One added: "He always seemed to have a lot of Arab visitors. They included men, women and children and they never spoke English." Also on board were Ahmed Al Haznawi, 21, who was staying in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Ahmed Al Nami, who had an address in Delray Beach. The fourth terrorist on the flight was Saeed Al Ghandi, 25, who had been attending a flight safety school in Vero Beach, Florida, since 1999. Students there come from Africa, Korea, and Germany as well as from Arab states. They have told FBI agents Al Ghandi spoke little English and "kept himself to himself". He gave an address in Jeddah and another in Lexington Avenue, Manhattan. That has turned out to be the Saudi Mission to the United Nations. The Boeing 757 left Newark, New Jersey, at 8.01am and crashed near Stony Creek, Pennsylvania, at 10.10am. |
This is the point I have tried to make in all of my posts here at FR, and in all of my discussions with family and friends: We are not at war with Iran. We are not at war with Libya. We are not at war with Syria. We are not at war with Iraq. We are not at war with Afghanistan. We are not at war with Palestine. We are not at war with some radical, fringe element of Islam.
WE ARE AT WAR WITH THE MAINSTREAM OF MUSLIM SOCIETY, IN PRECISELY THOSE MUSLIM COUNTRIES THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN OUR ALLIES. IF WE IGNORE THIS, WE ARE DOOMED TO FAILURE.
Incredible. The enemy in the first battle of WWIII.
Well, in one sense they paid rather more... but in another, if they charged it to their credit cards they paid nothing at all!
My, my. How politically incorrect! (/sarcasm)
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