Other Terror Attack Suspects At Large? FBI Believes Terror Cell in Sept. 11 Attacks May Go Beyond

Other Terror Attack Suspects At Large?
FBI Believes Terror Cell in Sept. 11 Attacks May Go Beyond 19 Suspects

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 16 — The FBI is investigating the possibility that the terrorist cell that carried out last month's attacks on the United States extended beyond the 19 hijackers who died crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside.

Sources tell ABCNEWS the FBI is investigating information from a foreign intelligence service that the cell of hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks actually consisted of 30 men. With 19 of the hijackers dead, officials suspect that some cell members did not complete their missions because all air traffic was grounded after the attacks on New York and Washington. A fourth hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania, presumably when passengers attacked the hijackers.

Sources close to the FBI investigation tell ABCNEWS that credit cards used to purchase tickets for some of the 19 hijackers were also used to book seats on other flights on Sept. 11. FBI agents are trying to track the names on tickets purchased by the suspects' credit cards and determine if they are real names.

Since the attacks, the FBI has detained hundreds of people nationwide, looking for any remote links to the dead hijackers in the attacks that left more than 5,000 people missing and dead. Besides looking for information on terrorist cells in the United States, the FBI has been looking for cells operating in Europe: suspected terrorist cells have been arrested in Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, France and England.

Officials say they have tracked down a money trail of more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan to two banks in Florida, to accounts held by the suspected ringleader of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta. According to published reports, some of the money came in just days before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden.

But FBI investigators are tense, especially since they believe that more attacks on the United States may be imminent in wake of the military campaign in Afghanistan.

"To add to the already high anxiety, there was the direct warning on Monday from bin laden's key spokesman promising more attacks," said Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Sources told ABCNEWS that the FBI has no specific, credible information about plans for another attack on U.S. soil. But one FBI agent pointed out they didn't have any intelligence information about the attacks that were carried out on Sept. 11.

Two Iraqi men arrested last month in a crackdown on drivers who transport hazardous material pleaded not guilty in U.S. federal court in Pittsburgh on Monday to charges of obtaining illegal drivers licenses.

Kamel Albred, 33, and Haider Alshomary, 29, have been held without bail since being arrested in Texas on Sept. 26 on charges of illegally obtaining licenses through a middleman who allegedly bribed a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation worker. They were among 21 men of Middle Eastern descent arrested when U.S. authorities tightened scrutiny of hazardous material shipments after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Federal officials say they have not found any evidence linking the arrests of Albred and Alshomary to the attacks.

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Alshomary and Albred are Iraqi refugees who came to the U.S. after the 1991 Gulf war. Robert Ferrari, the Pennsylvania state worker accused of being their middleman, has been indicted on federal charges of illegally providing commercial driver's licenses to 20 men, all of whom have been indicted.

All but three of the suspects are free on bond in their home states of Washington, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Teitelbaum told Reuters.

Two of the men detained last Friday after authorities learned they had purchased or attempted to purchase one-way tickets for a flight to Amsterdam have been released, authorities said.

Last Friday, a Delta Air Lines flights from New York to Amsterdam was canceled after authorities learned four men had purchased or attempted to purchase one-way tickets. Two of the men, the FBI said, were detained before the flight's scheduled departure from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and were held by immigration authorities after questions arose about their travel documents.

Suspicions were raised after two men bought one-way tickets from a New York City travel agency, paying with cash and leaving an apparently bogus phone number, ABCNEWS learned. A short time after the purchase, two more men, described as Middle Eastern, arrived at the same travel agency, also seeking one-way tickets for that night's flight. The travel agent became suspicious and started to make a phone call, prompting the second pair of men quickly left the building

Media is finally catching up with Carl Cameron + Rita Cosby reports for FOX News some weeks back - that there were other hijackers on flights, some leaving box cutters behind on planes and others - pretending to be pilots allowed to sit in the third seat in the cockpit on several flights - disappeared shortly thereafter. Around the same time Cameron was reporting the 4 defeated attacks against NATO, etc., which others are now finally picking up on. This shows how incredibly valuable it was for President Bush to shut down the country when he did, lest more attacks have become realized. In contrast, one can only imagine Algore, under similar circumstances, being caught up trying to get Naomi Wolf to advise him which color suit he should be seen wearing when he might make such a decision or Clinton being caught "finishing himself" in such a moment of crisis.

...there were other hijackers on flights, some leaving box cutters behind on planes and others - pretending to be pilots allowed to sit in the third seat in the cockpit on several flights - disappeared shortly thereafter.

Yes! We've heard nothing more about this. With all the talk about airline safety, we also haven't heard any airline or government official say that they are putting a halt to the practice of allowing pilots from other airlines "courtesy seats" in the cockpit during flights.

It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what happened when you learn that Atta's suitcase had 2 stolen Lufthansa uniforms in it, that several of these guys had false pilot's licenses, and that 12 grounded flights had middle-eastern men sitting in the cockpits when the planes were called back to the gates.

Since authorities didn't know what was happening in the beginning, I assume that the 12 Middle-eastern men were not detained and are roaming around the country ready to make more mischief.

Paging Mr. Dog Gone!

We have information here about the friendly Pakistanis!

Read Sura 74 of the Koran. Sura 74 (the hidden one, or the cloaked one, or the secret thing) mentions 19 angels as the keepers of the fire into which is thrown the rich man who turns against God. It might be pure coincidence, but the description of the materialistic man who rejects proofs of the very God who made the man prosperous, calling such proofs things manmade, is just the thing a religious fellow might connect with modern American society. Moreover, the lines of verse 31 are:

We appointed angels to be guardians of Hell, and we assigned their number (19) to disturb the disbelievers, to convince the Christians and Jews (that this is a divine scripture), to strengthen the faith of the faithful, to remove all traces of doubt from the hearts of Christians, Jews, as well as the believers, and to expose those who harbor doubt in their hearts, and the disbelievers; they will say, "What did GOD mean by this allegory?" GOD thus sends astray whomever He wills, and guides whomever He wills. None knows the soldiers of your Lord except He. This is a reminder for the people.

Moreover the number 19 is significant enough for readers of the Koran, but it is very significant to some fringe American Moslems, especially those who follow the teachings of the Submitters and/or a certain Mr Louis Farrakhan (may his tribe decrease). In the famous Million Man March, Farrakhn rambled, "In the background is the Jefferson and Lincoln memorial. Each one of these is 19 feet high. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, Thomas Jefferson the 3rd president, and 16 and 3 makes 19 again. What is so deep about this number 19? When you have a 9, you have a womb that is pregnant, and when you have a 1 standing by the 9, it means that there's something secret that has to be unfolded." Although the fundamentalist brains behind the attacks might think that the Submitters and Farrakhn were heretical, the hidden message of 19 would serve a propaganda purpose that flies so to speak under the radar of a Clintonian CIA and FBI.

Bottom line: With all the breathless speculation without real evidence, the coincidence of the number of known hijackers and Sura 74 is just as good a starting point as any. It is at present just a matter of hunches, and today I would bet a small amount that no other terrorists were working that day. Certainly many more persons were involved, and likely more attacks were and are planned, but 19 was it.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.