People Knew Beforehand About Attacks
Reports have been swirling that ordinary people, mostly Arab-Americans in New York City, knew about the attacks before they happened. FBI agents have told the media that they're tracking down numerous people who spoke of the impending attacks in the New York area, confirming that such warnings occurred. A veteran NYPD investigator said that numerous Arab-Americans in New York had heard that the attacks were going to happen. “The officer said the story 'had been out on the street,' and the number of leads turning up was so 'overwhelming' that it was difficult to tell who had heard about the attacks from second-hand sources and who had heard it from someone who may have been a participant,” according to the Journal News of Westchester, New York.The page has footnotes, but I did not check them out.A police detective in Brooklyn said that investigations of numerous Middle Easterners who didn't show up for work at the WTC on September 11 are “a serious and major priority.” The Independent of London reported: “Dozens of members of a mosque in the Bronx told the FBI they had also been given a vague warning to stay out of lower Manhattan.”
Three incidents of which we know details involve schoolchildren (which makes sense, since kids are notoriously poor judges of when to keep their lips buttoned). On September 10, 2001, a fifth-grader in a Dallas suburb made a startling declaration to his teacher: “Tomorrow, World War III will begin. It will begin in the United States, and the United States will lose.” The boy was absent from school on September 11 and 12.
A school district official “said the boy is multiracial but that she does not believe his ethnicity includes a Middle Eastern background,” according to the Houston Chronicle. The paper further notes: “Two charities in the neighboring suburb of Richardson have been investigated in the past for possible ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations.”
In another incident, this one in Jersey City, a pupil at an unnamed school had warned people to stay away from lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11. Several hijackers lived in Jersey City.
Even more to the point, one week before the attacks, a Brooklyn high school freshman pointed out a classroom window at the WTC towers and said to the class and his teacher: “Do you see those two buildings? They won't be standing there next week.” The boy's family had recently immigrated from Pakistan.
Minutes after the 911 attacks, school officials told the authorities about the student's correct prediction. On September 13, the FBI and NYPD interviewed the boy, his brother, and their father. After the interviews, the father promptly left the country for Pakistan, leaving the rest of his family behind.