FBI searches Palm Beach County ex-home of Saudi family

Palm Beach Post ^ | 1/22/03 | SCOTT MCCABE and ELIOT KLEINBERG

[Illbay]

Wow. Why did it take them so long to connect THESE dots? Seems like every family with an Arabic name in Palm Beach County should have been checked out immediately after the flight school connection became known.

[Allan]

Several (FBI) agents, some in white biohazard suits.

What I can't understand is why they needed biohazard suits.

Didn't the FBI tell us the anthrax came from a domestic terrorist??

[Lion's Cub]

Appreciate the timeline. It kills my theory that the Massoud assassination was the signal for the "go-ahead", though :) I had forgotten that he didn't die until after 9/11.

[Illbay]

Well, I did, anyway.

I still think so. Our friendly neighborhood radical Islamist terrorists don't pull such silly, juvenile (and ultimately, harmless) pranks like the silly Anthrax "attacks."

When they do something, it's done with style, it's well-planned, and it is much more effective.

If and when they ever take it into their heads to stage a "bio-attack," I think thousands will die, not just four or five.

[Ranger]

A few curious questions:

1. Who paid the rent/mortgage on the place for the last year? Did the dishes just sit there for a year and newspapers collect in the front yard since Sept 01? Further if they had a car, they probably had a drivers license and it sounds like 2 kids in local schools.

2. Why is the FBI making the connection now or in the last 2 weeks (took PC out 2 weeks ago)? My guess its related to either the raid on the UK mosque about a week ago or to information coming from the raid on the latest doctor's house in Pakistan about 3 weeks ago. There was a reference to his sons' having lived in Florida but the articles at the time gave no further specifics.

3. If they were tipped off on Sept. 9 and fled, then tip may have come by electronic communication from Afgh/Pak, Hamburg or directly from the hijackers. Does anyone know when and from where the anthrax was mailed?

[okie01]

Almasri bundled up his family and blew town on 9/9/01.

The neighbors called the FBI hotline with their suspicions, which seem obvious and very well-founded, within a few days of 9/11/01.

For sixteen months, nothing happens.

Finally, the FBI swoops down and busts the house on 1/21/03.

This chronology raises two questions:

1. Is the FBI finally responding to the hotline tip? If so, what in heaven's name took them so long?

2. Or are they responding to some new evidence, otherwise obtained? In which case, why did they ignore the hotline call?

After all, a residence occupied by an Arab family, with a son involved in flight training at Lantana, hastily vacated on 9/9/01 and left unoccupied for sixteen months is an inviting investigative target.

In other words, this raid is just as suspicions as the long-delayed combing over of the nearby AMI building -- almost a year after it was sealed.

[Ranger]

Well if we hear next week from the FBI and the White House that there is new evidence of a connection between the hijackers/Iraq and/or anthrax which is linked to this raid, then we'll know something fishy is going on. I've pulled out my tin foil hat, but haven't put it on just yet.

[Ranger]

This article says it was visited and PC taken out 2 weeks ago.

[okie01]

"I thought I read that the house WAS in fact searched by the FBI after receiving the tip in September 2001..."

It was.

"Lamaraca said the FBI had searched the home about two weeks ago."

But only two weeks ago...

[Fred Mertz]

Good questions and comments.

[Texas Mom]

Lisa Dickerson, Martha Ruth's daughter, said she watched Mohamad Almasri hustle his family into their car on Sept. 9, 2000. She said that a few days after the attacks, when news reports began focusing on possible connections between the terrorists and the nearby Lantana airport, she called a special national FBI hot line.

And they hurried right over (16 months later.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up and link!

[swarthyguy]

Just a reminder from but local papers did report a ME 'TV crew' trying to get into Bush's quarters on the morning of the 11th for an 'interview', speculating it was supposed to be a Massoud style one.


Great timeline. Post it seperate, you should.

[Shermy]

No reports of defaced J.Lo. photographs yet?

[Allan]

Just a reminder from but local papers did report a ME 'TV crew'
trying to get into Bush's quarters on the morning of the 11th.

What local papers??

Do you have a link??

This is the first I have heard of this!!

[Allan]

Do you know anything about #35??

[Allan]

Sorry. I meant do you know anything about the information in post #34?

[txhurl]

1. Is the FBI finally responding to the hotline tip? If so, what in heaven's name took them so long?

Perhaps waiting to see who might come to recover whatever was buried?

[Cindy]

""al Masri" means "the Egyptian" in Arabic. Quite understandable that that should be part of Abu Hamza's name, since he comes from Egypt. But I was wondering, reading this article, why a Saudi family should have that name."

Thanks Aristeides for the information. I learned something new today. That is a very good question you posed. Maybe it's a Saudi-Egyptian family? Or....