U.S. Officials Probing Whether More Planes Hijacked

Bloomberg ^ | Tuesday, September 18, 2001 | By James Rowley, Anna Marie Stolley and William McQuillen

[JohnHuang2]

Washington, Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The FBI is investigating whether terrorists plotted to seize more than the four jetliners commandeered last week for deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said.

The U.S. is broadening the largest criminal investigation in FBI history and is concerned about further attacks, he said. Authorities have detained 75 people on immigration charges, up from 49 as of yesterday, and investigators believe associates of the 19 hijackers may still be in the U.S. The FBI has received more than 96,000 tips, including many that are redundant or contradictory, Ashcroft said.

[2ndMostConservativeBrdMember]

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[Thanatos]

Fifth hijack team foiled by cancelled flight, says FBI
By Ben Fenton in Washington
(Filed: 19/09/2001)

THE FBI believes that a fifth hijack team could have been aboard an American Airlines jet that failed to take off from Boston on Sept 11 because of mechanical problems, it emerged yesterday.

Meanwhile, evidence came to light that the FBI should have known that there was a possible threat to airlines at least three weeks before the attacks.

The flight under investigation now, AA43 from Boston to Los Angeles, was almost identical to another, Flight AA11, which took off from Boston to the same destination at 7.59am, 11 minutes earlier than the scheduled departure time of the aircraft that was cancelled.

At 8.48am, AA11 was the first jet to crash into the World Trade Centre after it was seized by hijackers believed to belong to the al-Qa'eda network headed by Osama bin Laden. A third flight from Boston to Los Angeles, United Airlines 175, crashed into the second tower at 9.02am.

The cancellation of AA43, for undisclosed mechanical reasons, may have prevented another hijack atrocity, the FBI believes, although it does not know the intended target.

Sources close to the investigation said the FBI had been unable to trace several of the passengers on the flight manifest, who are believed to have Arabic names. None of those now being sought by the bureau turned up for the rescheduled flight when air travel resumed on Friday.

The FBI is seeking about 200 people in connection with the investigation, many of whom may have provided logistical support to the hijackers. Meanwhile, senior members of Congress warned Americans not to be complacent about the possibility of future attacks.

Sen Bob Graham, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said there was "credible evidence" that the hijackings were part of a "multi-day" plan of terrorist attacks of which Sept 11 was only the beginning.

The owner of an Oklahoma flying school disclosed yesterday that FBI agents visited him in August to ask about Habib Zacarias Moussaoui, a French-Algerian, who was arrested on Aug 17 after using a fake passport as identification at another training school.

Dale Davis of the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma, said the agents knew that the man, whom French intelligence later said had possible links to bin Laden, had been trying to get instruction on piloting large Boeing airliners.

At a Minneapolis training school he aroused suspicion because he wanted to learn how to turn an aircraft, but was not interested in how to take off or land.

The indication that the FBI was aware of suspicious behaviour at flying schools by a man with possible links to bin Laden raises questions about why it did not recommend heightened security in America's aviation industry.

In addition, Mr Davis said the FBI had been to the school two years before asking about a former student, Ihab Ali Nawawi, who was thought to have obtained training at the expense of bin Laden and has been charged in connection with the 1998 bombing of America's embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

He added that two of those who hijacked aircraft last week had also looked around the school before deciding on a different training programme in Florida.

Forty-nine people are still in custody, including a Dr Albader Alhazmi who is suspected of providing technical assistance to the hijackers, sources said. Two other men were found with large amounts of cash, hair dye and modelling knives similar to those used by the hijackers.