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The Story off The Terror America 11 September 2001
The man, Nabil Al-Marabh, was arrested outside Chicago. Earlier this week, FBI agents searched a Detroit apartment for him.
Al-Marabh had a commercial driver's license issued by the state of Michigan, according to the Michigan Secretary of State's office said. That license, issued Sept. 11, 2000, allowed Al-Marabh to operate vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or more. "He can drive a big truck," said the official.
Additionally, Al-Marabh obtained what is called an "endorsement" the same day which allowed him to transport hazardous materials. The official said he took a test and paid a fee to obtain that endorsement.
The official said the Michigan Secretary of State's office had no records on what kind of work Al-Marabh may have done.
The arrest came as the FBI began enlisting the aid of banks to follow the money trail in last week's terrorist attacks. In doing so, investigators are trying to determine if the hijackers used aliases of people who still may be alive.
-- The number of people detained on immigration charges for questioning in the probe rising to 115.
-- The Los Angeles Times reported as unnamed source as saying FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 Islamists with terrorist leanings were slipping into this country and planning "a major assault on the United States."
-- Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller on Thursday will visit the southwestern Pennsylvania crash site of United Flight 93, the flight on which several of the passengers made cell phone calls saying they planned to attack their captors.
-- Ashcroft also announced that aliens in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service may now be held for longer periods of time before charges are brought, to give investigators more time to question them.
Arrests in Detroit The arrests in Detroit occurred earlier this week after FBI agents raided a residence looking for one of the people being sought for information about the attacks. Instead, they found the three men and a cache of documents The men were charged with identity fraud, misuse of visas, and conspiracy to commit those violations. They are expected to appear in federal court in Detroit Friday.
FBI agents also found identification badges for two of the men for an onboard airline caterer at Detroit's Metropolitan Airport, along with diagrams of an airport flight line, including aircraft and runways.
"I think it would be far too early to indicate that this is some sort of major breakthrough in the case," Ashcroft told reporters at the Pentagon, where he took a tour of the damage there. "But we are going to pursue every lead and we will prosecute every infraction."
The three men arrested were identified in court documents as: Karim Koubriti, 23; Ahmed Hannan, 33; and Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 21. All were described as resident aliens and Arabs.
Search for money trail intensifies Meanwhile, the FBI sent a list of the alleged hijackers to banks Wednesday asking bank officials to search for any financial transactions involving 21 people wanted in connection with the terrorist attacks.
"The FBI is requesting that all financial institutions check their records for any relationships or transactions with the named suspects," said a "Special Alert" dated September 19 from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
"Any financial institution that identifies such a relationship, such as a bank account, or a transaction, such as a wire transfer, with any of the named suspects should complete and file a suspicious Activity Report ... and immediately contact" the FBI, the alert added.
The list mostly included the names of 19 Middle Eastern men previously identified by the FBI as the suspected hijackers. But the list identified one of those, Khalid al-Midhar, as possibly alive, The Associated Press reported.
Saudi officials have told U.S. officials that as many as four people in their country with similar names or identical names to the hijackers are alive and that some fear their identities may have been stolen. The FBI is investigating, but hasn't reached any conclusions.
In August, al-Midhar was placed on a watch list after U.S. intelligence received information that a man with that name had been seen meeting with associates of accused terrorist Osama bin Laden in Malaysia, officials have said.
In another development, The Los Angeles Times quoted an unnamed law enforcement official in Thursday's editions as saying FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 Islamists with terrorist leanings were slipping into this country and planning "a major assault on the United States."
The advisory, passed on by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, cautioned that it had picked up indications of a "large-scale target" in the United States and that Americans would be "very vulnerable," the official said. The paper said it is not known how U.S. authorities reacted to the warning.
The list sent to banks suggested one of the hijackers may have had a connection to Minnesota, where an Arab man was detained three weeks before the attacks after seeking flight training.
Banks were given three possible addresses to check for Abdulaziz Almomari, who was believed to be on an American Airlines flight out of Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center. One address was in Saudi Arabia, another in Vero Beach, Florida, and the third in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Ashcroft left open the possibility that countries could have supported the terrorists.
During a visit to the Pentagon, Ashcroft sidestepped answering whether investigators had determined a foreign state was involved by saying such terrorist networks in general get backing from governments.
"It is pretty clear that the networks that conduct these kind of events are harbored, supported, sustained and protected by a variety of foreign governments," he said. "It is time for those governments to understand with crystal clarity that the United States of America will not tolerate that kind of support."
Law enforcement officials said the investigation had not made a direct link between last week's attacks and a foreign state, although there was uncorroborated evidence that one of the suspected hijackers met with an Iraqi intelligence officer earlier this year in Europe.
Iraq has denied involvement.
The numbers appear out-of-whack, thankfully. And so, a lingering question is why the passenger loads on the four planes hijacked in U.S. skies are being described by industry officials as "very, very low.''
Is it simply incredible fortune that more people weren't aboard the commercial airliners used as deadly missiles? Is it just another tidy piece of a large, well-executed terrorist act?
Is it further reflection of an already reeling U.S. economy?
Or, contrary to airline denials, did the hijackers purchase a large chunk of seats that went unused?
Many investigators suspect the terrorists at the very least shopped for flights with low passenger loads, making it easier for them -- presumably armed only with knives and box cutters -- to prevent passenger uprisings.
"You have to think it was by design, that they didn't want to go on a flight with the chance of the passengers working against them,'' said Dave Esser, head of the aeronautical science department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "If you've got the threat of a bomb or a gun you can hold people at bay. These guys were strong-arming people with box cutters and knives.
"They wanted the numbers to be on their side.''
And they were, staggeringly so.
Three of the transcontinental flights departed for the West Coast with at least two-thirds of the seats empty. Only 37 of the 182 seats were occupied -- including four by hijackers, at least two in first class -- as United Airlines' Flight 93 left Newark for San Francisco.
The only flight that was even half full proved to be American Airlines' Flight 11, a wide-body Boeing 767 that left Boston bound for Los Angeles with 81 passengers.
Through July, airlines in the United States reported flights on average were 71 percent capacity this year.
All four of the hijacked flights had passenger loads significantly down in comparison with similar flights in June, the second quarter this year and last September -- according to statistics provided by the Department of Transportation.
A well-scripted plot From all appearances, the selection of flights was just another part of a meticulously scripted scheme that was likely years in the planning.
-- The planes hijacked were Boeing 767s and 757s, which pilots train for in the same cockpit. If you can fly one, you can fly both -- unlike the airlines' smaller and more popular 737s. The 767s in question accounts for only 3 percent of the United Airlines fleet.
-- The planes were fully loaded with fuel, and crashed soon after takeoff on transcontinental flights bound for Los Angeles and San Francisco.
-- The two wide-body 767s, which have the largest fuel capacity (16,700 gallons) of those hijacked, were used to fly into the World Trade Center.
-- Most of the hijackers had assigned seats in first class, putting them close to the cockpit and distancing them from the bulk of passengers. The five hijackers aboard United Flight 175, the second to strike the twin towers, purchased one-way tickets totaling more than $14,000.
-- They acted on a Tuesday, normally one of the slowest air traffic days. And just after Labor Day, when summer travel eases considerably.
-- They boarded the flights in teams of five. The exception was the four aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which authorities believe crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers took on the hijackers.
Knowledge of flights easy to obtain The hijackers had apparently finalized their plans at least three weeks before the attacks when they began purchasing tickets for the flights, according to an FBI document provided to German police. Some paid cash for their purchases. Others used their Visa cards. Some booked tickets on the Internet. Their knowledge of the passenger loads could have been the result of assistance from an insider within the airline or travel industry, if not simply tedious research by the hijackers themselves as to the days and departure times when passenger loads would be lowest.
Most airline Web sites post seating configurations of flights, revealing which seats have been purchased as well as those available.
On Tuesday, a week after the hijackings, the only flight still flying near its former departure time was the United Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles. A check on the airline's web site the night before found 62 seats reserved in coach, alone -- compared to the 51 passengers and five hijackers who left Boston the morning of September 11.
"They were very low loads, especially when we only had 37 passengers on the flight that went down near Pittsburgh,'' said Liz Meagher, a United Airlines spokesperson. "I'm sure we are looking at this as a blessing and I'm sure it is being investigated as well.''
Specifics about the number of no-shows for the flights, as well as the passenger load history of the flights, has been turned over to the FBI, Meagher said.
Flights were on low travel days Industry sources said post-Labor Day isn't normally a strong time and air traffic is off this year, but passenger loads on the four flights are off about 20 percent from similar routes last September.
"They may have done some research,'' said John Hotard, an American Airlines spokesperson. "If it's an issue of being able to control a fewer number of passengers, they may have been astute enough to know that Tuesday and Wednesday are your lower load factor days.''
Hotard said the airline hasn't detected any unusual booking activity on its two flights, dismissing speculation that the hijackers bought a large number of unused tickets.
He confirmed that the hijackers aboard the American flights were seated in first class, adding American and United Airlines were likely targeted because they're the primary transcontinental carriers.
"You have to assume they choose 'trans-cons' because those things were full of fuel,'' Hotard said. "So you knew if successful you're going to get a bigger fireball than with either a smaller aircraft or a domestic flight of only an hour or two.
"As to why they choose those two airlines, American is certainly a big bull's-eye out there, if you want to strike America. They picked the world's two largest carriers and we're out there with American spread all over and the American eagle on the tail.'
A flight attendant detailed the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 up to the final frantic seconds when the jetliner crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center during an in-flight phone call, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
The Times' story attributes the account to an investigative document compiled by the FBI and taken from a phone call Madeline Amy Sweeney made to a ground manager at Logan International Airport in Boston. American Airlines officials told The Times that phone calls are not typically recorded, meaning the conversation was likely reconstructed by the FBI from interviews with Michael Woodward, the manager who took the phone call.
"This plane has been hijacked," Sweeney said, according to the FBI report, in a call that came shortly after the Flight 11 was commandeered.
Where in the plane Sweeney was while the hijacking took place is uncertain, but she provided vivid details to the ground manager, according to The Times report.
Two flight attendants had already been stabbed, she said, while identifying her coworkers by their crew numbers. "A hijacker also cut the throat of a business-class passenger, and he appears to be dead," she said.
Sweeney, 35 and a 12-year veteran of the airline, was one of nine flight attendants on Flight 11 when it took off from Logan just before 8 a.m. the morning of Sept. 11. The plane slammed into the WTC tower less than an hour later.
Investigators have named five suspected hijackers on the flight that are believed to have used box cutters, razors and possibly small knives to take over the plane.
According to The Times, Woodward asked Sweeney whether she knew her location.
Quoting the FBI, Sweeney said, "I see water and buildings. Oh my God! Oh my God!"
The conversation ended.
The Times reported officials at American Airlines said information about the phone call was turned over to the FBI. "The FBI has told us not to discuss anything," said airline spokesman John Hotard.
Officials at the FBI also declined to discuss the call, The Times said
