Feds: Hijackers didn't use Crypto

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Wed Sep 19 20:25:42 EDT 2001


http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010918/ts/attack_investigation_dc_23.html

Tuesday September 18 7:55 PM ET


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	FBI Investigating Florida Terrorist Connection (WKMG, Orlando) 	 

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI (news - web sites) is investigating whether
other airplanes may have been targeted for hijacking as it seeks to
question more than 190 people about last week's deadly airline attacks,
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said on Tuesday.

Ashcroft also said 75 people who may have helpful information about the
attacks are in custody for immigration violations, and new steps were
adopted allowing even longer detention of such individuals before charges
must be brought.

``We are looking at the possibility that there may have been more than four
planes targeted for hijacking, but we are not able at this time to confirm
that,'' he told a news conference at FBI headquarters.

Two of the airplanes hijacked a week ago slammed into New York's World
Trade Center, another into the Pentagon (news - web sites) outside
Washington and a fourth into a field in rural Pennsylvania. The toll of
people officially listed as dead or missing following the Sept. 11 assaults
approached 6,000 on Tuesday.

Ashcroft said he directed the head of the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service to revise its regulations, which had allowed for 24
hours for a decision on whether to charge a person taken into custody
because of a violation.

``The revision announced last night expands the 24-hour time period to 48
hours, or to an additional reasonable time, if necessary, under an
emergency, or in other extraordinary circumstances,'' Ashcroft said.

EVERY LEGAL STEP

``We have a responsibility to use every legal means at our disposal to
prevent further terrorist activity by taking people into custody who have
violated the law and who may pose a threat to America,'' he said.

Federal law enforcement officials said investigators were trying to
determine whether any of those in custody may have planned other hijackings
and they stepped up the search for accomplices in the biggest investigation
in FBI history.

In Washington, D.C., an FBI official told reporters the hijackers and their
known associates used public computers, such as those in libraries, as well
as their own personal computers to communicate.

``They did use it (the Internet) and they used it well,'' the official said
of the e-mails of the hijackers and their associates. The FBI has been able
to get e-mails that date back as far as 30 to 45 days, the official said.

The official said the e-mails were in English and Arabic, that there were
hundreds of communications, and the e-mails were not just limited to the
United States. The hijackers did not use encryption techniques, the
official said.

The official said the FBI had received good cooperation in the
investigation from Internet service providers, along with banks in tracing
the money trail and the airline industry.

In south Florida, where a number of the suspected hijackers are thought to
have lived recently, the FBI searched library computer records, librarians
said on Tuesday.

In Fort Lauderdale on Monday, FBI officials searched Broward County Library
records of patrons who signed up to use some 600 computers with Internet
access at 37 library branches, dating back to Sept. 1, 2000, Libraries
Director Sam Morrison told Reuters on Tuesday.

Ashcroft said the list of more than 190 people wanted for questioning had
been sent to federal, state and local law enforcement officials and to the
airline industry. The list on Friday had more than 100 names.

The officials said the FBI was investigating whether any of the 75
individuals -- up from 49 a day ago -- being held for immigration
violations in the course of questioning about the attacks or those arrested
as material witnesses may have been plotting other hijackings.

SAUDI ARABIAN-BORN RADIOLOGIST QUESTIONED

In San Antonio, a Saudi Arabian-born radiologist had been detained and was
being questioned by the FBI after his apartment was raided last week, FBI
agents said. He works at the University of Texas Health Science Center in
San Antonio.

The FBI would not say whether he was suspected of being connected to two
men who are in custody in New York after they were removed from an Amtrak
train in Fort Worth, Texas, last week carrying box-cutters and a large
amount of cash.

The train was headed for San Antonio, and agents said the box-cutters were
similar to those believed to have been used by hijackers in the attacks.

The federal law enforcement officials said the FBI remained interested in
the two men, who gave their names to police in Texas as Ayub Ali Khan, 51,
and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47. They were flown to New York for
questioning, they said.

Investigators also remained interested in the first man who was arrested
last week on a material witness warrant, the officials said.

The man has not been identified. He initially had been stopped by police at
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York with a fake pilots
license.

Another person flown to New York for questioning had been held in
Minnesota, the officials said.

That man was detained on Aug. 17 for immigration violations after he
aroused suspicions by seeking to buy time on a flight simulator for
jetliners at a Minnesota flight school, despite a lack of experience or
skills, they said.

None of the 75 taken into custody for immigration violations has been
charged in connection with the hijackings, a Justice Department (news - web
sites) official said.

Ashcroft said the FBI had received more than 96,000 tips and potential leads.

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Earlier Stories
FBI Probes if Other Planes May Be Targeted -Ashcroft (September 18)
FBI Probes if Other Planes May Be Targeted-Ashcroft (September 18)
Hijackers' Associates May Still Be in U.S. (September 18)
CORRECTED: Hijackers' Associates May Still Be in U.S. (September 18)
Ashcroft: Hijackers' Associates May Still Be in US (September 17)
U.S. Moves to Bolster Arsenal in Terror Fight (September 16)
 

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-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



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