Replies

A 2001 report on terrorist truck drivers.......

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:3RlwcaYyhMMJ:seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/40494_hazardous27.shtml+hazardous+fuel+hauling+trucks+in+accidents&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet

This is G o o g l e's cache of
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/40494_hazardous27.shtml as retrieved on Jul 4,
2005 17:41:32 GMT.

2 of 4 men arrested for possible
terror link are released

16 others held or sought in U.S.; all vehicles
carrying hazards to be stopped

Thursday, September 27, 2001

By SAM SKOLNIK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Two of four Western Washington men
arrested yesterday on charges of
fraudulently obtaining licenses to transport
hazardous materials have been released.

Mustafa Al-Aboody, of Seattle, and Ali
Alazawi, of Everett, were freed following a
hearing today before a U.S. magistrate. The
other suspects, Haider Al Tamimi and
Hussain Sudani, remain in custody pending
further investigation.

The suspects have been
linked to six other men of
Middle Eastern descent who
were picked up yesterday by
FBI agents in Michigan and Missouri. Federal
authorities say they are searching for 10
more suspects who, like the others,
obtained their bogus permits after bribing a
licensing official in Pennsylvania.

The arrests came in the wake of FBI
warnings earlier this week that terrorists
may strike next on the nation's highways
using biological or chemical weapons.

Law enforcement officials in Seattle
cautioned that they did not know whether
any of those arrested have any connection
to the terrorist attacks.

"At this time, we have no indication that
there's any connection to the terrorists," FBI
spokeswoman Roberta Burroughs said.

"The public needs to be very, very careful
about jumping to conclusions," said
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Coopersmith,
the prosecutor who handled the case
yesterday. "I don't have any information
that there are any connections."

Confronted with the new threat, the U.S.
Transportation Department is asking state
law enforcement agencies to pull over every
truck with hazardous-materials placards
and check the drivers' credentials and
paperwork.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told a
congressional committee yesterday that the
20 people "may have links to the hijackers"
who crashed passenger jets into the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

Al-Aboody, Tamimi and Alazawi appeared
briefly yesterday afternoon before U.S.
Magistrate John Weinberg. The hearing was
delayed until today, after the men said they
needed Arabic interpreters.

All have ties to Iraq, according to one law
enforcement official -- though it was unclear
if they are American citizens or have an
immigration status. According to the U.S.
Marshals Service, none of the men provided
the name of an employer to authorities after
their arrests.

The men were arrested on a federal warrant
issued in Pittsburgh, where they soon will be
arraigned.

FBI affidavits for the 10 arrested said that
between July 1999 and February 2000,
people from seven states had falsely
obtained licenses in Pennsylvania to haul
hazardous materials.

A driver's license examiner with the
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
office in Pittsburgh provided the permits to
people who had not taken the required tests
or had suspended licenses, according to
court records.

The examiner was not identified in the court
papers.

He has told FBI agents that about six years
ago, he was introduced to a man, identified
by authorities as Abdul Mohamman, who
brought to him as many as 30 individuals
seeking bogus permits. The examiner said
he issued the hazardous-materials
licenses, or "endorsements," and was paid
$50 to $100 by Mohamman for each
document.

Almost immediately after receiving the false
Pennsylvania licenses, the four men
arrested in the Seattle area had attempted
to transfer the licenses to Washington state,
authorities said.

On Feb. 22, 2000, the Pennsylvania Bureau
of Driver Licensing received a phone call
from a Washington Department of Licensing
official who was concerned about the men
attempting to transfer their Pennsylvania
commercial driver's licenses to Washington.

In two of the cases, the men succeeded,
according to Marie Sullivan, a spokeswoman
for the Department of Licensing. Alazawi
and Al-Aboody received the commercial
permits with permission to carry hazardous
materials. Alazawi also received a
"tanker-material endorsement" that allows
the transport of large quantities of gasoline
and other fuels, Sullivan said.

The permits for the other two -- Tamimi and
Sudani -- were denied, Sullivan said.
Further details were not available.

As a result of the increased attention to the
possibility of terror attacks using trucks,
officials of chemical- and fuel-hauling
companies were scrambling yesterday to
find better ways to secure the vast fleet of
trucks and rail cars carrying chemicals and
fuels around the country.

Experts said the challenge was enormous,
with millions of pounds of toxic, flammable
or explosive chemicals and fuels moving on
American highways and railways each day.

The threats include rail cars full of
lung-searing chlorine or explosive propane
and the 50,000 tanker trucks that rumble
each day to gas stations around the
country, most of which hold as much fuel as
the Boeing 757 that slammed into the
Pentagon.

The Transportation Department yesterday
told inspectors from the motor carriers
office, who normally enforce rules on
matters such as driver fatigue, to fan out to
trucking companies carrying explosive or
poisonous materials and urge them to
review the security of their vehicles, parking
lots and drivers, said David Longo, a
spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration, a branch of the
department.

"We're putting these carriers on notice that
they really need to take a close look at
certain things," he said.

The chemical industry has a tracking system
for monitoring shipments of dangerous
chemicals, designed mainly to alert rescue
crews to the contents of particular trucks
involved in accidents.

Hazardous materials include substances
that are explosive, corrosive, toxic,
infectious or radioactive. Commercial
driver's licenses are issued under a uniform
national standard, with transportation of
hazardous materials requiring a
challenging test and tighter scrutiny of
driving records.

Of the 169,401 commercial driver's license
holders in Washington state, about 37,000
of them have a hazardous-materials
endorsement.

The men arrested in the Seattle area have
lived here for years, according to court
records.

In 1995, Al-Aboody was involved in a car
accident in the University District. He was
behind the wheel, according to an accident
report, and was cited for negligent driving.

Alazawi was involved in an accident in the
Everett area. He filed a lawsuit in February
2000, seeking damages as a result of the
car wreck.

Al-Aboody lives in a small stucco apartment
building in Beacon Hill. Neighbors, who
refused to give their names, said they
strongly doubted he had anything to do with
a terrorist plot.

Tamimi lives with his mother and sister in a
dilapidated South Everett apartment
complex.

His sister, speaking through an interpreter,
said he has been in the country for seven
years. He has been working as a window
washer, she said, refusing further comment.

An Iraqi neighbor refused to give his name.
He said he strongly doubted that Tamimi
could have ties to terrorists.

"We're just normal guys," the neighbor said.

In other developments yesterday, federal
authorities in Virginia held a man named
Mohammed Abdi as an essential witness in
their investigation of the hijackings.

Abdi is a former airline food worker whose
name and phone number were found in a
car at Dulles International Airport, outside
Washington.

Abdi's lawyer, Joseph Bowman, said his
client knows nothing about the attacks.

The worldwide dragnet also resulted
yesterday in:

The arrest of six Iraqis found hiding in the
trunk of a car outside a Royal Air Force base
in Britain used by U.S. fighter jets.

The detention in Spain of six Algerians who
are allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden,
the prime suspect in the attacks on the
United States.

The arrest in the Netherlands of an Iraqi
man suspected of belonging to a radical
Muslim network.

P-I reporters Paul Shukovsky, Candace
Heckman and David Fisher contributed to
this report. Material from the New York
Times and The Associated Press were used
in this report. P-I reporter Sam Skolnik can
be reached at 206-467-1039 or
samskolnik@seattlepi.com

I was not all that happy with my truck googles, maybe someone else will do a better job of finding the white van and truck accident connections.........

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet&q=hazardous+fuel+hauling+trucks+in+accidents+with+white+vehicles&btnG=Search

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=hazardous+fuel+hauling+trucks+in+accidents&start=0&scoring=d&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&

http://www.google.com/search?q=hazardous+fuel+hauling+trucks+in+accidents&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet

http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=truck%20accidents%20involving%20white%20vans