The Investigation
- German Police Search Apt. For 2 Men Possibly Linked To The Attacks
- FBI Storms Boston Hotel; Amtrak Train Stopped In Rhode Island
- Experts Say Osama Bin Laden Likely Involved In Attacks
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2001
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Manhattan's skyline, noticeably absent, the World Trade Center.
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(CBS) Federal authorities are investigating whether four separate cells of terrorists were involved in Tuesday's devastating attacks. At least one set of hijackers is believed to have crossed from Canada and had ties to Osama bin Laden, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
"Investigators are reviewing intelligence and have received numerous credible leads," Attorney General John Ashcroft said.
Names of suspected terrorists with possible ties to bin Laden's organization were found on the passenger rosters of the hijacked planes and intelligence intercepts showed affiliates of bin Laden saying they had hit two targets, sources said.
FBI agents obtained information from Internet providers, conducted searches, and questioned people in Florida and Massachusetts. Early evidence, including communications among bin Laden supporters, indicated the attacks were tied to the wealthy Arab and accused terrorist.
Acting on a tip from the FBI, police in Hamburg searched an apartment Wednesday where two men believed to be linked to the terror attacks in the United States once lived, police said in a statement.
Police said the apartment had been uninhabited since February 2001, and that the two men were believed to have lived in Florida from July 2000 to January 2001.
"This is a hot lead that we are urgently following," police spokesman Joerg Lauenroth said.
He declined to elaborate on what role the pair may have played in the attacks, saying police did not want to compromise an investigation.
Reinhard Wagner, head of the Hamburg office of Germany's domestic intelligence service, said a number of bin Laden's fund-raisers were operating in the city.
"They perform logistic functions for bin Laden, possibly by providing contacts or places to stay," Wagner said.
Officials cautioned that information was still developing. No significant arrests were made as of midday Wednesday.
Ashcroft said authorities were conducting interviews and reviewing airline manifests and pay phone records to identify the attackers. He said between three and six hijackers, armed with knives and box cutters, seized control of each of the four commercial planes.
"The Department of Justice is undertaking perhaps the most massive and intensive investigation ever conducted in America," Ashcroft said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said investigators' goals were identifying the hijackers and any accomplices, both inside and outside the United States.
The director said agents have followed leads that the hijackers or their associates had been in Florida, Boston and Providence, R.I. He said authorities are "attempting to create the travels" of the suspected terrorists.
In Boston, law enforcement officials said a hotel room in the Boston area believed to have been used by one of the hijackers was searched by the FBI Wednesday afternoon. the room was vacant but included information linking it a name on the manifest of one of the hijacked flights. They declined to identify the man.
CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports that there have been no arrests made in connection with the terrorist attacks thus far. People in Boston have been taken into custody, but these are people who have trouble with the Immigration and Naturalization Service that were discovered as a process of these raids.
Officials said authorities were gathering evidence that the four terrorist cells may have had prior involvement in earlier plots against the United States — including the USS Cole bombing and the foiled attack on U.S. soil during the millennium celebrations.
Law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were investigating whether one group of hijackers crossed the Canadian border at a checkpoint and made their way to Boston, where an American Airlines flight was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center in New York.
The officials confirmed a car believed to belong to the hijackers was confiscated in Boston and contained an Arabic language flight manual.
Abu Dhabi Television in the United Arab Emirates reported that two men with Saudi Arabian passports and international drivers licenses issued in the UAE were linked to the Mitsubishi sedan found at the Boston airport.
Ashcroft said authorities believe the hijackers were professionally trained pilots.
A Venice, Fla., man said FBI agents told him that two men who stayed in his home while training at a local flight school were the hijackers. Charlie Voss said the agents identified the men as Mohamed Atta and one known as Marwan.
The FBI interviewed Voss, of Venice, Fla., about two men who stayed with him and his wife for a week in July 2000 while taking small-plane flight training at the municipal airport.
FBI agents "informed me that there were two individuals that were students at Huffman Aviation, my employer, and FBI told me they were involved in yesterday's tragedy," Voss said.
The couple accepted the two men as house guests as a favor to the company, Voss said. The men, who stayed just a few days, trained at the airport and came to the house to sleep, he said.
The FBI in Miami issued a national bulletin for law enforcement agencies to look out for two cars. Records with the Florida Division of Motor Vehicles show that one of the vehicles the FBI was pursuing - a 1989 red Pontiac - was registered to Atta.
The FBI has already received more than 700 tips from a special Web site seeking information on the attacks — www.ifccfbi.gov.
Agents served search warrants on major Internet service providers in order to get information about an e-mail address that may be connected to Tuesday's terrorist attacks. Among those who received warrants was Earthlink, officials said.
From broken bits of hijacked airplanes to intelligence intercepts, the FBI is collecting evidence in its search for those responsible for the attacks. At the Pentagon, an FBI team recovered parts of the airplane's fuselage and sought the black box recorder that could provide conversations from the cockpits of the doomed planes.
©MMI CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press and Reuters Limited contributed to this report.
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