Posted on 09/15/2001 12:35:57 PM PDT by OKCSubmariner
A man who trained briefly at an Eagan flight school this summer is believed to have been a high-ranking operative for Osama bin Laden.
Law enforcement authorities confirmed reports that the student pilot is being investigated in connection with the terrorist organization that officials suspect is responsible for the attacks Tuesday on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Just days after Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in mid-August for carrying a false passport, the FBI was told by French intelligence officials that he was a high-ranking operative in Bin Laden's organization, according to media reports and a law enforcement official.
Zacharias Moussauoi
On Friday, authorities transferred Moussaoui from a Minnesota jail, but wouldn't say where he was taken.
A reporter for Europe 1 Radio in Paris and the Boston Herald have reported that Moussaoui was carrying Algerian and French passports, but that one had been forged.
When the FBI learned about the passport they contacted French intelligence officials, who said he had strong ties in the terrorist organization, according to the news media reports and a law enforcement official. The FBI was also told Moussaoui had recently travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the group has been known to be active.
Agents for at least three local and federal law enforcement agencies have been working out of the Minneapolis office of the FBI around the clock on local leads, authorities said.
At least three local defense attorneys say they have been contacted by people of Arabic descent, including one from New Jersey, seeking advice or representation. Those people, described as "ancillary" to the investigation, say they have been approached or interviewed by federal authorities and fear cooperating further without an attorney present.
One attorney described the Twin Cities investigation as "very aggressive."
Minneapolis FBI Agent Jay Brunn and Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman Tim Counts said they were instructed not to comment on any aspect of the investigation. Federal prosecutors also have declined to comment.
It's unclear which FBI bureau was making inquires with French authorities about Moussaoui. He had been arrested Aug. 17 on suspicion of illegally entering the United States.
After his arrest, an FBI search of his home turned up technical literature on airline and flight manuals, said Frederic Helbert, a reporter with Europe 1 Radio.
Several days after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., the FBI again contacted French intelligence officials for information about Moussaoui, Helbert said.
Moussaoui, who Helbert said is half-French and half-Algerian, wanted to rent time on a flight simulator at the Eagan pilot training school but never completed his training, law enforcement sources have said. The chief flight instructor at Airman Flight School in Norman, Okla., said Moussaoui studied last spring for a private pilot's license but never obtained it at the school.
The school was told by Moussaoui that he was a French national of Moroccan descent and had last lived in London. After his arrest, the FBI visited the school to ask about Moussaoui.
It is unknown how long Moussaoui was in Minnesota before he was arrested. The Pan Am Training Center is located in buildings in Eagan owned by Northwest Airlines. Pan Am buys blocks of time to use the flight simulators for its own training and also rents time to other airlines and individuals.
Moussaoui completed 57 hours of study in Oklahoma but never flew solo. He contracted for his private pilot certificate but didn't complete it. Typically, a private pilot's license can be earned with 40 hours of instruction, including five to 10 hours of solo time.
But an instructor at the Pan Am training center became suspicious because Moussaoui was asking so many questions, Helbert said. And officials said suspicion would be aroused if a student pilot who hadn't yet received his private pilot's license wanted time on a simulator for a commercial jet.
Simulators, which resemble space shuttles in theater-like rooms, imitate takeoff and landing. The pilot can select flight patterns to various U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C.
The FBI's investigation into the terrorist attacks on the East Coast have also lead to the activities of a Saudi man with Minnesota connections who attended a Florida flight school and who reportedly died in one of the suicide assaults.
Abdulrahman Saeed Alomari, 38, rented a house for more than a year in Vero Beach, Fla., while attending that flight school. While Alomari was living in Florida, he had a Minnesota ID that showed an address on Berkeley Avenue in St. Paul. The house listed on the card is owned by a 73-year-old woman who rent rooms to foreigners who take English language courses from a program that leases space at the University of St. Thomas campus.
She said she believed Alomari is the brother of Ali Alamri, 27, a Saudi student to whom she rented a room last year. Alamri told her that his brother was a pilot with a Saudi airline and was going to get more training in Florida.
Bogus comparison. bin Laden and gang claim to be fighting America for religious reasons: they want the infidels (us) out of their Muslim holy places, Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem in particular.
As far as I know, McVeigh never claimed to be blowing up the Murrah Bldg. for any reason connected to Catholicism. In fact, I'm really quite certain that religion of any kind was not connected to McVeigh's actions, unless you count his anger over the Waco massacre of the Branch Davidians.
Jim always shows up to "save" the FBI from criticism especially when they get caught not doing their job right- anyone else ever notice this FBI MO and pattern of behavior by Jim?
We have been wondering where Jim has been hiding or lurking lately. He wants to join the party now, wonder why that would be?
I do not respond directly to Jim any longer, because he has proved to be not capable of conducting a meaningful discussion with me and many others on FR for a very long time. The questions I raise with his name are rhetorical questions which he would dodge and never answer even if I sent him a direct reply. The questions are designed to stimulate thought about questions that should be raised by Freepers when types like Jim show up from time to time on FR.
Jim serves a useful purspose of giving me a chance to dispell government propaganda and disinformation for those new to FR that might be reading these threads.
-----------------------------------------
The TV reporter in OKC has good photos and many good witnesses of the Bin Laden types involved in OKC with McVeigh who helped him construct the bomb in OKC on April 18, 1995 in OKC. Terry Nichols met with Bin Laden types in the Philippines who helped him and McVeigh in the OKC bombing.
Guess what Jim? There were also two other BIn LAden pilot types who trained at the same school with Moussaoui in Norman, close to OKC. One of them was Atta (flew plane into WTC)-heard his name before, huh, pal? What a coincidence all these clowns trained under the FBI noses(they knew it) in OK all these years. Don't worry, the name of the other guy is public so do not need to send your FBI goon friends for a visit since they already know. Ask them for the name if you want, or look it up for yourself.
OKC is the location of a well known Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Bin Laden cell and has been for quite some time. The former chairman of the House Intell Committee, Dave McCurdy, wrote an article about this for the OK Gazette in May 1995 and a number of COngressional staffers have also confirmed this to me. MArtin Keating ,the governor Keating's brother and author of Final Jihad and close to the FBI, confirmed this publicly to me on KTOK radio and in person in 1997 when his book came out.
The FBI, especially FBI agent Dan Vogel,knows in detail about this and has for several years now and he is concerned about the upper level FBI handling of this info. The House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare (James Saxton and Yousef Bodansky)and the Senate Intelligence COmmittee also has the evidence described in the above three paragraphs.
For more confirmation, why don't you contact the resident FR expert on the ME connection to the OKC bombing, BlueDog Demo who worked for the State Department and was at the bomb site with FBI agents? Better yet, how about contacting the Pentagon terrorism advisor, Jesse Clear who will tell you of the ME involvement? Clear lives in Spotsylvania, Virginia and I am sure you can find him with the help of your friends.
Are you just uninformed or a disinformation specialist, Jim?
Keep doubting me Jim and you will either be hurting yourself or you will be helping the enemy. When the FBI starts getting it right, we all will be a lot safer,that is unless you are rooting for the ememy.
What state do you live in, Jim?
Who do you work for, Jim?
Did you ever work on the OKC bomb case for a Federal or a state group? If not, do you know anyone in government or the press who has? If so, who?
Do you know anyone in the FBI, CIA,or BATF, Jim?
Do you know any terrorists, Jim?
Are you a proponent of World Government,Jim?
Are you a proponent of the UN, Jim?
Are you a proponent of gun control, Jim?
Are you in favor of or against Middle Eastern terrorism inside the US, Jim?
Are you satisfied with the FBI/CIA handling of the info involving OKC and the WTC matters? If you defend and condone their bad performance on this Jim, you like them , will look very bad .
Are you for saving and protecting the lives of American citizens from Middle Eastern terrorists Jim?
If you live in the US, the terorists may well be on your doorstep and in your neigborhood, Jim. Are you at least concerned for yourself and family? If not, why not? If you are concerned, what are you doing to protect your family and friends and employer, Hmmm?
A defense official said the two suspects may have attended Defense Language Academy at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama.
It's very odd to me that a person would frequent a conservative forum for several years with no apparent purpose except to provide cover for the Clinton administration. Your boy is out of office. Find another hobby.
NORMAN, Okla. -- At any time, the Airman Flight School here boasts about 120 students, one-fourth of them from foreign countries, all hoping to become pilots.
Much more info in the body of the story. Then there's this quote from the Washington Post:
Federal authorities have been aware for years that suspected terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden were receiving flight training at schools in the United States and abroad, according to interviews and court testimony. source
I don't particularly blame the Norman school--they were, I think, following guidelines and trying to make an honest living. I do, however, blame officials that knew some of these men were terrorists, that the bin Ladin group wanted to fly airplanes into important buildings, and never bothered to keep an eye on them. One story suggests there are 500,000 foreigners on student visas here legally--who knows how many are not here legally, and are still plotting terror against our country?
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/shannon/article/0,9565,187541,00.html
Why the FBI Sweats Through Ramadan
by Elaine Shannon
Saturday, Dec. 08, 2001
Al Qaeda's 'Night of Power'?
...............
The Case Against Moussaoui
When Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota last August on immigration violations, sources say, he had in his possession the telephone number and address of Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni student in Hamburg. Those meager notes and a money transfer are at the center of the terrorism conspiracy case federal investigators are building against the mysterious French-Moroccan.
FBI agents believe that Binalshibh, a.k.a. Ramzi Omar, is a dedicated terrorist who planned to join his Hamburg roommates Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehi and their frequent companion Ziad Al Jarrah as the 20th hijacker in the September 11 terror attacks. Binalshibh had registered at the Florida Flight Training Center, attended by Jarrah but was denied a visa because the State Department feared a poor Yemeni would remain in the U.S. illegally. (Atta, a middle class Egyptian with a good command of English, had no problem obtaining visas, nor did the other hijackers — 15 Saudis, two UAE citizens and one Lebanese.)
According to sources familiar with the FBI investigation, Binalshibh, left behind in Hamburg, sent money to Moussaoui in Norman, Okla., where the French-Moroccan was attending flight school. Curiously, though, agents have found no trace of contacts between Moussaoui and Atta or any of the other 18 hijackers. If Moussaoui was a member of another Al Qaeda cell, as investigators suspect, where's the rest of it? Most urgently, is a plot still afoot? These are the questions the FBI and its European allies are scrambling to answer.
Moussaoui, in custody in New York, may soon be indicted, but he isn't talking. The FBI hasn't found evidence of suspected collaborators in the U.S., nor any reservations to travel abroad. Binalshibh, agents believe, knows all about Moussaoui as well as Atta's group, but he vanished from Hamburg just before September 11. The Germans have charged him with terrorism conspiracy, along with two other Atta-Binalshibh buddies, both Moroccans, who have also disappeared. The FBI has quietly positioned agents within a short flight of Afghanistan, hoping Binalshibh and his pals will turn up alive and tractable in a POW round-up.
since binalshibh got bumped from the flight, was moussaoui his backup?
p.s. was moussaoui was in norman in 94 - 95?
you might want to check out BJ's link in post #34.
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