Posted on 09/27/2001 3:16:02 AM PDT by sarcasm
ATERSON, N.J. — In this neighborhood of Latinos, African-Americans and recent immigrants speaking dozens of languages, the handful of young Arab men who came and went drew almost no notice. In their apartment above a bodega, they did not play loud music. They appeared not to speak English.
But now that the man who took the lease has been identified as a hijacker, the apartment in the three-story house at 486 Union Avenue has been identified as a hub for those who planned the suicide missions of Sept. 11. Here, hijackers from all four of the flights were able to meet, or at least cross paths, in the months before the attacks.
The discovery of some kind of headquarters or rendezvous point here has helped stitch together earlier reports that placed some hijackers in scattered spots around northern New Jersey. Now it is clear that North Jersey was one of several East Coast staging areas for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The hijackers' stay here also shows how, in an area that speaks many languages and keeps absorbing immigrants, a few young men with no apparent means of support and no furniture can settle in for months without drawing attention.
"We have 72 identifiable nationalities here, 170,000 people in eight square miles," said Bob Grant, the mayor's spokesman. "With a lot of different folks moving in and out of the city, unless you raise a ruckus, you could live here for a while without anyone noticing."
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The one-bedroom apartment was rented in early spring by Hani Hanjour, who is believed to have been at the controls of the flight that hit the Pentagon. His landlord and neighbors said he had at least one roommate. It is not clear how many of the hijackers ever stayed at the apartment, but neighbors identified Salem Alhamzi and Nawaq Alhamzi, who were also on the flight from Dulles International Airport, as visitors and possibly roommates of Mr. Hanjour.
They said they also recognized Saeed Alghamdi, who was on the flight from Newark that crashed in Pennsylvania, and Mohamed Atta, who was on the first flight from Boston to hit the trade center.
The hijackers left other footprints across New Jersey. Several times during the summer, Mr. Hanjour and Nawaq Alhamzi rented cars at a dealership in Wayne, about a mile from Paterson. And Nawak Alhamzi and Salem Alhamzi gave addresses in Wayne and Fort Lee, both of which are Mail Boxes Etc. stores. Marwan al-Shehhi, a hijacker on the second Boston flight, was identified as a customer by at least one sales clerk at the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne.
Federal agents are examining records from the Essex County Airport, near Paterson, to see if any hijackers rented planes there. Sherri Evanina, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed that at least one of the hijackers had flown from a New Jersey airport, but would not elaborate.
But law enforcement officials dismissed reports that the men were practicing approaches to the World Trade Center. "I've spent most of the last two weeks at airports, and I have not heard word one about it," said one official involved in the investigation. "I don't see how there would be any way for anyone to know."
In Paterson, which has a sizable Muslim population, community leaders say they have heard of no one beyond the hijackers' close neighbors who could remember seeing them. The block the men chose is a commercial strip not close to the city's largest Arab-American neighborhood, in South Paterson.
Mr. Hanjour rented the apartment, in a graffiti-marred house with pried-open mailboxes, for $650 a month. "There was nothing unusual about him," said the landlord, Jim Nouri, "nothing that would make you even think twice about him."
But Mr. Nouri added that "I got good vibes from him," and when Mr. Hanjour moved out on Sept. 1, he returned the tenant's cash deposit without checking the apartment, "because he was a gentleman."
Neighbors described the men who frequented the apartment as standoffish. Jamie Diaz, who lives in the second-floor apartment, said that in six months, "I don't think I ever heard any of them say a word to anyone else." Ms. Diaz said the occupants never had any furniture. They moved in with two bags, she said, and they moved out with two bags.
Neighbors said Mr. Hanjour and other men, perhaps as many as six, sometimes met at night in the nearby Wo Hop III, talking over Chinese food. Alfonso Then, the owner of a bodega beneath Mr. Hanjour's apartment, said the men had a taste for mini-doughnuts.
All four men who flew out of Newark on Sept. 11 arrived from Florida on Sept. 7, according to identifications made by two travel agents in Fort Lauderdale.
On the afternoon of Sept. 10, the day before the attacks, one of the hijackers apparently took in the "Jersey Style table dancing" advertised by Nardone's, a go-go bar on Route 1 in Elizabeth, about two miles from Newark International Airport. The owner, Pat Nardone, said he had identified one of the men — he could not say which — from pictures that federal agents brought into the bar.
The man had a beer, Mr. Nardone said, and paid $20 to watch a dancer in the private "V.I.P." room. Mr. Nardone was watching him through a security camera.
"We watch all the time, watch them every minute," he said. "That's how I recognized him."
Minutes after midnight, workers at the valet service at the airport Marriott hotel saw three men park a red Mitsubishi Galant at the entrance while two of them checked in.
Two of the workers, Tomas Moreiro and Glen Wien, said they learned later from federal investigators, who took surveillance tapes from cameras at the parking lot and hotel entrance, that the third man drove the car to a nearby Days Inn.
They said the agents, reviewing the tapes with hotel workers, identified the three men as hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which left Newark for Los Angeles at 8:01 a.m. At 10:10 it crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pa.
Another violation of operational security.
I wonder if we'll ever find out when the four teams got the go-ahead order. It it's true that people were shorting airline and insurance stocks and investing in commodities like gold, that will tell us something about the when and the who.
I strongly suspect that the Clinton administration had made the same devil's bargain. Now that Dubya is president, that deal is off. In fact, the terrorists probably thought they would be helping the Clintons and the Democrats.
Yet another in the many downsides to the continuing mass immigration that is ruining this country: terrorists get a sea they can swim in indefinitely without being noticed.
8 Posted on 09/27/2001 05:23:52 PDT by aristeides (demosthenes@olg.com)
I strongly suspect you're right. I've heard some enter US through Canada. What I'm wondering is if/who came in through legal methods, like with a visa.
After the 1994 GOP congressional sweep, Doris Meissner was tasked with processing as many immigrants as possible, with the peak rush before the '96 election. Many here must remember even the media pointing out that Gore ordered the INS to use as many bodies and overtime hours needed, to get these people processed. We also heard that criminal backgrounds were of little or no importance, and that criminals were in fact part of the push. No doubt in my mind this continued to insure success for the Dems in 2000.
Surely, that's not the Bob Grant!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.