Posted on 06/13/2002 2:59:50 PM PDT by knighthawk
TERRORISTS planned to hijack more than four planes on September 11, a top official with the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) said yesterday.
"It's highly likely there were more than four planes involved," said Canadian General Ken Pennie, second in command of NORAD, the US-Canada operation that monitors threats from the air.
The revelations yesterday came as evidence mounted that members of al-Qaeda had begun using Pakistan as a base to plan international terrorist operations.
The tracking of Jose Padilla's alleged "dirty bomb" plot to Pakistan was part of that evidence, US officials said.
Padilla, the American citizen being held by the US military as an enemy combatant, is accused of being part of a plot to detonate a radioactive weapon in the US.
Also yesterday, French anti-terrorist police rounded up five people suspected of providing assistance to alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid in Paris, the second such sweep in two months.
The arrests came as officials in Germany said they had received intelligence of a possible al-Qaeda plot to shoot down civilian airliners.
In India, officials claimed they had evidence of an imminent al-Qaeda attack on financial institutions in Bombay.
And Britain said it was forming a 6000-strong multi-service reaction unit in case of a September 11-style attack.
The warnings in India and Germany came after Pakistani officials said an alleged accomplice of Padilla had been arrested.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official named the suspect as Benjamin Ahmed Mohammed, and said he had been questioned by FBI agents.
Padilla is alleged to have travelled with one of Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenants, Abu Zubaydah, from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Abu Zubaydah was captured on March 28 in the industrial city of Faisalabad.
Padilla's journeys put him on four continents in less than a month.
He left Karachi in early April and briefly visited Zurich in Switzerland before going to Cairo in Egypt. He spent a month there, returned to Zurich, and on May 8 flew to Chicago, where he was arrested by the FBI.
US agents had trailed him for some of his journey.
Officials said Padilla was probably flying to the US to scout targets for an al-Qaeda dirty bomb attack.
But they were. Flt 93 was late getting off the ground from Newark so its passengers had full knowledge of the WTC and Pentagon. This allowed Todd Beamer et.al. to make decision to resist, and take back plane or crash it.
Planes were kept on the tarmac, forced to land. Cockpit doors were guarded, and passengers were aware. This explains why no other hijackings occurred. But I concur with the comment that a greater effort should have been made to search and examine all passengers. People could have been kept on planes as local PD went through them. Some bluesuit would have gotten lucky and we'd have had an actual conspirator or two.
I'd suspect he is making this statement on evidence neither your nor I am priveledged to.
"If they had planned to hijack more planes they'd simply have done so."
That is a dumb assertion.
Especially given that Al Qaeda drips were preparing to also highjack British airliners on September 11th but didnt factor in all airline flights being shutdown immediately after the initial attacks.
We all know there were several Arab drips who were apprehended days after September 11th on their way to different flights.
I am a firm believer in thinking before you post....I encourage you to do so next time.
An Air Canada flight from Toronto to New York was delayed on the tarmac by a mechanical that morning. When the grounding order was issued, it returned to the gate.
After everybody got off and went their own way, the plane was closed up at the gate. Later, that evening, a cleaning crew found four box cutters left in the overhead bins...
Toronto, it should be noted, hosted a major al-Qaeda cell.
Some spraying of pesticides targets mosquitoes or medflies. This spraying uses fine nozzles that would be much more effective than standard crop-dusting nozzles for use with a biological or chemical weapon. The nozzle size used is only 15 microns or smaller. Standard crop-dusting nozzles deliver their chemicals in large droplets, which is not what would be desired for biological or chemical weapons (since an attacker would want any such agent to stay airborne for as long as possible, and, even if inhaled, large droplets would probably get coughed out before reaching the lungs). Standard nozzle size is 200 to 350 microns.
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