Posted on 12/31/2002 6:38:03 AM PST by jimbo123
Men wanted by the FBI ''in the broader context of 9/11 and the New Year'' were reportedly aboard a B.C. ferry carrying a large, heavy box and taking photographs of the docks earlier this month, the National Post has learned.
A rare international alert has been issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the five men of Arab descent. It says they are believed to have entered the United States illegally, reportedly from Canada, on or around Christmas Eve. The FBI is investigating a detailed account from a B.C. woman who says she saw two of the wanted men on Dec. 10 near Nanaimo.
Saying the men are considered armed and dangerous, U.S. officials are searching for links between the men and suspects on terrorist watch lists, including the U.S. Department of Justice's list of the 22 Most Wanted Terrorists.
Law enforcement officials said they are in a heightened state of alert ahead of the New Year's Eve celebrations, as they typically include large gatherings of people.
One U.S. official said the men were being sought in connection with a larger investigation into illegal documents such as passports and visas. The official declined to specify how many others may be involved, though one U.S. network reported yesterday that the five were part of a group of 19 people who recently obtained phony travel documents.
''It is part of a smuggling ring investigation,'' an FBI spokesman said. ''There is no specific or credible threat, but we just wanted to talk with them in the broader context of 9/11 and the New Year.''
Among the tips coming to the FBI since its public request for information is the compelling account by a nurse from B.C.'s Lower Mainland. The woman was interviewed yesterday by FBI agents after she reported seeing two of the five men, whose pictures were released by the bureau, aboard a ferry that sailed from the Vancouver Island ferry dock at Duke Point, 16 kilometres south of Nanaimo, to Tsawwassen, the large ferry terminal south of Vancouver.
The woman, who spoke to the National Post on condition her name not be published, said she was chilled when she saw the photograph of Iftikhar Khozmai Ali, 21, and Adil Pervez, 19, because she is sure they are the men she saw on her Dec. 10 trip.
She said Mr. Ali was sitting in the front forward lounge of the ferry, slumped in his seat with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. She was so startled by his cold stare she considered phoning authorities to report him.
"This fellow stood out in my mind and bothered me. I told my husband and others about him when I got home. But what could I do? Phone the police saying a man looked angry?" she said.
She said the ferry arrived an hour or more late.
After the ferry arrived, she said another man, whom she now believes was Mr. Pervez, was taking photographs of the facility with a digital camera he held at chest height. "He continued to take photographs of the entrance to the ferry terminal, the ticket area and baggage area and escalator. He photographed the entire area -- and a tourist would just not want photos of that for souvenirs," she said.
"It was pouring rain and I thought, Why is he photographing the entrance to the ferry? It was unnerving to watch. He must have taken, easily, two dozen photographs. He then, together with another fellow, lifted a fairly large container -- about three feet by four feet -- into a van.
"The box bothered me because of the way it was wrapped and also the unusual size. It was poorly and cheaply wrapped. It looked like it was cardboard and wrapped in wrinkled brown paper and duct tape. I just found it odd. It took two of them to get it into the van."
She said she realizes her story seems strange but she said her career as a nurse requires her to be alert and observant.
"This piece of baggage, after taking the ferry for 12 years, bothered me when nothing else has; and so did these two people," she said.
Special Agent Jim Powers, based in the FBI's Bellingham, Wash., office, said the bureau is aware of the ferry tip but declined to say how agents learned of it.
"We are on top of that. We have the information and we're going to check on it," he said.
"It's being pursued through our office in Vancouver. They will ask the appropriate Canadian agency to look into it."
Earlier in the day, Sergeant Grant Learned, spokesman for the RCMP in B.C., said the Mounties were not, as far as he knew, involved in the case of the fugitives.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the government had received intelligence about the men but did not have specific information that they were planning anything around New Year's.
"But, you know, any time we have five individuals like this who enter the country illegally, we want to know why they are here, we want to question them," he said in Crawford, Tex., where George W. Bush, the U.S. President, is spending the holiday. "And that's why the FBI has enlisted the help of the public."
The manhunt raised the spectre of the arrest on Dec. 14, 1999, of Ahmed Ressam, a Montreal-based al-Qaeda operative, at a Washington state border crossing.
He was carrying a bomb designed to explode on New Year's Eve at Los Angeles International Airport.
Along with Mr. Ali and Mr. Pervez, the men wanted by the FBI were identified as: Abid Noraiz Ali, 25; Mustafa Khan Owasi, 33; and Akbar Jamal, 28. The FBI warned the names and ages could be false.
Steven Emerson, a terrorism specialist based in Washington, D.C., said his sources told him the men may have simply attempted to illegally immigrate to the United States, from Dubai via Canada.
"They were people who were being smuggled into the United States, not necessarily for terrorism purposes," he said.
David Harris, a former agent for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said Canadians should be concerned by the incident, even if the men entered the country for economic reasons rather than terrorism.
"What we are saying is that people who are totally undocumented have gained entry into the United States through Canada. As Canadians, we are under threat.
"The very presence of undocumented people in our midst is an ominous sign."
I live only a few miles away from where these A-Rabs were seen with that box, so I'm a little nervous as well. The Seattle area is a prime target for nuclear terrorism, for a few reasons:
1) It's only a short distance away from a particularly porous part of the border.
2) The police up here are politically correct beyond one's most nightmarish imaginings, and are very hesitant to apprehend people who fit terrorist profiles.
3) Prime target area: Microsoft, ferries, etc.
4) The Puget Sound has countless inlets, and finding an unguarded one isn't difficult.
Yeah, it's nervous time alright.
Everyone...stay safe!!
Precisely correct.
Murry being on their side is a good one.
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