Free Republic

Fifteen minutes after KLM Flight 685 took off from Amsterdam for Mexico City on April 8, Mexican authorities forwarded the names of all the passengers to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The reason: the flight was scheduled to pass through U.S. airspace. by the time the Boeing 747 had finished its three-hour crossing of the Atlantic, Homeland Security screeners were on high alert. The names of two Saudi passengers aboard the KLM flight had begun producing "hits" on the screening center's lists of 70,000 suspect foreigners. The two Saudis, the database reported, were brothers and pilots who had attended...

<p>A former Arizona State University student arrested last week may have cased President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, possibly to assess security for an attack, according to a report in the New York Daily News.</p>

WASHINGTON - Counterterror officials suspect that an Arab student linked to one of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have cased the presidential ranch in Crawford, Tex. - six months before the 9/11 attacks. Muhammad Al-Gurashi and three other Arab men suspected of close ties to hijacker Hani Hanjour rented a car in Phoenix and drove to Freeport, Tex., in March 2001, intelligence and law enforcement sources say. They are believed to have stopped near President Bush's ranch to assess security for a possible terrorist attack, the sources told the Daily News. Al-Gurashi, a 28-year-old Saudi who attended Arizona State University,...