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Outside View: FBI Behind the Anthrax Curve Posted March 15, 2004 By Lawrence Sellin On Feb. 23, the Washington Times reported the FBI official in charge of the probe into the 2001 anthrax mailings said the investigation still has top priority among the bureau's unsolved cases but acknowledged the anthrax sender may never be caught. "Despite our very, very, very best efforts, we still might not be able to bring it home," said Assistant Director Michael A. Mason, who heads the FBI's Washington field office investigating the case. This is in stark contrast to the Nov. 17, 2001 comments of...

<p>WASHINGTON — More than two years before the Sept. 11, 2001 (search) attacks on American, U.S. intelligence officials reportedly had the first name and phone number of one of the hijackers who succeeded in destroying the World Trade Center.</p> <p>CIA Director George Tenet (search) and FBI Director Robert Mueller (search) are likely to be asked about the information when they testify Tuesday morning before the Senate Intelligence Committee.</p>

<p>February 24, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The federal commission reviewing the Sept. 11 attacks is examining whether the United States failed to aggressively track one of the hijackers after obtaining his first name and phone number more than two years before the attacks.</p>

<p>C.I.A. Was Given Data on Hijacker Long Before 9/11 By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 — American investigators were given the first name and telephone number of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers two and a half years before the attacks on New York and Washington, but the United States appears to have failed to pursue the lead aggressively, American and German officials say.</p>

Hamburg - Prosecutors in the trial of a Moroccan accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers said on Thursday they still believe he is guilty despite a statement presented in court last month that would exclude him from the plot if true. Prosecutors cast doubt on the value of the statement as they began closing arguments in the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, charged with 3.066 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation. "I and my colleagues are still convinced that the defendant is guilty," chief prosecutor Walter Hemberger told the Hamburg state court. He was...

A NEWSWEEK article by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball about the memo linking Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dismisses a recent WEEKLY STANDARD report as "hype" and concludes, the "tangled tale of the memo suggests that the case of whether there has been Iraqi-al Qaeda complicity is far from closed." While it's refreshing to see the establishment media pick up the story, the Newsweek article is less than authoritative. The authors write: "The Pentagon memo pointedly omits any reference to the interrogations of a host of other high-level al Qaeda and Iraqi detainees--including such notables as Khalid...

The Memo and the Link Between Saddam and OsamaBy Lowell PonteFrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2003 "OSAMA BIN LADEN AND SADDAM HUSSEIN had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003,” reports the November 24 issue of The Weekly Standard, “that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda – perhaps even for Mohamed Atta – according to a top secret U.S. Government memorandum….” This 16-page memo, dated last October 27, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Just before boarding one of the planes that was flown into the World Trade Center, September 11 hijacker Waleed Alshehri left behind a poem.</p> <p>Discovered by investigators in his rental car at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, the poem speaks of traveling into the "face of death with our heads held high."</p>

A wedding video shot in a Hamburg mosque has been broadcast for the first time and shows grainy scenes of Sept. 11 al-Qaida suicide pilots celebrating with other alleged plotters, possibly including suspects still not formally identified. The video of the October 1999 wedding of Said Bahaji being celebrated in a large room at the al Quds mosque suspected as a recruiting center for al-Qaida operatives has been in the hands of investigators since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks, the Bahaji wedding video provided investigators critical...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Spain: Two 11 September suicide pilots met in Madrid in July 2001 La Vanguardia web site, Barcelona, in Spanish 1 Feb 02 BBC Monitoring Europe - Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring February 1, 2002, Friday E xcerpt from report by Fernando Garcia, "Second World Trade Centre suicide pilot was also in Madrid and saw Atta", published by the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia web site on 1 February Madrid: Mohamed Atta, the pilot of the first of the aircraft crashed into the World ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Sept. 11 hijackers studied at a Florida flight school long before their student visas were approved, the head of the U.S. immigration service said on Tuesday, in an admission of problems at the agency.James Ziglar, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told reporters, "I would have to say it is an understatement that INS's procedures ... were clearly not the most efficient and certainly not the most logical."Ziglar has been under fire since last week, when the INS informed the flight school the student visas had finally been approved. But he added in a...

<p>WASHINGTON — Keeping up with the latest around town is usually easy enough. Lately, however, several topics have been abuzz, and we find our attention drawn every which way.</p> <p>With the first anniversary of Sept. 11 almost upon us, terrorism remains the prime topic, particularly among radio talk shows and in e-mails. Washington is a virtual fortress; the vice president's home on Massachusetts Avenue is off limits to most of us; and Crawford, Texas, has doubled its population with U.S. Secret Service agents — none of which raises our eyebrows.</p>

A Moroccan has been charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder in connection with the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the German authorities said yesterday. Mounir El Motassadeq was accused of membership of a terrorist organisation and being an accessory to murder in 3,116 cases, Kay Nehm, the chief federal prosecutor said. Mr Nehm said El Motassadeq, 28, was an integral member of a terrorist cell in Hamburg which included three of the four suicide pilots, Mohammed Ata, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. He is alleged to have acted as logistics and finance manager...

German investigators say they have evidence that Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, and two accomplices trained at Qaeda camps in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000. They have also established a clear link between Al Qaeda and a recent attack on a Tunisian synagogue, a top official said. The timing of the Afghanistan training, outlined yesterday by a senior investigator, provides the strongest evidence so far that plans for the attacks on the United States were worked out there. Less than six months after leaving Afghanistan, Mr. Atta and the other two men...

<p>BERLIN, Germany (CNN) --German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a 24-year-old Moroccan, accusing him of founding a terrorist group and mass murder in connection with the September 11 attacks.</p> <p>The German federal prosecutor said Zakariya Essabar was suspected of working with some of the hijackers of the airliners in founding a terrorist group.</p>

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Report: Suspect's Passport Found Associated Press Online INTERNATIONAL NEWS August 17, 2002 Saturday 11:59 AM Eastern Time BERLIN The passport of a Syrian-born man suspected of recruiting some of the Hamburg-based Sept. 11 hijackers was found at the house of a top al-Qaida official in Afghanistan, according to a report Saturday. Zammar was in Hamburg with hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. The German passport of Mohammed Haydar Zammar was found in the ruins of the home of Mohammed Atef, bin...

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE NONDESCRIPT ROADSIDE motel outside Oklahoma City was just a fleeting encounter during the twisted cross-country odyssey of the terrorists who would carry out the September 11 attacks. Mohamed Atta, alleged leader of the plot, and two companions wanted to rent a room, but couldn't get the deal they wanted, so they left. It was an incident of no particular importance, except for one thing. The owner of the motel remembers Atta being in the company of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker," who was arrested prior to September 11 and now faces conspiracy charges in connection...

<p>The motel owner said that Moussaoui and a man who appeared to be Marwan al-Shehhi --who helped crash a jetliner into the south tower of the World Trade Center--were friendly and said a few things, but Atta was clearly the leader. "He did most of the talking and seemed very serious," said the owner, adding, "I was standing face to face, about two feet away from Atta, and talked to the three of them for about 10 minutes. . . .</p>

For more than 10 months, I have been wondering out loud if the FBI and other federal authorities would take a new look at the broader conspiracy of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing following the events of Sept. 11. For several years before Sept. 11, 2001, I have been pointing out the many holes in the government's cover story about the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building, hoping against hope that those problems might be corrected so that we, as a nation, might not be caught off-guard by Islamic terrorism. Now it appears the government is ignoring...

<p>COPPERHILL, Tenn. (AP) -- Months before terrorists attacked America, two Middle Eastern men landed a small plane at an airstrip in the Appalachian foothills after getting a look at a nearby river and a huge chemical plant.</p> <p>Danny Whitener, a 48-year-old junk car dealer who was alone tending his plane when the strangers arrived, is convinced one of the men was Mohamed Atta, whom authorities believe was the ringleader of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings.</p>