The FBI released photographs of all 19 suspected hijackers Thursday in what Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft called “a national neighborhood watch” campaign that investigators hope will produce new information about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
At least one of the men in the photos is believed to have connections to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, FBI Director Robert Mueller said. “We believe that one or more of them had contact with Al Qaeda,” Mueller said. Officials would not elaborate on the claim.
Ashcroft and Mueller said they hoped that distributing the photographs would prompt new information in a case that authorities say already has produced more than 200,000 leads. More than 6,000 people died when four hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside.
Ashcroft also announced new legislation designed to combat money laundering in support of terrorism.
“Our primary focus is on preventing potential future attacks,” Mueller said. Investigators “are working hard to find associates who may pose a threat in the future.”
Authorities have detained hundreds of people for questioning in the investigation, including nine whose arrests for obtaining fraudulent driver’s licenses to carry hazardous materials were announced Tuesday. Mueller said Thursday that none of the nine people arrested appears to be connected to the hijackers or the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
A number of men under investigation hold legitimate licenses permitting them to haul hazardous materials.
The license violations have commanded attention because authorities have been on high alert for the threat of a chemical or biological weapons attack by terrorists. Officials have been especially worried about terrorists using crop-dusting planes to drop chemicals on American targets. The FBI remains on a heightened state of alert for such an attack but is not focused on any particular place or time for an attack, Mueller said.
In Canada, authorities searched a copy shop and three residences in the Toronto area, including the former home of Nabil Al-Marabh, a former Boston taxi driver who was arrested in suburban Chicago last week in the hijacking investigation.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Howard Adams said police on Wednesday night took items from all four locations, but he would not elaborate. “That is going to be part of evidence that we present in court, if it does go to court,” Adams said. No one was arrested, he said.
Link to Illinois clerk
Al-Marabh lived in Toronto and several U.S. locations in recent years, including Hickory Hills, authorities said. The 34-year-old Burbank convenience store clerk was arrested on a probation violation and taken to New York on a material witness warrant for questioning in the terrorist probe.
While it is unclear what, if anything, Al-Marabh knows about the hijackings, he had transferred money to another former Boston cabdriver who is on trial in Jordan on charges that he plotted terrorist activities for New Year’s Eve 1999, according to a law-enforcement official.
Most of the 350 people who have been detained–125 of whom are in federal custody for immigration violations–have no known connection to the hijackings.
But a 44-year-old man who was arrested in Virginia has been linked to the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 77, which left Dulles International Airport on Sept. 11 and crashed into the Pentagon.
A federal magistrate has ordered Mohamed Abdi held without bail while investigators try to figure out why his name and phone number were reportedly found on a piece of paper inside the car that hijackers are believed to have left at Dulles.
Identification questions
Authorities waited about two weeks to release the photographs of the hijackers because of numerous questions about whether the identities of some Middle Eastern men may have been stolen by hijackers. On Thursday, Mueller said that the photographs, taken from driver’s licenses, passports and other official identification documents, are believed to be those of the hijackers.
The photos have been helpful in building a partial understanding of the terrorist plot, Mueller said. As the public sees a complete set of photos, “I hope they will lead to further advances in the investigation,” he said.
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While investigators are nearly certain that the photos accurately represent the hijackers, they still are working on proving their identities.
“We’re currently determining whether when these individuals came to the United States, these were their real names, or they changed their names for use with false identification,” Mueller said. At least one man whose name is on the list of hijackers has come forward in the Middle East and said his identity was stolen.