Following Money Trail Through Banking System

Mystery over some hijackers possibly using fake IDs

by Pete Yost
The Associated Press
September 20, 2001

The FBI is enlisting the aid of banks to follow the money trail in last week's terrorist attacks while trying to untangle a mystery about the hijackers: Did they use aliases of people who still may be alive?

Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller on Thursday were visiting the southwestern Pennsylvania crash site of United Flight 93, the flight on which several of the passengers made cell phone calls saying they planned to attack their captors.

With the number of people detained on immigration charges for questioning in the probe rising to 115, the FBI sent a list of the alleged hijackers to banks Wednesday asking bank officials to search for any financial transactions involving 21 people wanted in connection with the terrorist attacks.

"The FBI is requesting that all financial institutions check their records for any relationships or transactions with the named suspects," said a "Special Alert" dated Sept. 19 from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

"Any financial institution that identifies such a relationship, such as a bank account, or a transaction, such as a wire transfer, with any of the named suspects should complete and file a suspicious Activity Report ... and immediately contact" the FBI, the alert added.

The list mostly included the names of 19 Middle Eastern men previously identified by the FBI as the suspected hijackers. But the list identified one of those, Khalid al-Midhar, as possibly alive.

Saudi officials have told U.S. officials that as many as four people in their country with similar names or identical names to the hijackers are alive and that some fear their identities may have been stolen. The FBI is investigating, but hasn't reached any conclusions.

In August, al-Midhar was placed on a watch list after U.S. intelligence received information that a man with that name had been seen meeting with associates of accused terrorist Osama bin Laden in Malaysia, officials have said.

By the time al-Midhar's name was added to the list, U.S. officials believed he already had entered the country. His name was listed on the manifest of the American Airlines jet that crashed into the Pentagon.

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were exploring several possibilities. One was that al-Midhar never entered the country and his name was simply used as an alias by one of the hijackers who died. Another possibility was that he allowed his name to be used on the flight by another hijacker, so that U.S. officials might assume he died, giving him time to escape the country. A third was that he did in fact die in the crash as a hijacker.

A man sought for several days in connection with the attacks investigation was arrested in Illinois, authorities said Thursday.

Nabil Al-Marabh was arrested in Justice, Ill., a small town outside Chicago. He was on an FBI list that includes suspects, potential associates of the suspects and others who may have information about the suspects.

FBI spokeswoman Mary Muha said Al-Marabh was being held on a Boston warrant for assault with a knife. In December, he was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in Boston. He was to have started serving a sentence in March but failed to show up.

In Massachusetts, where Al-Marabh lived from at least 1989 to 2000, he had worked for the Boston Cab Co., according to state driver's license records.

State records also show Al-Marabh holds a commercial driver's license, is certified to transport hazardous materials and is licensed to drive trucks and other large vehicles.

Federal agents had been looking for Al-Marabh since at least Monday. That day, agents arrested three men at a Detroit house with Al-Marabh's name on the mailbox. The FBI found a cache of documents at the house, including a handwritten diagram of an airport flight line and food service badges from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

The Los Angeles Times quoted an unnamed law enforcement official in Thursday's editions as saying FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 Islamists with terrorist leanings were slipping into this country and planning a major assault on the United States.

The advisory, passed on by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, cautioned that it had picked up indications of a large-scale target in the United States and that Americans would be very vulnerable, the official said. The paper said it is not known how U.S. authorities reacted to the warning.

The CIA denied that Thursday. "That is utter nonsense," said spokesman Bill Harlow.

The list sent to banks suggested one of the hijackers may have had a connection to Minnesota, where an Arab man was detained three weeks before the attacks after seeking flight training.

Banks were given three possible addresses to check for Abdulaziz Almomari, who was believed to be on an American Airlines flight out of Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center. One address was in Saudi Arabia, another in Vero Beach, Fla., and the third in St. Paul, Minn.

Another possible link between the hijackers and a flight school also emerged. A man with the same name as one of the hijackers aboard the plane that hit the Pentagon used an aircraft simulator at a Phoenix flight school in June, the school said.

Hani Hanjour was a member of the Sawyer School of Aviation's simulator club, which allows unlimited use of the school's basic flight simulator for $200 a month.

Ashcroft left open the possibility that foreign governments could have supported the terrorists.

During a visit to the Pentagon, Ashcroft sidestepped answering whether investigators had determined a foreign state was involved by saying such terrorist networks in general get backing from governments.

"It is pretty clear that the networks that conduct these kind of events are harbored, supported, sustained and protected by a variety of foreign governments," he said. "It is time for those governments to understand with crystal clarity that the United States of America will not tolerate that kind of support."

Law enforcement officials said the investigation had not made a direct link between last week's attacks and a foreign state, although there was uncorroborated evidence that one of the suspected hijackers met with an Iraqi intelligence officer earlier this year in Europe.

Iraq has denied involvement.

Associated Press writer John Solomon contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2001

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.