Feds Have Names Of 19 In Dark Alliance

Feds Have Names Of 19 In Dark Alliance

Bin laden recruited terrorists forjm several radical factions

by Richard Sisk and Greg B. Smith
The New York Daily News
September 15, 2001

WASHINGTON - The FBI released names of all 19 of the dead suicide hijackers yesterday - and experts say they appeared to represent a dark alliance of different terrorist groups from several countries brought together for this mission by Osama Bin Laden.

The FBI and Justice Department said the 19 - seven of whom took flight training in the U.S. - lived in a variety of safe houses from New York to San Diego for two years while plotting the attacks.

Investigation sources said the 19 were supported by a vast underground network in the U.S. and overseas that supplied credit cards, false identities and cover jobs.

Investigators said their preliminary work on roots of the hijackers had turned up possible links to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah. These sources said Islamic Jihad was known for providing operatives with technical expertise, the Armed Islamic Groups specialized in credit cards and false IDs, and Hezbollah supplied fanatic foot soldiers.

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad is now headed by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who is a co-conspirator of Bin Laden in a pending indictment brought by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White for the bombings of U.S. embassies in South Africa.

Another Egyptian Jihad leader is Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 in an unsuccessful plot to blow up several New York landmarks. 'So many . . . involved' Lewis Schiliro, former head of the FBI's New York office who helped lead the investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, said the scope and sophistication of Tuesday's attacks made it clear that more than one terrorist group was involved.

"There's so many people involved in it," he said. "You had to have had several of them. This couldn't have been done out of Afghanistan. I'm sure you can point to several groups."

But, one by one, the FBI is identifying associates of the 19 hijackers, a source told the Daily News.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said a separate watch list of more than 100 names, which was not disclosed, of possible hijack accomplices was being sent to 18,000 police departments and federal agencies nationwide in the effort to prevent more attacks.

"These are the names of individuals the FBI would like to talk to because we believe they may have information that might be helpful to the investigation," Ashcroft said.

Little was known about the hijackers' background, and sources warned that some of the names on the list could turn out to be aliases.

Meanwhile, FBI Director Robert Mueller said law enforcement was stunned to learn that seven of the 19 hijackers trained at several flight schools in Florida and the Midwest.

He suggested that the attacks on New York and Washington might have been avoided with closer screening of U.S. flight school applicants.

"The fact that there were a number of individuals that happened to have received training at flight schools here is news, quite obviously," Mueller said.

"If we had understood that to be the case, we would have - perhaps, one could have averted this," Mueller said of the devastating attacks on New York and Washington.

Law enforcement also may have overlooked complaints from neighbors about residences used by the hijackers.

Diane Albritton of Vienna, Va., told The News that she called local police and even the CIA several times about the house across the street where alleged hijacker Waleed Alshehri stayed for several months.

For years, she said, young men she believed to be Middle Eastern came and went to the rented house.

"People come and go day and night, we didn't know whether they were drug addicts, alcoholics or what," Albritton said. "There were cars parked all over the street, trash.

"What really got my attention was the out-of-state rental cars from places like New York," she said.

"So I called the CIA, just the number out of the phone book," Albritton said. "Nothing ever came of it. I guess there could be nuts that call the CIA all the time to retaliate against their neighbors."

Since the attacks, the FBI has thrown more than 4,000 agents into the investigation and they are following more than 30,000 tips, Mueller said.

More than 30 individuals have been taken into custody for questioning nationwide, but all have been released with the exception of a handful held for immigration checks. "There have been no FBI arrests at this time," Mueller said.

Mueller also said 30 search warrants have been served, and hundreds of computers have been seized in the investigation that has been hampered by the discipline of the hijackers who lived here openly but cloaked their mission in secrecy. 'Monumental challenge' Experts say the fact that so many terrorist elements combined makes it especially difficult to get to the perpetrators.

"It's a monumental challenge to law enforcement and intelligence agencies" to unravel the terrorist links, said Yonah Alexander, head of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

He said the ability to bring together operatives from disparate groups for a specific attack was a hallmark of a Bin Laden-directed conspiracy.

"By my own count, Bin Laden has operations in at least 55 countries around the world," Alexander said. "He's able to bring together Sunni and Shia Muslims, Iranians and Iraqis."

Bringing together sometimes antagonistic groups "is very much the modus operandi of Bin Laden," said Bruce Hoffmann, an analyst with the RAND think tank.

"He's very ecumenical when it comes to those he trains," Hoffmann said of Bin Laden. The groups are "divided by nationalities when they come to his camps, they train separately," Hoffmann said.

Secretary of State Powell warned the fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where Bin Laden is based, that they could pay a price "to the extent that they are providing haven, support and encouragement to Osama."

In Afghanistan, the Taliban sent back a warning that the U.S. would pay a price for retaliation.

"If a country or group violates our country, we will not forget our revenge," Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Muttmain said from the militia's headquarters in Kandahar.

In a statement, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive leader, charged that the U.S. was pointing to Bin Laden "unjustifiably and without any reason."

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