WASHINGTON/LONDON, 13 September — Some of the hijackers who commandeered planes used in terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were trained as pilots in the United States, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday.
“Four planes were hijacked by between three to six individuals per plane, using knives and box-cutters and in some cases making threats,” Ashcroft said. He said the attackers also targeted the White House and Air Force One. These targets were not hit but the World Trade Center towers in New York City were toppled and the Pentagon was gashed. At the same news conference, FBI Director Robert Mueller denied reports that arrests had been made in the case, but said a few people were being detained.
As many as 50 heavily armed local and federal law enforcement officers yesterday stormed the Westin Hotel in Copley Square in Boston, presumably investigating a lead linked to the attacks. Unconfirmed local media reports suggest that five people linked to the hijacking of two commercial airplanes that left Boston bound for Los Angeles Tuesday had been registered at the hotel.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation, hoping to match names of suspects against hotel registries, saw five Arab surnames on the Westin’s manifest that matched the names of people they suspected in the attacks, local media reported.
Some 20 minutes after entering the hotel, the SWAT teams exited, and suggested the ever-larger crowd of onlookers disperse. They were not seen to be carrying any evidence.
Earlier Wednesday a car parked inside an airport garage was seized then searched by authorities, who discovered several objects connected to suspected hijackers. Five garbage bags of evidence were transported for investigation to the airport’s State Police barracks, witnesses reported.
Also yesterday, US agents searched homes and businesses in Florida in connection with the attacks, focusing on an aviation school where two suspects may have received flight training, police and media said. Search warrants were served on homes in Davie and Coral Springs, two towns west of Fort Lauderdale, and agents searched businesses in Hollywood and a home in Sarasota County on the state’s west coast, according to police and television reports.
FBI agents interviewed a former employee of a Florida flight school who may have housed two of the suspects in his home for a short time and seized files and a computer from the school, a newspaper reported.
Media attention focused on a man named Muhammad Atta, who according to various reports was apparently listed on the flight manifest of one of the hijacked planes. A Miami FBI spokeswoman, Judy Orihuela, declined comment on the reports. “I can’t say anything ... my hands are tied,” she said. “I am not aware of any arrests at this point,” she added.
In Dubai, a UAE government source said the United Arab Emirates and the US have no evidence that any UAE nationals were aboard the hijacked planes. UAE state TV later said two of the suspects were carrying Saudi passports. The two men, named as Wa’el Muhammad Al-Shihri and Ahmad Ibrahim Ali Al-Hazzouni, also carried international driving licenses issued by the UAE.
Capt. Rasool Perwez, who requested that his family name be not mentioned, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper from Afghanistan that he had trained 14 Arab, Afghan and Pakistani men to pilot civilian Boeing aircraft. Rasool, who has worked for over 25 years for Afghan airlines, Ariana, said Taleban authorities had forced him and four other senior Ariana pilots to train the “extremist” youths.
President George W. Bush branded the strikes “an act of war” and vowed to avenge the murders of thousands of victims in a “monumental struggle of good versus evil.” Bush promised to rally the world against an enemy that had run “for cover” after felling the World Trade Center in New York and gouging a hole in the Pentagon.
Twenty-four hours after hijackers seized controls of fuel-laden planes carrying a total of 266 people and aimed them at the World Trade Center here and at the Pentagon, shocked Americans faced up to an apocalyptic casualty toll.
Thick smoke still cloaked downtown New York, as rescuers combed mounds of steel, cement and twisted debris. Four survivors and 55 bodies have so far been recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center, Mayor Giuliani said.
