WASHINGTON – Federal authorities are investigating whether suspected
hijackers of one jetliner used in Tuesday's devastating attacks entered the
United States from Canada and may be linked to Osama bin Laden, law enforcement
officials said Wednesday.
The officials cautioned the information, including raw intelligence, was
still developing.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were
investigating whether one group of hijackers crossed the Canadian border at a
checkpoint and eventually went to Boston's airport, where an American Airlines
flight was hijacked and later flown into the World Trade Center in New York.
The officials confirmed a car believed belong to the hijackers was
confiscated in Boston and contained an Arabic language flight manual.
Authorities also were developing intelligence linking the suspected attackers
to a ban of bin Laden sympathizers in Canada, some of Algerian origin, who are
suspected of planning an unsuccessful terrorist attack on U.S. soil during the
millennium celebrations.
The officials declined to be more specific.
The FBI has already received more than 700 tips from a special website
seeking information on the attacks.
Meanwhile, FBI agents executed search warrants in Florida and interviewed a
couple who housed two men believed to be involved in the hijackings and suicide
crashes.
And the FBI served search warrants to major Internet service providers in
order to get information about an e-mail address that may be connected to
Tuesday's terrorist attacks. Among those who received warrants was Earthlink,
officials said.
AOL, the nation's largest provider, said it will comply with requests
quickly.
The FBI interviewed a Venice, Fla., couple Wednesday about two men who stayed
at their house for a week in July 2000 while the men were taking small-plane
flight training at the municipal airport.
FBI agents "informed me that there were two individuals that were students at
Huffman Aviation, my employer, and FBI told me they were involved in yesterday's
tragedy," said Charlie Voss, who was interviewed with his wife, Drew Voss, at
their home.
The couple accepted the two men as house guests as a favor to the company,
Voss said. The men, who stayed just a few days, trained at the airport and came
to the house to sleep, he said.
The government believes the hijackers were trained pilots and that three to
five were aboard each of four airliners that crashed in the worst terrorist
attack ever in the United States, said Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy
Tucker. She said the conclusion was based on information gathered from frantic
phone calls made by passengers on the doomed jets.
"It appears from what we know that the hijackers were skilled pilots," said
Tucker.
Tucker declined to comment on evidence linking the attacks to bin Laden or
whether authorities have executed search warrants.
Lawmakers, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, believe bin Laden may have
been behind the attacks. "I don't think everyone in Congress has enough
information to make those assumptions," Tucker said.
She said investigators are following all credible leads, but declined to
comment on whether the government is close to arresting anyone. The 700 tips
came from a special FBI Web site seeking information on the attacks.
From broken bits of hijacked airplanes to intelligence intercepts, the FBI is
collecting evidence in its search for those responsible for the attacks. At the
Pentagon, an FBI team recovered parts of the airplane's fuselage and sought the
black box recorder that could provide conversations from the cockpits of the
doomed planes.
"Everything is pointing in the direction of Osama bin Laden," said Hatch, the
top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A flight manifest from one of the ill-fated flights included the name of a
suspected bin Laden supporter, Hatch and several law enforcement officials
confirmed. And U.S. intelligence obtained communications between bin Laden
supporters discussing Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center in New York
and the Pentagon, Hatch said.
"They have an intercept of some information that included people associated
with bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit," he said. Hatch
declined to be more specific.