Details of deadly plot coming to light

By John Solomon

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The FBI has meticulously pieced together a broad terrorist plot, securing evidence the hijackers trained for months or years without raising suspicions in the United States, received financial and logistical support from others and identified additional targets for destruction.

Law enforcement and other officials familiar with the evidence said the FBI is investigating whether the terrorist network behind Tuesday’s attacks targeted more flights for hijacking beyond the four that crashed.

Authorities have grown increasingly certain — from intelligence intercepts, witness interviews and evidence gathered in hijackers’ cars and homes — that a second wave of violence was planned by collaborators. They said Sept. 22 has emerged as an important date in the evidence, but declined to be more specific.

Tuesday’s attacks were "part of a larger plan with other terrorism acts, not necessarily hijacking of airplanes," said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Those acts were going to occur in the United States and elsewhere in the world."

The FBI said it has issued an advisory to fire departments across the country to increase security and guard against the theft of any ambulances or firetrucks, which could be used in bombing attacks. The bureau said the warning was precautionary.

The investigation, the largest in American history, has engulfed the full resources of the FBI, Justice Department, Customs Service, Treasury Department agencies that track assets and the CIA, National Security Agency and other spy agencies.

Officials from several of those agencies described developments in the investigation to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Most of the evidence remains sealed by court orders. A federal grand jury in White Plains, N.Y., was convened last week to weigh evidence and issue subpoenas.

U.S. officials have made no secret they believe exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden masterminded the plot from Afghanistan and organized his and other terrorist groups to carry it out. In President Bush’s words, bin Laden is wanted "dead or alive."

The FBI has hinted at the magnitude of the collaboration, sending airlines, local police and border patrol agencies a list of about 200 people it believes may have information or assisted the attacks. The government has detained 75 people for questioning and on immigration charges, from California to Germany.

At least four people on the list have been arrested as material witnesses, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. That means they are believed to have critical information about the plot and are at risk to flee.

Authorities have explored whether the hijackers may have had help from people with access to airlines. On Tuesday, authorities arrested and charged three men in the Detroit area with possessing false documents after a raid on a home where agents found airport-related diagrams and documents about a military base and U.S. foreign minister.

Authorities said they believe some of the men may have worked at one time for a company that provides food service to airlines at the Detroit airport.

Several detainees have been flown to New York, where the grand jury is working and where prosecutors have significant anti-terrorism experience from earlier cases involving bin Laden.

The FBI is seeking as many as a dozen others who fit this profile: Middle Eastern men who came to the United States, got pilot licenses or sought flight training, like the men who flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"We want to know whether there were other pilots, other teams who were supposed to take down airliners or strike Americans in other ways," one law enforcement official said.

Agents are investigating whether some associates of the 19 hijackers planned or did board other planes, possibly with similar plans for suicide hijackings that weren’t carried out.

Law enforcement has gathered evidence suggesting the plot was patiently hatched over many months and years, and that the terrorists spent significant time training for it and grooming supporters.

Many of the hijackers trained or sought training in flight schools as early as 1999, and most entered the United States with legal visas. Some of the hijackers met with supporters overseas, in places such as Germany and Malaysia, before returning to carry out their plan, officials said.

"One of the keys to understanding this is the length of time these hijackers spent here. These weren’t people coming over the border just to attack quickly. … They cultivated friends and blended into American society to further their ability to strike," one investigator said.

The FBI has pressed for evidence across the globe as to who may have assisted the hijackers, seizing bank and computer records and studying credit cards used to pay for plane tickets, rental cars and the like.

The potential collaborators are also being linked by communication intercepts — some of which have occurred since the attacks, authorities said.