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Palestinian Leader condemns US terrorist attacks
11/09/2001 - 16:10:13 [11:13 a.m. EST]
Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement, today condemned the attack on the US, saying the Palestinian people were outraged by what had happened.
"I send my condolences to American President Bush and his government and to the American people for this terrible act" he told reporters in Gaza.
Earlier, Palestinian terrorists were accused of carrying out the carnage, which they have since vigorously denied.
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Pennsylvania plane was headed for Camp David
11/09/2001 - 16:35:56 11:35 a.m
It has been reported that the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania was headed to Camp David.
The Anniversary of Camp David Accord, the Middle East settlement brokered by the US, is Sept 5-17, 1978
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Islamic Jihad may be responsible
11/09/2001 - 16:43:26 11:43 a.m.
There are unconfirmed reports that a spokesman of the radical Islamic Jihad movement said that the "attacks were a consequence of US policy in the Middle East."
It has been reported that the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania was headed to Camp David.
The Anniversary of Camp David Accord, the Middle East settlement brokered by the US, is Sept 5-17, 1978.
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World watches in horror as terror unfolds in the United States
11/09/2001 - 16:45:42 11:16 a.m.
Astonishing terrorist strikes in the United States quickly reached a globalaudience Tuesday, with many around the world watching live coverage ofan aircraft hitting the World Trade Center.
Audiences were transfixed by the awful images from New York, where both World Trade Center towers collapsed.
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Palestinians celebrate in the streets
11/09/2001 - 16:55:14 11:55 a.m. EST
It has been reported that Palestinians are celebrating in the streets.
Thousands of Palestinians celebrated the terror attacks in the United States, chanting "God is Great" and distributing candy to passers-by, even as their leader, Yasser Arafat, said he was horrified.
The U.S. government has become increasingly unpopular in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the past year of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, with many Palestinians accusing Washington of siding with Israel.
In the West Bank town of Nablus, about 3,000 people poured into the street shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and government targets in Washington.
Demonstrators distributed candy in a traditional gesture of celebration.
Several Palestinian gunmen shot in the air, while other marchers carried Palestinian flags.
Nawal Abdel Fatah, 48, wearing a long, black dress, threw sweets in the air, saying she was happy because "America is the head of the snake, America always stands by Israel in its war against us."
Her daughter Maysoon, 22, said she hoped the next attack would be launched against Tel Aviv.
In traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, there was a smaller gathering of about two dozen people, many of them young children led in chants by adults. Some drivers passing the scene honked their horns and flashed victory signs from their windows.
Arafat and his top advisers huddled at his seaside office in Gaza City, watching the events unfold on television. Arafat later emerged to speak to reporters.
"We are completely shocked. It's unbelievable," he said. "We completely condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey my condolences to the American people, to the American president and to the American administration, not only in my name but on behalf of the Palestinian
people."
In the West Bank, meanwhile, the leader the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine denied his group was involved in the attacks.
Qais Abdel Rahim was reacting to reports that two Arab satellite stations in the Gulf had received anonymous claims of responsibility on behalf of the DFLP, a radical PLO faction. Abdel Rahim said his group condemned the attacks.
This is the first attack in history on the Pentagon.
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Taliban ambassador sympathises
11/09/2001 - 17:35:03 5:35 a.m.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, said in reaction to the news of the terror attacks that "we want to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain and we hope that the courts find justice."
• In New York, more than 10,000 rescue personnel rushed to the scene. The entire downtown area of Manhattan was evacuated as far north as Rockefeller Center, according to an official at an emergency command post.
Philadelphia landmarks were also evacuated.
NATO sent home all non-essential personnel from its Brussels, Belgium, headquarters.
• The Immigration and Naturalization Service has put the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada on highest state of alert.
• Los Angeles International Airport has been evacuated.
• All Disney parks in Orlando, Florida, and Disneyland in Anaheim, California have been closed.
President Bush in the air and is not returning to Washington. The media has not been told where he will land.
Bin Laden warned three weeks ago of attacks
11/09/2001 - 17:49:11 11:49 a.m.
Followers of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that they would carry out a "huge and unprecedented attack’’ on US interests, a London-based Arab journalist said today.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he received a warning from Islamic fundamentalists close to bin Laden, but did not take the threat seriously.
"They said it would be a huge and unprecedented attack but they did not specify," Atwan said.
"We usually receive this kind of thing. At the time we did not take the warnings seriously as they had happened several times in the past and nothing happened.
"This time it seems his people were accurate and meant every word they said.’’
Atwan, who interviewed renegade Saudi millionaire bin Laden in 1996 and has since maintained contacts with his followers, said he believed the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York was the work of "an Islamic fundamentalist group’’ very close to bin Laden.
The United States accuses the Saudi dissident of operating a terrorist network from his bases in Afghanistan and of blowing up two US embassies in East Africa in 1998. The Taliban, who have refused to hand him over, deny the charge.
Atwan said he was surprised by the scale of the attack, but said it was merely a continuation of bin Laden’s Fatwa religious edict against America. He said anti-American sentiment was running high in the Middle East because of perceived US support for Israel.
Tensions had increased further after the United States and Israel pulled out of the racism conference in Durban, South Africa due to anti-Israel language in the final declaration, he said.
"People really are frustrated that here is a super power siding with the Israelis,’’ he said. "They made the hatred more by pulling out of the Durban conference."
Taliban rulers condemn attacks on US
11/09/2001 - 18:46:49 6:49 p.m.
Afghanistan's hardline Taliban rulers condemned the devastating terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Tuesday and rejected suggestions that Osama bin Laden could be behind them.
"We never support terrorism. We too are targets of terrorism," Abdul Hai Muttmain, the Taliban's spokesman in the southern city of Kandahar, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
After the attacks, a London-based Arab journalist said followers of bin Laden warned three weeks ago that they would carry out a "huge and unprecedented attack" on U.S. interests.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he received a warning from Islamic fundamentalists close to bin Laden, but did not take the threat seriously.
"They said it would be a huge and unprecedented attack but they did not specify," Atwan said in a telephone interview in London.
"We usually receive this kind of thing. At the time we did not take the warnings seriously as they had happened several times in the past and nothing happened. "This time it seems his people were accurate and meant every word they said."
Atwan, who interviewed bin Laden in 1996 and has since maintained contacts with his followers, said he believed the attack on the World Trade Center in New York was the work of "an Islamic fundamentalist group" close to bin Laden.
But Muttmain, who is the spokesman for the Taliban's reclusive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and one of the most senior Taliban officials, dismissed allegations that bin Laden could be behind the attacks in the United States.
"Such a big conspiracy, to have infiltrated in such a major way is impossible for Osama," said Muttmain. He said bin Laden does not have the facilities to orchestrate such a major assault within the United States.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who espouse a harsh brand of Islamic law, have resisted U.S. demands to hand over bin Laden, indicted in the United States on charges of masterminding the bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa in 1998 that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
After the attacks in East Africa, Washington retaliated with a blistering missile attack in August 1998, sending more than 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles into eastern Afghanistan apparently targeting training camps operated by bin Laden.
The attacks killed about 20 followers of bin Laden's but the exiled Saudi millionaire escaped unhurt. Since then he has been forced by the Taliban rulers to stop giving interviews and making statements.
Terrorists ‘flew the planes themselves’
11/09/2001 - 20:12:41 8:12 p.m.
The terrorists who hijacked four planes and attacked the US Pentagon and World Trade Centre are believed to have flown the planes themselves.
Terrorism experts say the suicide mission could only have succeeded with the use of trained terrorist pilots.
Gene Poteat, President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers said, “They flew the planes themselves. No pilot, even with a gun to his head, is going to fly into the World Towers.”
He added that the terrorists might have been able to disable communications systems used to alert authorities to trouble.
Anti-terrorist organisations had examined the possibility of attacks on such prominent buildings, but had not expected simultaneous attacks.
They had also envisaged potential for attack by chemical or biological means, rather than today’s relatively low-technology attacks.
Taliban protests bin Laden’s innocence
11/09/2001 - 20:15:42 3:15 p.m.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have rejected claims that bin Laden was behind today’s attacks on New York and Washington.
They say bin Laden did not have the means to carry out such well-orchestrated attacks.
Bin Laden has been given asylum in Afghanistan. Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he received a warning from Islamic fundamentalists close to Bin Laden, but did not take the threat seriously.
"They said it would be a huge and unprecedented attack but they did not specify,” he said today in London.
Muslims worry about backlash
11/09/2001 - 22:00:17 5:00 p.m.
Muslims worried about a possible backlash against them after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, while clergy from other denominations urged their congregations to pray for the dead.
Gahzi Khankan, a Muslim leader, said he has been here before, sitting in his home watching TV images of a building turned to dust -- the federal building in Oklahoma City.
He recalled the attacks against his fellow Muslims after that 1995 bombing by disgruntled Army veteran Timothy McVeigh.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations says more than 200 Arab- and Muslim-Americans were victimized.
"Please do not start speculating and pointing the finger at us," said Khankan, a New York leader of the council.
The Islamic Association of Raleigh, N.C., and other groups representing Muslim- and Arab-Americans in that city, shut down a mosque and closed an Islamic school after receiving anonymous threats, said Wael Masri, an association member.
"There's a sense of fear, of panic," Masri said.
Arshad Majid, a member of the Islamic Center of Long Island, said Islam -- like Christianity and Judaism -- condemns both suicide and hurting civilians.
"We're concerned that the actions of a small number of extremists is likely to paint with a very broad brush the large population of God-fearing, peace-loving Muslims in America," he said.
Between 6 million and 7 million Americans consider themselves Muslim, according to a study released in April by professor Ihsan Bagby of Shaw University in Raleigh.
Several Muslims have been convicted in high-profile terrorist acts in the United States, such as the previous bombing of the World Trade Center and a shooting spree outside the CIA offices in Virginia, both in 1993.
Too many Americans equate those acts by individuals with Islam, said Sheik T.J. Al-Awani, president of the School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Va.
"Muslims in this country would think this is unacceptable," Al-Awani said. "I can't accept anything against any American citizen. I'm Muslim. I'm also American. I love America."
Clergy from other denominations joined Muslims in condemning the attack, and organized special prayer services nationwide.
Bishop Kenneth Angell of Vermont urged Roman Catholic parishes in his state to pray for the dead. In Washington, Catholic bishops held a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
David Harris, executive director of American Jewish Committee, said staff at his New York office left to donate blood, went to hospitals to volunteer and searched for relatives who remained missing.
Archbishop Edward O'Brien, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the military, was in an annual retreat in Washington with 50 armed services chaplains when word of the attacks reached them.
"We had one priest at Fort Meyer, who was told, ‘Come back. The bodies are coming in,"' O'Brien said.
Hijack passenger rang husband from plane
11/09/2001 - 22:05:04 5:02 p.m.
One of the passengers on the airplanes hijacked and crashed by terrorists in the US today phoned her husband to tell him her flight had been hijacked.
Barbara Olsen, wife of US Solicitor General Theodore Olsen, rang him on her mobile phone twice to say hijackers wielding knives had taken control of the plane.
The hijackers, she said, forced passengers and crew to the back of the plane.
Ms Olsen was on her way to meet her husband to celebrate his birthday when the flight was hijacked.
She and all 266 passengers on board the four hijacked flights are presumed dead.
Sharon offers condolences
11/09/2001 - 22:11:08 5:11 p.m.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has offered his country's condolences to the United States.
"This has been a threat to freedom. It a turning point in the war against terrorism," he said.
Israel will observe a day of mourning tomorrow in sympathy with the US.
Bin Laden top of suspect list
12/09/2001 - 01:43:25 9:43 p.m.
US officials investigating the series of attacks Tuesday in New York and Washington are setting their sights on Osama bin Laden, the millionaire Saudi fugitive who has been blamed for past terrorist attacks against American targets.
"There are good indications that persons linked to Osama bin Laden may be responsible for these attacks," an intelligence official said.
Intelligence sources said they based their assessment on new information they had gathered Tuesday afternoon, hours after airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They did not rule out the possibility that other groups may have been involved.
Terrorism experts, after reviewing the magnitude of the attacks, said few groups in the world would have the resources to carry out such a highly coordinated sequence of destruction. One of those organizations, they said, would be the Al Quaida group headed by bin Laden, who also is the suspected mastermind of the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
U.S. officials said they had received no credible claim of responsibility in the aftermath of Tuesday's events, but said their "working assumption" laid responsibility for the attacks on "overseas terrorism."
Senior FBI officials said they suspect the four jets involved in the chilling sequence of crashes had been hijacked. Two of the jets plunged into the World Trade Center's twin towers, leading to their collapse a short while later. Another struck a wall at the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.
FBI personnel were dispatched to airports and crash sites immediately afterward to try to determine responsibility for the disaster. U.S. intelligence officials said they would be contacting all their sources and going through intelligence intercepts in an intense search for evidence.
Investigators will be combing passenger lists, airport videotapes and cockpit voice recorders to piece together the events leading up to the attacks. They also will review lists of suspected terrorists known to be able to fly commercial aircraft, sources said.
"We are looking for any shred of information that could help," one official said
Officials say they had no intelligence beforehand that a massive terrorist plot was under way, though at least one lawmaker says intelligence analysts suspected lesser attacks had been planned during the summer.
Several Palestinian groups have already denied responsibility for the attacks, as well as bin Laden's Al Quaida group. Officials of the Taliban government in Afghanistan also issued denials, saying bin Laden, believed to be in hiding in that country, was not involved and had not launched any attacks from Afghan territory.
One U.S. intelligence official received the Taliban statement with a sneer. "Lies, lies, lies," the official said.
Some members of Congress also blamed bin Laden.
"This looks like the signature of Osama bin Laden," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who had been briefed by high-level government officials on the attacks. "We're going to find out who did this and we're going after the bastards."
Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, agreed."I have no doubt in my mind it's Osama bin Laden," he told CNN. "It's very much in keeping with the threats he has made."
A number of attempted attacks, or plans for attacks, have been "thwarted" this summer, said Kerry. CIA Director George Tenet briefed him on the failed efforts a few weeks ago, he said.
Al Quaida deny responsibility
12/09/2001 - 01:45:43 9:45 p.m. EST
Members Of Bin Laden's Al Quaida have denied any involvement in yesterday's terrorist attacks.
Bin Laden has topped a US suspect list.
Bin Laden lives in Afghanistan.
Early reports say 10,000 dead
12/09/2001 - 01:48:00 8:48 p.m. EST
Rescue workers digging trough the rubble of the World Trade Centre have said that early indications of casualties may be over 10,000.
On an average day 115, 000 people pass through the World Trade Centre.
Official figures will not be available for some days.
Newspapers scramble to print historic editions
12/09/2001 - 02:41:41 9:41 p.m. EST
US newspapers have scrambled to produce special early editions covering the extent of the damage caused by yesterday's attack on New York and Washington.
Yesterday's historic attack on the United States will go down in history as the most vicious act of terrorism on US soil.
Israel declare Wednesday 'day of mourning'
12/09/2001 - 03:16:53 10:16 p.m.
Israel has declared Wednesday a national day of mourning.
The Israeli Government has made the move to show it's respect for the US and to extend it's sympathy over the terrorist attacks.
Three arrested with van full of explosives
12/09/2001 - 04:27:11 11:27 p.m.
Reports from New York are saying three people have been arrested with a van of explosives.
The van was stopped along the New Jersey turn-pike near the George Washington Bridge.
It was not clear why police stopped the van but when they did they found it was laden down with tonnes of explosives.
Police confirm arrests but deny explosives find
12/09/2001 - 04:34:43 11:34 p.m. EST
NYPD officers have confirmed the arrest of three men on the New Jersey turn-pike.
However officials denied any explosives were found in the van.
Officials declined to say why exactly the men had been arrested.
$5m bounty on Bin Laden
12/09/2001 - 04:47:54 11:47 p.m. EST
The US federal Government has re-issued a bounty on information leading to the capture of Bin Laden.
The bounty is said to be $5m.
Bin Laden has been America's most wanted man since the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre.
Bin Laden is suspected of orchestrating yesterday's attack against the United States.
He is currently living in Afghanistan.
256 firefighters killed as towers collapse
12/09/2001 - 05:35:01 12:35 a.m.
256 firefighters have been crushed in the collapse of the twin towers.
The twin towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed after two passenger planes crashed into them.
More rescue workers and 78 NYPD officers are still missing.
Date a sign of things to come
12/09/2001 - 07:23:54 2:23 a.m
Many Americans today saw the horrific terrorist attacks on their country as a signal that Armageddon was to come, with the crisis falling on a significant date.
September 11, written in the American style, is 9/11 - the US equivalent of 999.
Aaron Lightman said he believed the end of the world was near after it was feared tens of thousands of people were killed and injured in four plane crashes across the United States.
Mr Lightman, of East Windsor, New Jersey, said: ‘‘This is the beginning of Armageddon.
"It is very frightening because if whoever did this does not seem to care for the lives of innocent people, anything could happen next.
"Today's date is 911 - the emergency number we call when anything terrible happens.
"So many of my friends travel about 60 miles to work in New York every day and I feel that over the next few days I will hear that terrible things could have happened to them.
800 feared dead in Pentagon attack
12/09/2001 - 08:10:20 3:10 a.m. EST
Up to 800 people are believed to have died in the Pentagon after yesterday’s unprecedented suicide attack on the headquarters of the US military.
One of the four planes hijacked by suspected Islamic fundamentalists smashed into the logistics wing of the Pentagon, causing five floors of the building to collapse.
The crash caused a massive fire and the search for bodies has only just begun.
The dead are expected to include senior officials in the US army.
Seven die in Israeli tanks and helicopter attack
12/09/2001 - 08:32:28 5:32 a.m. EST
Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships entered the West Bank town of Jenin and two nearby Palestinian villages today.
Seven Palestinians, including three suspected Islamic militants and an 11-year-old girl, were killed by Israeli fire, Palestinian security officials said.
Under heavy Palestinian fire, troops demolished three buildings Israel said served as centres for preparing terror attacks a police stations and two homes of Islamic militants before withdrawing at daybreak.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian man was killed and three people wounded when Israeli troops fired toward a Palestinian taxi in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said.
The incursions into Jenin and the villages of Tamoun and Arrabeh just to the south followed a day of violence in which three other Palestinians were killed, two in exchanges of gunfire in Jenin and the other in the Gaza Strip.
In another development, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was forced to postpone his departure for Damascus, for a long-awaited meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad .
Arafat was to have left last night. However, Israel closed its airspace and borders in response to the wave of terror attacks on New York and Washington, meaning Arafat could not use Gaza International Airport or leave overland to Egypt.
Hijackers killed stewardesses to access cockpits
12/09/2001 - 08:40:39 3:40 a.m. EST
The US plane hijackers murdered stewardesses with knives to draw pilots from their cockpits, it emerged today as investigators began to piece together the full horror of the worst terror attack in history.
First details of the amazingly low-tech operation by the extremists came from passengers on board the doomed jetliners who managed to make harrowing mobile phone calls before they crashed.
They reported how men armed with small craft-style knives were stabbing stewardesses, apparently in an attempt to force crew on the flight deck to unlock the doors to the cockpits.
Businessman Peter Hanson, who was with his wife and young son on board the United Airlines flight that plunged into the World Trade Centre, called his father in Connecticut and managed to say a stewardess had been stabbed, before being cut off.
Alice Hoglan in San Francisco said her 31-year-old son Mark Bingham phoned her from aboard the Pennsylvania crash flight to say: "We've been taken over. There are three men that say they have a bomb."
Terrorism experts said the hijackers could have armed themselves with nothing more than pocket knives.
"The reason that knives have been chosen is because it would have reduced their security risks,’’ said Mike Yardley, a former British army officer.
‘‘Remember, they are trying to pull this off four times - if they had risked firearms, if one person had been seized, the whole operation could have been compromised.’’
He added: "Unfortunately, terrorism is easy, once you cross the boundary of deciding to do it.’’
It is even possible the hijackers marched on board with their weapons without even bothering to smuggle them.
Passengers on US domestic flights would not have had a pocket knife taken off them if it was small enough, said Mr Yardley. Yet it would have been all the terrorists needed to take control of the aircraft.
Reports from those on board two of the planes suggested each was taken by a team of three hijackers.
In each case, at least one of them is likely to have been a trained pilot who took over the controls to steer the planes on their lethal flight paths.
In Boston, from where two of the doomed aircraft took off, five Arab men have apparently already been identified as suspects in the terror outrage.
It is reported police seized a rented car containing Arabic-language flight training manuals at Logan International Airport.
Two of the men were brothers whose passports were traced to the United Arab Emirates, and one of the men was a trained pilot.
Investigators are believed to suspect the two brothers were aboard hijacked United Airlines flight 175, the plane that crashed into the second World Trade Centre tower.
UN pulls out of Afghanistan
12/09/2001 - 11:13:00
The United Nations has announced that it is withdrawing all its staff from Afghanistan as a precaution against the possibility of retaliatory attacks by the US military.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are harbouring Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in yesterday’s attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Dozens of Afghan citizens were killed in 1998 when the US military bombed the country in retaliation for the bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in an attack that was also blamed on bin Laden.
September 20, 2001, Associated Press / Deseret News, Fugitive on FBI List Arrested, by Mike Robinson,
Thursday, [10:48 a.m. EDT]
CHICAGO –– A Middle Eastern man on the FBI list of people wanted for questioning in the terrorism investigation was captured outside Chicago, the FBI said Thursday.
Nabil Al-Marabh, 34, was arrested Wednesday night in suburban Justice by police and FBI agents, FBI spokeswoman Mary Muha said. She said he was being held on a warrant issued in Boston in March for assault with a knife.
Federal agents had been looking for him since at least Monday. That day, they raided a Detroit house with Al-Marabh's name on the mailbox and arrested three men after discovering false visas, passports and other ID, as well as what appeared to be a diagram of an airport flight line.
The FBI list that Al-Marabh is on includes suspects, potential associates of the suspects, and potential witnesses related to the attacks, the FBI said.
While agents were in Detroit on Monday, Al-Marabh was in Three Oaks, in the southwestern corner of Michigan near the Indiana state line, getting a duplicate driver's license, state authorities said.
The FBI said details of his capture were not immediately available.
In December, Al-Marabh was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon – a knife – in Boston. He was to have started serving a sentence in March but failed to show up.
During the raid in Detroit on Monday, federal agents found a cache of documents and arrested Karim Koubriti, 23, Ahmed Hannan, 33, and Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 21, on charges of having false immigration papers. The men were identified as resident aliens from Morocco and Algeria.
Agents also found a planner with handwriting in Arabic, according to court papers. The planner included information about an American http://www.breakingnews.ie/base in Turkey, the "American foreign minister," and Alia Airport in Jordan, the FBI said.
Investigators also found what appeared to be a diagram of an airport flight line, including aircraft and runways, according to the court document, which did not identify the airport.
Hannan and Koubriti briefly worked as dishwashers for an airline catering company, LSG Sky Chefs, near the Detroit airport between May and June, the company said. More recently, they worked for Technicolor in Livonia, putting together cardboard boxes for shipping DVDs and videos.
The FBI did not say where Al-Marabh was from; his former landlord in the Boston area, Marian Sklodowski, said Al-Marabh told him he was Palestinian.
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.
All four men hold chauffeur's licenses in Michigan, according to state records. Al-Marabh holds a commercial driver's license and is certified to transport hazardous materials. Koubriti and Al-Marabh also hold commercial driving license endorsements allowing them to drive trucks and other large vehicles.
© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
Bin Laden top of suspect list
12/09/2001 - 01:43:25 9:43 p.m.
US officials investigating the series of attacks Tuesday in New York and Washington are setting their sights on Osama bin Laden, the millionaire Saudi fugitive who has been blamed for past terrorist attacks against American targets.
"There are good indications that persons linked to Osama bin Laden may be responsible for these attacks," an intelligence official said.
Intelligence sources said they based their assessment on new information they had gathered Tuesday afternoon, hours after airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They did not rule out the possibility that other groups may have been involved.
Terrorism experts, after reviewing the magnitude of the attacks, said few groups in the world would have the resources to carry out such a highly coordinated sequence of destruction. One of those organizations, they said, would be the Al Quaida group headed by bin Laden, who also is the suspected mastermind of the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
U.S. officials said they had received no credible claim of responsibility in the aftermath of Tuesday's events, but said their "working assumption" laid responsibility for the attacks on "overseas terrorism."
Senior FBI officials said they suspect the four jets involved in the chilling sequence of crashes had been hijacked. Two of the jets plunged into the World Trade Center's twin towers, leading to their collapse a short while later. Another struck a wall at the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania
FBI personnel were dispatched to airports and crash sites immediately afterward to try to determine responsibility for the disaster. U.S. intelligence officials said they would be contacting all their sources and going through intelligence intercepts in an intense search for evidence.
Investigators will be combing passenger lists, airport videotapes and cockpit voice recorders to piece together the events leading up to the attacks. They also will review lists of suspected terrorists known to be able to fly commercial aircraft, sources said.
"We are looking for any shred of information that could help," one official said
Officials say they had no intelligence beforehand that a massive terrorist plot was under way, though at least one lawmaker says intelligence analysts suspected lesser attacks had been planned during the summer.
Several Palestinian groups have already denied responsibility for the attacks, as well as bin Laden's Al Quaida group. Officials of the Taliban government in Afghanistan also issued denials, saying bin Laden, believed to be in hiding in that country, was not involved and had not launched any attacks from Afghan territory.
One U.S. intelligence official received the Taliban statement with a sneer. "Lies, lies, lies," the official said.
Some members of Congress also blamed bin Laden.
"This looks like the signature of Osama bin Laden," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who had been briefed by high-level government officials on the attacks. "We're going to find out who did this and we're going after the bastards."Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, agreed."I have no doubt in my mind it's Osama bin Laden," he told CNN. "It's very much in keeping with the threats he has made."
A number of attempted attacks, or plans for attacks, have been "thwarted" this summer, said Kerry. CIA Director George Tenet briefed him on the failed efforts a few weeks ago, he said.
Al Quaida deny responsibility
12/09/2001 - 01:45:43 9:45 p.m. EST
Members Of Bin Laden's Al Quaida have denied any involvement in yesterday's terrorist attacks.
Bin Laden has topped a US suspect list.
Bin Laden lives in Afghanistan.
Early reports say 10,000 dead
12/09/2001 - 01:48:00 8:48 p.m. EST
Rescue workers digging trough the rubble of the World Trade Centre have said that early indications of casualties may be over 10,000.
On an average day 115, 000 people pass through the World Trade Centre.
Official figures will not be available for some days.
Newspapers scramble to print historic editions
12/09/2001 - 02:41:41 9:41 p.m. EST
US newspapers have scrambled to produce special early editions covering the extent of the damage caused by yesterday's attack on New York and Washington.
Yesterday's historic attack on the United States will go down in history as the most vicious act of terrorism on US soil.
Israel declare Wednesday 'day of mourning'
12/09/2001 - 03:16:53 10:16 p.m.
Israel has declared Wednesday a national day of mourning.
The Israeli Government has made the move to show it's respect for the US and to extend it's sympathy over the terrorist attacks.
Three arrested with van full of explosives
12/09/2001 - 04:27:11 11:27 p.m.
Reports from New York are saying three people have been arrested with a van of explosives.
The van was stopped along the New Jersey turn-pike near the George Washington Bridge.
It was not clear why police stopped the van but when they did they found it was laden down with tonnes of explosives.
Police confirm arrests but deny explosives find
12/09/2001 - 04:34:43 11:34 p.m. EST
NYPD officers have confirmed the arrest of three men on the New Jersey turn-pike.
However officials denied any explosives were found in the van.
Officials declined to say why exactly the men had been arrested.
$5m bounty on Bin Laden
12/09/2001 - 04:47:54 11:47 p.m. EST
The US federal Government has re-issued a bounty on information leading to the capture of Bin Laden.
The bounty is said to be $5m.
Bin Laden has been America's most wanted man since the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre.
Bin Laden is suspected of orchestrating yesterday's attack against the United States. He is currently living in Afghanistan.
256 firefighters killed as towers collapse
12/09/2001 - 05:35:01 12:35 a.m.
256 firefighters have been crushed in the collapse of the twin towers.
The twin towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed after two passenger planes crashed into them.
More rescue workers and 78 NYPD officers are still missing.
Date a sign of things to come
12/09/2001 - 07:23:54 2:23 a.m
Many Americans today saw the horrific terrorist attacks on their country as a signal that Armageddon was to come, with the crisis falling on a significant date.
September 11, written in the American style, is 9/11 - the US equivalent of 999.
Aaron Lightman said he believed the end of the world was near after it was feared tens of thousands of people were killed and injured in four plane crashes across the United States.
Mr Lightman, of East Windsor, New Jersey, said: "This is the beginning of Armageddon.
"It is very frightening because if whoever did this does not seem to care for the lives of innocent people, anything could happen next.
"Today's date is 911 - the emergency number we call when anything terrible happens.
"So many of my friends travel about 60 miles to work in New York every day and I feel that over the next few days I will hear that terrible things could have happened to them.
800 feared dead in Pentagon attack
12/09/2001 - 08:10:20 3:10 a.m. EST
Up to 800 people are believed to have died in the Pentagon after yesterday’s unprecedented suicide attack on the headquarters of the US military.
One of the four planes hijacked by suspected Islamic fundamentalists smashed into the logistics wing of the Pentagon, causing five floors of the building to collapse.
The crash caused a massive fire and the search for bodies has only just begun.
The dead are expected to include senior officials in the US army.
Seven die in Israeli tanks and helicopter attack
12/09/2001 - 08:32:28 5:32 a.m. EST
Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships entered the West Bank town of Jenin and two nearby Palestinian villages today.
Seven Palestinians, including three suspected Islamic militants and an 11-year-old girl, were killed by Israeli fire, Palestinian security officials said.
Under heavy Palestinian fire, troops demolished three buildings Israel said served as centres for preparing terror attacks a police stations and two homes of Islamic militants before withdrawing at daybreak.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian man was killed and three people wounded when Israeli troops fired toward a Palestinian taxi in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said.
The incursions into Jenin and the villages of Tamoun and Arrabeh just to the south followed a day of violence in which three other Palestinians were killed, two in exchanges of gunfire in Jenin and the other in the Gaza Strip.
In another development, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was forced to postpone his departure for Damascus, for a long-awaited meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad .
Arafat was to have left last night. However, Israel closed its airspace and borders in response to the wave of terror attacks on New York and Washington, meaning Arafat could not use Gaza International Airport or leave overland to Egypt.
Hijackers killed stewardesses to access cockpits
12/09/2001 - 08:40:39 3:40 a.m. EST
The US plane hijackers murdered stewardesses with knives to draw pilots from their cockpits, it emerged today as investigators began to piece together the full horror of the worst terror attack in history.
First details of the amazingly low-tech operation by the extremists came from passengers on board the doomed jetliners who managed to make harrowing mobile phone calls before they crashed.
They reported how men armed with small craft-style knives were stabbing stewardesses, apparently in an attempt to force crew on the flight deck to unlock the doors to the cockpits.
Businessman Peter Hanson, who was with his wife and young son on board the United Airlines flight that plunged into the World Trade Centre, called his father in Connecticut and managed to say a stewardess had been stabbed, before being cut off.
Alice Hoglan in San Francisco said her 31-year-old son Mark Bingham phoned her from aboard the Pennsylvania crash flight to say: "We've been taken over. There are three men that say they have a bomb."
Terrorism experts said the hijackers could have armed themselves with nothing more than pocket knives.
"The reason that knives have been chosen is because it would have reduced their security risks,’’ said Mike Yardley, a former British army officer.
‘‘Remember, they are trying to pull this off four times - if they had risked firearms, if one person had been seized, the whole operation could have been compromised.’’
He added: ‘‘Unfortunately, terrorism is easy, once you cross the boundary of deciding to do it."
It is even possible the hijackers marched on board with their weapons without even bothering to smuggle them.
Passengers on US domestic flights would not have had a pocket knife taken off them if it was small enough, said Mr Yardley. Yet it would have been all the terrorists needed to take control of the aircraft.
Reports from those on board two of the planes suggested each was taken by a team of three hijackers.
In each case, at least one of them is likely to have been a trained pilot who took over the controls to steer the planes on their lethal flight paths.
In Boston, from where two of the doomed aircraft took off, five Arab men have apparently already been identified as suspects in the terror outrage.
It is reported police seized a rented car containing Arabic-language flight training manuals at Logan International Airport.
Two of the men were brothers whose passports were traced to the United Arab Emirates, and one of the men was a trained pilot.
Investigators are believed to suspect the two brothers were aboard hijacked United Airlines flight 175, the plane that crashed into the second World Trade Centre tower.
UN pulls out of Afghanistan
12/09/2001 - 11:13:00
The United Nations has announced that it is withdrawing all its staff from Afghanistan as a precaution against the possibility of retaliatory attacks by the US military.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are harbouring Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in yesterday’s attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Dozens of Afghan citizens were killed in 1998 when the US military bombed the country in retaliation for the bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in an attack that was also blamed on bin Laden.
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