Hijacker Visited Crop-Duster Airfield
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 24, 2001 -- The man believed to have flown a hijacked passenger airliner into the North Tower of the World Trade Center also wanted to get behind the controls of a crop-dusting plane, raising fears that terrorists may have been planning a chemical or biological attack.
Mohamed Atta, a suspected ringleader in the recent terror attacks in New York and Washington, made repeated visits to a crop-dusting airfield in Florida, according to Willie Lee, the chief pilot and general manager of South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade.
Lee identified Atta to the FBI, telling agents the suspected hijacker came to the airfield as recently as the Saturday before the Sept. 11 attacks, asking questions about the capabilities of crop-dusters, including how big a load of chemicals they could carry.
Atta was "very persistent about wanting to know how much the airplane will haul, how fast it will go, what kind of range it has," Lee told ABCNEWS.
"The guy kept trying to get in the airplane," Lee added, saying his ground crew chief had to order Atta away from one of the planes at one point because he kept trying to climb onto the wing and into the cockpit.
Lee said Atta and as many as 12 or 15 other men appearing to be of Middle Eastern descent visited the airfield in groups of two or three on several weekends prior to the attacks, often taking pictures of the aircraft.
• Crop-Dusters Grounded
"The FBI assesses the use of this type of aircraft to distribute chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction as potential threats to Americans," Attorney General John Ashcroft said during a congressional hearing on proposed anti-terrorism legislation today. "[But,] we have no clear indication of the time or place of such attacks."
Ashcroft said information about crop-dusting had been downloaded off the Internet by associates of the hijackers. And ABCNEWS has confirmed a manual for a crop-duster was found among the belongings of Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been detained since August and is now under arrest as a material witness.
"Things like anthrax are easily transported, easily put into a solution that could be dispensed out of a crop-duster," says author and U.S. Navy Cmdr. Ward Carroll.
Fearing terrorists planned or may still plan to do just that, federal authorities grounded all crop-dusters — which can carry as much as 500 gallons of solution — on Sunday. The nationwide ban on agricultural flights ends at 12:05 a.m. local time on Tuesday.
Crop-dusting flights near major metropolitan areas have been prohibited since Sept. 11, when terrorists hijacked four passenger airliners, crashing three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers apparently tried to subdue the hijackers.
Al-Marabh was a Boston cab driver who moved freely first to Detroit and then Chicago, all at the same time he had been named in connection with the terrorist Osama bin Laden's plot to kill American tourists in Jordan.
The Department of Transportation has alerted the trucking industry to "be aware that numerous terrorist threats have been reported since Sept. 11, including unconfirmed reporting regarding potential use of chemical, biological, and/or radiological/nuclear [weapons of mass destruction]."
Warnings have also been issued to the petrochemical and nuclear power industries.
• 352 Arrested or Detained in FBI Manhunt
Ashcroft said today that 352 individuals have so far been arrested or detained by the FBI, Immigration and Naturalization Service and other federal, state and local law enforcement entities in a continuing nationwide manhunt for suspected terrorists and those with ties to the hijackers.
Authorities are still seeking to question as many as 392 others in connection with the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks, the attorney general said.
Other figures relating to the investigation include: 324 searches conducted 103 court orders issued 3,410 subpoenas issued 78,125 potential tips received on the FBI Web site 14,299 phone calls received on the FBI hotline
Two Virginia men have been charged with helping a number of the hijackers obtain driver's licenses.
Herbert Villalobos and an unnamed confidential witness are accused of falsely vouching for the terrorists when they applied for Virginia licenses last month, FBI officials said today.
State law requires applicants to provide two forms of identification or have a witness certify that he or she knows the applicant. The officials suggested the two men may not have known the hijackers, but routinely offered to sign such affidavits in exchange for a $100 fee.
Italian police arrested five Afghan men near the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican today and authorities in Belgium, Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands made several arrests over the weekend.
Federal investigators believe up to 30 terrorist attacks may have been planned in the United States and Europe following the Sept. 11 assaults and that at least two planned attacks have been thwarted, including a bombing in Belgium and an attack by helicopter on the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
• The Case Against Bin Laden
The Bush administration is preparing to make public evidence directly linking bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to the Sept. 11 attacks and to other terrorist acts.
"There is a lot of classified information that leads to one person as well as one global terrorist organization," President Bush told reporters at the White House this morning.
"For those of you looking for a legal peg, we've already indicted Osama bin Laden," Bush added, referring to the indictment of the Saudi exile by U.S. courts for the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa. Bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan, is also believed to be responsible for last year's bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
"More information is coming in with respect to his activities and the activities of his network," added Secretary of State Colin Powell. "As we look through it and we can find areas that are unclassified … it will allow us to share this information with the public."
Powell and other administration officials hope doing so will help win the support of Arab nations for a U.S.-led campaign against terrorist groups and their supporters.
"More information is coming in with respect to his activities and the activities of his network," added Secretary of State Colin Powell. "As we look through it and we can find areas that are unclassified … it will allow us to share this information with the public."
Powell and other administration officials hope doing so will help win the support of Arab nations for a U.S.-led campaign against terrorist groups and their supporters.