September 20, 2001

Two new leads: fake passports, Iraqi guidance

By Tom Blackwell and Stewart Bell National Post

About half a dozen of the hijackers who killed thousands of people last week were using names of innocent Saudi Arabians who had their passports stolen in the last five years, a senior Saudi diplomat said yesterday.

He said most of the passports were stolen while the legitimate holders were in the United States.

The revelation raises the possibility that some or all of the terrorists operated under false identities, perhaps for years, making it more difficult for police to trace their origins and their connections to terrorist networks.

"Somebody was keeping [the stolen passports] to use at the right time," said Jaafar Allaghany, information director at the Saudi embassy in Washington. "And they did."

Meanwhile, a journal of the Jane's group of publications quotes Israeli intelligence as saying the Iraqi government was probably behind the assault, along with Osama bin Laden and Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group.

Many intelligence experts, including James Woolsey, the former CIA director, believe the sophistication of the simultaneous hijackings suggests the involvement of a rogue state such as Iraq.

The FBI released 19 names last week of people it identified as hijackers on the four aircraft that slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashed in rural Pennsylvania, claiming more than 5,000 lives. The bureau asked the public for information on the suspects.

But Mr. Allaghany said six people with the same names as hijackers have come to the Saudi government with proof their passports were stolen.

All are living in Saudi Arabia, where they have been seeing their photographs flashed on TV screens and been identified as perpetrators of the worst act of terrorism ever.

The diplomat suggested the hijackers purposely left behind pictures of other people who matched their identities to throw off investigators.

Abdulaziz Alomari was identified by the FBI as a hijacker on board the American Airlines flight that slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. A man with the same name was just about to finish his electrical engineering degree in Denver about five years ago when his apartment was broken into and several items, including his passport, were stolen, the diplomat said.

After Mr. Alomari produced reports from Denver police and the embassy in Washington, the government issued him a new passport. He is working now in Riyadh for Saudi Arabia's biggest electrical company and has not left the country since his graduation, Mr. Allaghany said.

Another case involves Saeed Hussein Alghamdi, allegedly on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. A Saudi airline pilot with the same name and age had his passport stolen about three years ago while on a bus in Cairo. He is living in Tunisia, Mr. Allaghany said.

Photographs of some of the alleged hijackers have also been released and appear to show other people living in Saudi Arabia. One is Salem Alhazmi, 26, an oil industry employee who has never left the Middle East, Mr. Allaghany said. His passport was not stolen.

The innocent individuals whose names have been linked to the hijackings are devastated, Mr. Allaghany said.

"They are really very upset about it. How would you feel if your identity was used in a thing like that?"

All of the Saudis whose names have been linked to the attacks are willing to go to Washington to talk to U.S. authorities, he said.

While Osama bin Laden remains the prime suspect in the terrorist attack, fingers are beginning to point toward Baghdad, a long-time state sponsor of terrorism that is also virulently anti-American.

An analysis released yesterday by Foreign Report, a Jane's publication, said Israel's military intelligence service suspects Iraq teamed up with the bin Laden network and the Lebanese Hezbollah to stage the operation.

U.S. officials already have claimed that one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, met in Europe with an Iraqi intelligence agent. Iraq's Foreign Minister denied the claim yesterday.

The Israeli military intelligence service, known as Aman, believes the attacks in New York and Washington carry the signatures of Imad Mughniyeh, head of special operations for Hezbollah, and Ayman Al Zawahri, a senior member of bin Laden's group al Qaeda.

Both men have strong ties to Iraq and have not been seen recently, the report says. It quotes Israel as saying that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers have been spotted shuttling between Baghdad and Afghanis- tan, bin Laden's base.

"We've only got scraps of information, not the full picture," an intelligence source said, "but it was good enough for us to send a warning six weeks ago to our allies that an unprecedented massive terror attack was expected.

"One of our indications suggested that Imad Mughniyeh met with some of his dormant agents on secret trips to Germany. We believe that the operational brains behind the New York attack were Mughniyeh and Zawahri, who were probably financed and got some logistical support from the Iraqi Intelligence Service."

The chief of Iraqi intelligence is Qusai Hussein, the Iraqi leader's son.

Few national leaders hate the United States as much as Saddam Hussein, who suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Americans during the Gulf War and has been loosely linked to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

Answers

We'll get them, too, in time.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001