Avoid hard targets tomorrow
I think I may take a brief away-from-DC trip...
From the London TImes
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 20 2001
Weekend alert as FBI warns of new attack
BY DOMINIC KENNEDY AND DAMIAN WHITWORTH
AMERICA and the West are bracing themselves for another potential "Day of Infamy" this Saturday, when accomplices of the hijackers are suspected of having plotted new outrages.
The most solid evidence so far is the discovery that five associates of the suicide gang had booked seats on two internal passenger flights, taking them from Texas to California, in two days' time.
FBI agents are trying to capture as many key operatives as possible before any plot can be put into action.
Water, gas and electricity suppliers, bridges, tunnels and underground railways have increased security because of the perceived threat of biological, chemical or physical attacks.
In a dramatic development, three Arab airport workers in Detroit were arrested after FBI agents found them in a house with handwritten sketches of an airport, aircraft and runways. They had a notebook containing information about the "American base in Turkey", "Alia Airport" in Jordan and the "American foreign minister", legal documents state. The three, Ahmed Hanna, 33, Karim Koubriti, 23, and Farouk Ali-Halmoud, 21, from Morocco and Algeria, worked at Detroit Metropolitan Airport preparing food for airlines.
FBI agents stumbled across the trio while searching the address of Habil al-Marabh, a suspected associate of the World Trade Centre hijackers. The Arabs said that they did not know him. They have been charged with conspiracy and having false immigration papers.
The FBI is concentrating its energies on deterring more attacks this Saturday. "Yes, we have heard something about September 22 but nothing specific," an investigative source told America's Knight Ridder news service.
"We have information that leads us to believe that there could be more attacks very soon. The same murky sources that indicated something might be happening in the weeks before the attacks have indicated something may be happening this weekend."
Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the New York and Washington suicide strikes were "part of a larger plan with other terrorism acts, not necessarily the hijacking of airplanes".
The FBI has issued a "watch list" of 223 people suspected of being associates of the hijackers. Nearly a quarter of the people on the list are able to fly aircraft. --
On Friday, September 21, 2001, at 09:02 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
I think I may take a brief away-from-DC trip...
From the London TImes
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 20 2001
Weekend alert as FBI warns of new attack
BY DOMINIC KENNEDY AND DAMIAN WHITWORTH
AMERICA and the West are bracing themselves for another potential "Day of Infamy" this Saturday, when accomplices of the hijackers are suspected of having plotted new outrages.
If the growing street protests/riots in Pakistan (Pesawar, Karachi, Islamabad) trend toward a new ultra-Islamic, pro-Taliban government, I expect India to strike first. India cannot allow a nuclear state on its border with Taliban leanings. India will knock out Pakistan's nuclear capabilities if it can. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan will utterly dwarf recent events, will crash the Dow to 1000, and will have other profound consequences. Interestingly, there's been a run on potassium iodide capsules, gas masks, and guns. It may be that nothing happens, of course, but it shows what happens when people wait until the stampede starts to shop for supplies. (Yes, I still have my KI tablets, my other supplies. I never got a real gas mask, for fairly obvious reasons. The best defense is to avoid crowded areas. And at the slightest sign (on CNN, etc.) that people are showing up at hospitals in more-than-normal numbers, to stay indoors and not mingle with vectors. Good sources are Ken Alibek's "Biohazard," Laurie Garrett's "The Coming Plague," and Judith Miller's new "Germs.") --Tim May
participants (2)
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Declan McCullagh -
Tim May