Under Siege
"This is pure, unadulterated evil."; "There was fire and smoke everywhere. It was surreal."; The terrorists flew on devil's wings in a horrifying moment, singular in history. They changed the course of a presidency, a nation, and, quite likely, the world
Money men. The more investigators learn about Atta, the more they hope to understand the terrorist conspiracy. The Egyptian national had lived in Hamburg, Germany, before coming to America. Last October, he entered the United States on a tourist visa. Others among the hijackers came from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Almost all traveled on tourist visas, which normally would limit their stays to six months. Sources say that eight or nine of them changed their immigration status while they were here and were granted M-1 "vocational status" visas, permitting them to go to flight school. That meant they had to prove they had the financial means to pay for the lessons, at least $10,000. On September 13, two days after Atta and Shehhi crashed into the twin towers, Immigration and Naturalization Service investigators pulled the immigration documents of all the known hijackers here who had been issued M-1 visas. Law enforcement officials will soon use that data to unravel the riddle of who funded them. Late last week, authorities got their first big break, arresting a man in New York believed to have ties to the hijackers.
Linking the hijackers to bin Laden is critical, but agents also want to identify the operational leaders of the effort, to discover how operatives working in distant sites along the East Coast could coordinate the attack. The perpetrators belonged to at least four separate cells, say law enforcement sources. One of the cells appears to have been located in South Florida. Four of five of those who commandeered United Flight 175 had addresses in Delray Beach. Investigators are also seeking 23 people with addresses in Vero Beach, almost 100 miles to the north. Each team was aided by colleagues who provided logistical support--money, credit cards, and lodging--in Newark, Boston, Virginia, and South Florida. The money would have been no problem for bin Laden. Intelligence officials put his personal fortune at $200 million to $300 million and say he collects millions more each year from supporters. Evidence of all kinds is pouring in. At the Pentagon, searchers recovered both of the "black boxes" (they're actually orange so they can be seen more easily) from the jet that slammed into the building. Investigators also found both of the black boxes from United Airlines Flight 93, which went down near Pittsburgh. At the National Security Agency, the government's secret global eavesdropping service, officials intercepted a telephone call between two known associates of bin Laden talking about hitting U.S. targets.
"Missiles with wings." The operation was nothing if not audacious. The terrorists trained their hit men in American flight schools, paid them enough to live comfortably among middle-class Americans, to stay in nice hotels. Then when their big day came, they hijacked the planes they were on with nothing more than a handful of knives and razors. Once in control, they piloted the fuel-laden planes--"cruise missiles with wings," as one official put it--plunging them into symbols of American money and military might. In all, authorities believe there might have been more operatives than those who died, meaning, of course, that some new terrorist plots may yet be in the offing. "For anyone who thinks this is it," says one U.S. official, "that's not the view of U.S. intelligence."
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