WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Although it has had no specific warnings, the FBI is alerting law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for any signs of terrorist plans to use shoulder-fired missiles against U.S. targets, especially commercial airliners.

The alert comes after investigators concluded al Qaeda operatives might have tried to shoot down a U.S. military plane in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.

The FBI warning stressed the United States had no specific intelligence that al Qaeda is planning an attack using shoulder-fired missiles.

"The FBI possesses no information indicating that al Qaeda is planning to use 'Stinger' missiles or any type of MANPAD [portable anti-aircraft] weapons system against commercial aircraft in the United States," the warning said.

"However, given al Qaeda's demonstrated objective to target the U.S. airline industry, its access to U.S. and Russian-made MANPAD systems, and recent apparent targeting of U.S.-led military forces in Saudi Arabia, law enforcement agencies in the United States should remain alert to potential use of MANPADs against U.S. aircraft."

On May 10th, CNN first reported the discovery of a tube that could have been used to launch a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. The unit was found by a Saudi security patrol inside a fence at the Prince Sultan Air Base, but at that time military officials told CNN it was unclear if the Russian-made SA-7 missile had been fired in an attempt to shoot down a U.S. plane.

More at:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/30/missile.threat/index.html

Barbara... You think this is bad, then check out the following, just beginning to "break."

www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/49166.htm

Unbelievable Cecil.

This is an exclusive article in Newsweek magazine as posted by MSNBC on their website. Here's an excerpt :

"What happened next, some U.S. counterterrorism officials say, may be the most puzzling, and devastating, intelligence failure in the critical months before September 11. A few days after the Kuala Lumpur meeting, NEWSWEEK has learned, the CIA tracked one of the terrorists, Nawaf Alhazmi, as he flew from the meeting to Los Angeles. Agents discovered that another of the men, Khalid Almihdhar, had already obtained a multiple-entry visa that allowed him to enter and leave the United States as he pleased. (They later learned that he had in fact arrived in the United States on the same flight as Alhazmi.)

Yet astonishingly, the CIA did nothing with this information. Agency officials didn?t tell the INS, which could have turned them away at the border, nor did they notify the FBI, which could have covertly tracked them to find out their mission. Instead, during the year and nine months after the CIA identified them as terrorists, Alhazmi and Almihdhar lived openly in the United States, using their real names, obtaining driver's licenses, opening bank accounts and enrolling in flight schools-until the morning of September 11, when they walked aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon."

and this...

"'That was unforgivable,' said one senior FBI official. This led to a series of intense and angry encounters among U.S. officials in the weeks after September 11. At one White House meeting last fall, Wayne Griffith, a top State Department consular official, was so furious that his office hadn't been told about the two men that he blew up at a CIA agent."

Full article at :
http://www.msnbc.com/news/760647.asp?0dm=C12QN

Thanks David. It is pretty distressing to read how 9/11 could have been avoided if the different agencies had cooperated and shared information and of course acted on it. Truly shocking...
Barbara

USDA Official: Mohamed Atta Tried to Get Loan to Buy Airplane







Thursday, June 06, 2002


MIAMI — A U.S. Department of Agriculture official says terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta tried to get a $650,000 government loan to buy a small airplane, telling her he intended to outfit it with a large chemical tank.

Johnell Bryant, a loan officer at a USDA office in south Florida, said Atta visited her in the spring of 2000, about 17 months before the Sept. 11 attacks, saying he had just arrived from Afghanistan and hoped to get his pilot's license and buy a plane to use for charter flights and for crop-dusting.

"He wanted to finance a twin-engine six-passenger aircraft and remove the seats," Bryant told ABC's World News Tonight in an interview broadcast Thursday. "He said he was an engineer, and he wanted to build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting."

Bryant could not be reached Thursday night by The Associated Press; a home phone number could not be located. She told ABC the interview was against the wishes of her bosses. ABC says she passed a lie detector examination.

Bryant said Atta used his real name when she interviewed him.

"I spelled it A-T-T-A-H, and he told me, 'No, A-T-T-A, as in "Atta boy!"' Bryant said.

She said she rejected Atta for a loan because he was not a U.S. citizen. Before he left, Atta tried to buy a panoramic photograph of Washington, D.C., that hung on her office wall. He pointed specifically to the White House and Pentagon and called the photo "one of the prettiest" he had ever seen of the capital.

More at:


http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54691,00.html

Pilot feared shoe bomb suspect had accomplices
Pilot: 'I'm coming in with something'
June 6, 2002 Posted: 8:31 PM EDT (0031 GMT)


Richard Reid



From Wolf Blitzer
CNN Washington Bureau

(CNN) -- The flight crew of American Airlines Flight 63 feared accused shoe bomber Richard Reid was traveling with three accomplices when he allegedly tried to blow up the airplane.

The crew members also spent the last part of the flight afraid the explosives-packed footwear could destroy the plane before it was able to land.

The information comes from three pilots and two flight attendants talking on a training tape distributed by the Allied Pilot's Association, the collective bargaining agent for American Airlines pilots. They do not give their names.

"I heard a scream from the No. 3 flight attendant," said one.

Flight 63 was about 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean on December 22, en route from Paris to Miami, Florida, when witnesses say Reid began acting strangely.

Reid was assigned to an aisle seat near the middle of the aircraft, but he moved to an empty window seat after takeoff.

The new seat was closer to the plane's exterior where the bomb could have caused greater damage.

More at:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/06/shoe.bomb/index.html

Maybe I should change the name of this thread to 'Welcome to Planet Twilight Zone'.

Huh???

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

BOSTON — A judge threw out one of nine charges Tuesday against a man accused of trying to blow up a jetliner with explosives in his shoes, ruling that an airplane is not a vehicle under a new anti-terrorism law.

The charge — attempting to wreck a mass transportation vehicle — was filed under the USA Patriot Act, which was passed by Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

U.S. District Judge William Young said that although an airplane was engaged in mass transportation it is not a vehicle as defined by the new law.

Richard C. Reid still faces eight charges, including attempted murder and attempted destruction of an aircraft. He allegedly tried to light the explosives hidden in his shoes while aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami three days before Christmas.

Samantha Martin, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, declined to comment on the ruling. She said no decision had been made on whether to appeal.

Reid's lawyer, Owen Walker, did not immediately return a call for comment.

The judge said he looked to a legal definition of vehicle drafted by Congress in an earlier law known as the Dictionary Act. That defines a vehicle as something used as a means of transportation on land.

The USA Patriot Act was signed into law Oct. 26, giving the government broad powers to fight terrorism. Among other things, it expands the FBI's wiretapping and electronic surveillance authority and gives police wide-ranging powers to search people's homes and business records.

The law punishes anyone who "willfully wrecks, sets fire to, or disables a mass transportation vehicle or ferry."

Reid's attorneys had argued at a hearing last month that there was a potential defect in the law because it does not clearly define an airplane as a vehicle of mass transportation.

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55061,00.html