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CNN Live Saturday
Law Enforcement Officials Confirm Struggle Onboard United Flight 93
Aired September 22, 2001 - 12:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Officials familiar with the cockpit voice recordings from United Flight 93 tell CNN that there was definitely a struggle for control of the plane. The jet slammed nose first, by some accounts, into a field in western Pennsylvania. Officials say there was shouting heard on the tapes in both English and Arabic, as well as scuffling noises. Relatives of several passengers received phone calls from that plane describing plans to retake it from the hijackers. President Bush has called those passengers "heroes."
Now to the investigations: U.S. authorities are working today to extradite a Yemeni man from Toronto. U.S. officials say he was carrying three false passports aboard a Germany to Chicago flight. That plane was diverted to Canada on the day of the hijackings.
CNN's Eileen O'Connor has more on the investigation, which is reaching far and wide.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: German authorities say it started here in this Hamburg apartment. Fellow students, Ramzi Binalshibh, Said Bahaji and Mohamed Atta, rooming together, studying together and allegedly plotting together the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon since 1999.
German authorities say the man they have, identified as Binalshibh, even took flight training at this Florida school with Atta, but was later refused a visa to return for more practice. The man authorities know as Mohamed Atta is presumed dead in the rubble of Tower 1.
The others, on the run, but now charged with at least 5,000 counts of murder and forming a terrorist organization. Yet, a crucial link is missing, German authorities say, to Osama bin Laden. Top U.S. law enforcement officials, touring the devastation in New York, say they believe investigators worldwide will be able to find the roots of this organization.
ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: We in the FBI and law enforcement here, other cities around the country, they will not sleep until they are brought to justice. O'CONNOR: Four people arrested in Great Britain by Scotland Yard. Three men and a woman police believe linked to the suspected hijackers.
In France, a roundup of eight people suspected of plotting an attack against U.S. interests in Europe. Sources say the U.S. Embassy may have been one of them.
And Friday night, charges filed in Chicago for carrying multiple false Yemeni passports against Nageeb Abdul Jabar Mohamed Al-Hadi detained in Toronto. His Lufthansa flight to Chicago rerouted on September 11. Al-Hadi was found with two Lufthansa flight uniforms in his checked bags, at least one identification card and paper with Arabic writing and strange number sewn into a pants pocket.
The biggest manhunt in the world to thwart further attacks and build a case against, what the president calls, the prime suspect, the loose-knit terror group al Qaeda.
JOHN ASHCROFT, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: In the words of the president of the United States, we will bring them to justice, or if that's impossible, we will take justice to them.
O'CONNOR: Proving the case will help build support for the kind of justice the president is preparing to serve up.
Eileen O'Connor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: And coming up in just a bit, we'll take you live into the area of ground zero for an update on the search and rescue efforts -- stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SAVIDGE: Security around the site at the World Trade Center continues to be very heavy, while the search-and-rescue effort continues to grow as far as the heavy equipment now being brought to bear.
CNN's Michael Okwu is in the area, and he joins us now live -- Michael.
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Marty, good afternoon.
You know, as the number of the missing continues to rise, unfortunately the level of hope continues to diminish; 6,333 people are missing and presumed dead. No one has been removed from the rubble since Wednesday of last week.
Rescue workers overnight continued to dig and lift through the rubble in areas that either appear like to look like a ghost town or a war zone. These daytime pictures might give you a sense of the intensity of the force and the degree of devastation: buildings, which are skeletal remains of what they once were. Structures that were left standing are burned and blackened. Rescue workers working in 12-hour shifts on, 12-hour shifts off, continue to pass buckets back and forth in conditions that are often treacherous.
Yesterday, there was some rain, which creates a situation where many of these rescuer workers could slip and fall. And on days when it is not raining, which it is mainly day -- it's mainly been very hot and dry, there are conditions where rescue workers often feel that their feet are burning. There was one rescue worker who told me that the soles of his rubber boots literally melted.
Fires continue to burn deep within the rubble, as you can see from those pictures, and that's what creates a lot of this smoke that continues to rise from that site. They have now carted off some 76,000 tons of debris away from the site. As one rescue worker put it: That's barely scratching the surface -- Marty.
SAVIDGE: Michael, thank you very much.
Some people -- a few people will try to take advantage of any tragedy. David Waters from affiliate in New York-1 has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID WATERS, NEW YORK-1 REPORTER (voice-over): It's unimaginable that after so much destruction, it could get worse. These are faces from the September 11 tragedy, but some people may be using what you see on these posters against the victims and their families.
BARBARA ANTHONY, FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION: What I would simply call the scum of the earth crawling out from under their rocks to take advantage.
WATERS (on camera): The families that put up these posters are already in pain. But what makes their pain so much worse is there are identity thieves out there, stealing the information off these posters of the World Trade Center victims and using them for other purposes.
(voice-over): The Federal Trade Commission reports some families have been contacted by identity thieves posing as rescue workers. The FTC says the thieves are calling the phone numbers on the posters and asking for the victim's social security number. And the thieves may be using that information to make purchases.
ANTHONY: Those names will be appropriated by criminals, and those criminals will seek to reinvent and resurrect the identities of those people.
WATERS: Kelly Winters (ph) wants to help the families of Trade Center victims and was shocked anyone would want to hurt them.
KELLY WINTERS (ph): Please, don't make it any worse. Don't add insult to injury by doing something like this. WATERS: And there may be more rip-offs in the works. The state attorney general warns not all places asking for donations for the Trade Center families are legitimate.
ELIOT PITZER, N.Y. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We know that there are those who would try to take advantage of the good nature of New Yorkers to solicit funds, and then they take those funds and they abuse the funds and they do not use them for the purposes for which they were sought.
WATERS: Pitzer says the best advice is only give to organizations you know and trust. He also tells the families they might consider calling credit card companies and reporting their family member might be dead, something that may be very hard to do when some are still trying to hold on to a bit of hope.
David Waters, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: And there is more disturbing news. There were reports this week that upscale stores located in the shopping plaza beneath the Trade Center complex, stores like Cartier, have been looted.
We'll take a break, but coming up, we'll go live to Afghanistan -- stay with us.
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