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CNN Live At Daybreak

America Under Attack: New Information About Terrorists

Aired September 13, 2001 - 08:03   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm going to check in with Eileen O'Connor, who gave us some fascinating new information just about an hour ago on where the investigation is going now -- Eileen, if you want to recap some of that and tell us anything new you've learned, we'd appreciate that.

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have learned that -- some new information about the Bukhari brothers.

But let's first start in Germany in Hamburg. German police tell CNN they have detained a male airport worker, and they brought in a woman for questioning in connection with Tuesday's attack.

Now, federal law enforcement in the United States was led to this Hamburg connection by way of information that was gleaned from a car seized at Logan Airport. It was a Mitsubishi, and it was rented by Mohamed Atta, who is -- and inside that was a flight manual -- an Arabic language manual that sources say was very helpful.

Also seized: Atta's driving records indicated that he lived here at 10001 West Atlantic Boulevard in Coral Springs. We have some video of that apartment. Sources say that all of this information was very helpful.

They also interviewed a man named Charles Voss, who housed Atta and another man, Marwan Alshehhii. Charles Voss says that they attended this -- let's hear from him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES VOSS: ... students, and they arrived a year ago. It was in last July. And when they first arrived, they had no place to stay. They just popped in pretty much, as I recall, unannounced. And so we provided them -- for the benefit of the flight school, we provided them a place to stay for a few days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'CONNOR: Now, Huffman -- now, these two men attended a flight school, Huffman Aviation International. The director of that school says that FBI took records from the school on these two and other students. He also says that these two students attended the school from July to November of last year, and that after that flight school, they went to another. This shows great planning, Paula. Law enforcement sources say they believe these two men flew one of the two planes from Logan Airport. Remember, their connection was to that car at Logan Airport.

The United or the American flight were the ones that flew out of Logan. They flew into the World Trade Center. Both of these men had pilot licenses that we have obtained copies of. The men carried passports from the United Arab Emirate. But officials in that country deny that they are citizens.

Now, in addition, there was information gleaned from a car -- a rental car that was impounded in the Portland, Maine airport. This led police to two other brothers -- Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari and also a neighbor.

CNN's Susan Candiotti went inside Adnan Bukhari's house. The FBI documents left inside that house indicated -- this is Adnan Bukhari -- but inside that house, those FBI documents indicated that federal authorities took computer credits -- records, credit card receipts and other INS documents.

Now, also next door to Mr. Bukhari lived another man that police believe could also have been one of the pilots. One of the things that the FBI said that they took was a Rooms To Go receipt. That actually indicated that Bukhari had, in fact, bought some furniture at Rooms To Go on Tuesday.

So it may well be, while law enforcement had thought that he might have been one of the men, Adnan Bukhari, who flew the plane out of Logan coming in from Portland, they now believe that perhaps he is not and is still at large. They will be seeking him, of course, as a material witness.

They did take that receipt from Rooms To Go, and Susan Candiotti has been in touch, apparently, with a Rooms To Go salesman and gotten in touch with her, said he has spoken to the FBI. And they indicated that perhaps they are already in touch with Mr. Bukhari. He said that that furniture was supposed to be sent to the port in Ft. Lauderdale for shipment back to Saudi Arabia -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Eileen, I know that you were busy working your contacts when I was interviewing Attorney General Ashcroft just about a half hour ago. And I asked him a question about a report in "Time" magazine this morning confirming the fact that at least four terrorist teams -- and you have indicated this, too -- had a certified pilot with them. And that some of these pilots had flown for an airline in Saudi Arabia. And I asked him if those pilots were trained in the United States and Saudi Arabia, and he -- or Saudi Arabia. And he wouldn't answer that.

Explain to us this morning why that is so sensitive.

O'CONNOR: Well, it is sensitive, because, of course, they are also in touch with the Saudi government.

Now, of course you know that Osama bin Laden is originally a Saudi national. They would have to be checking what links there are to Saudi Arabia, but also perhaps to Saudi nationals that might be linked to Osama bin Laden.

Now, our records also that we've obtained do indicate that the two men, Adnan and Ameer Bukhari -- those two brothers that you saw earlier, the pictures of -- those two men did indicate that they had a post office box in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, and that it was a post office box with Saudia Airlines.

They also described themselves to neighbors that we have spoken to as Saudi pilots, and we do know that they did receive training here in the United States in Vero Beach at Flight Safety International. FBI have been to Flight Safety International, and they are, of course, looking into them and to others that may have trained there.

Also, Paula, they are looking into men connected with these men. They are looking through all of these records. And I am told by a law enforcement source that they are also looking at some other flight schools in Florida.

So they believe that there are, of course, other pilots out there that would have flown those two airliners from Dulles and also from Newark. And they may all be connected -- Paula.

ZAHN: The other piece of information that CNN has gotten, that the attorney general wouldn't comment on, is something that you and I talked about in the last hour, which is the possibility that members of each of these hijacking teams may not even have known each other prior to commandeering the jets. I guess, part of the motivation for that would be if they were to be captured or interrogated, they wouldn't have to betray the whole operation.

Any new information on that?

O'CONNOR: No. My sources are just indicating that they are working increasingly under the indication that that is likely the case -- that the pilots may well have known each other -- probably there were two pilots for each of those flights -- may well have known each other. But then they wouldn't have known the other three. And the other three wouldn't necessarily have known the pilots or even each other, but that there was some kind of overt signal that they all followed.

ZAHN: All right, Eileen, thanks so much for that update.

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