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CNN Saturday Morning News

America's New War: FBI Identifies Two Potential Hijackers

Aired September 15, 2001 - 13:27   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.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Now our correspondent Eileen O'Connor who has been following the investigation for the last few days. Eileen, you have some new information?

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We do, Judy. So far, law enforcement sources say that they have detained and the Justice Department has confirmed that at least 25 people for possible INS violations. Now, this is a way that they can detain some people. Eventually, they will have to perhaps issue dozens more they say material witness warrants, and that is another way that they can detain people that they want for questioning.

Now, law enforcement sources say they are operating under the assumption that more attacks were planned, and either were thwarted or are still a possibility. But they are making rapid headway. Two men were detained in Texas and have been transported to New York for questioning. They may not have been involved, but there are striking coincidences, and sources say several reasons they came to the attention of the authorities.

Law enforcement sources say Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan both had tickets from Newark to San Antonio, Texas on Tuesday. Their plane was diverted to St. Louis, where they board a train for San Antonio. According to sources, they had box cutters. Now, people on the doomed flight said on cell phone calls that the hijackers had box cutters as weapons.

What authorities are looking at are young men and women or relative in their 20s, Middle Eastern country citizenship, predominantly Saudi Arabian. Visas that indicated they were students receiving flight training or are pilots. Any way of connections with the dead hijackers that have been identified, like the same or similar last names.

Now several of the hijackers lived here, in San Diego. Neighbors say they didn't mingle, and sources say they were attending flight schools there. Now, neighbors say they kept to themselves and they left in the dark. The neighbors also said that they were on cell phones and used laptops, and they looked to be laptops with complicated programs.

Several law enforcement sources say they had been looking at a man near Boston this summer. In his apartment, they found flight manuals, information on Boeing aircraft. And he also appears to have been attending flight school. They will not say whether that man is in custody here or over overseas.

Interestingly, Judy, the several sources have pointed me to testimony in the trial of the embassy bombing, where people linked to bin Laden talked about members of his organization receiving flight training. FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted if authorities had looked at this possibility more closely, this might have been averted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: There were a number of individuals that happened to receive training at flight schools here, that's news quite obviously. If we had understood that to be the case, we would have perhaps one could have averted this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'CONNOR: Now, one of the things law enforcement authorities say and we've been seeing this in the evidence of backtracking the steps of these men is that they were very clean-shaven, they kept to themselves, very quite. Neighbors constantly keep remarking that it was just very difficult to know. So that's one of the things that authorities are also wanting that kind of information to get out so that people can perhaps be on the lookout for people that might be linked to this.

There's also of course concern that this could cause a backlash against a lot of innocent people, and nobody wants that -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right. Eileen O'Connor, thanks very much.

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