http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=842422004

Terrorists attempt fresh wave of US hijackings

Scotsman

July 23, 2004

JAMES HALL


Key points . Terrorists thought to have targeted at least two US
flights in dry-run attacks . 9/11 Commission warns attack worse than
Twin Towers 'probable' . Cameras caught 9/11 terrorists setting off
security alarms prior to hijacking

Key quote "Every expert with whom we spoke told us an attack of even
greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have
the luxury of time" - Tom Kean, chairman 9/11 commission

Story in full DEVASTATING new evidence has emerged that terrorists are
preparing another attack on the United States, with air marshals and
flight crews reporting a series of dry runs for attacks on aircraft in
mid-air.

At least two flights are thought to have been targeted so far by
groups of Middle Eastern men who appear to be forming a plan of
attack.

On one flight an air marshal reportedly broke into an onboard toilet
to find that a mirror had been removed and that a Middle Eastern man
was trying to break through a wall to the cockpit.

One air marshal told the Washington Times newspaper yesterday: "No
doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack."

The revelation came on the day a major US report into the 11 September
attacks warned that another attack was likely.

The commission recommended an overhaul of the country's intelligence
services to prevent al-Qaeda launching more deadly plots against
America.

Warning that an attack "of even greater magnitude" than the one that
killed almost 3,000 people in 2001 was "probable", the commission
accused the Clinton and Bush administrations of failing to have
sufficient imagination to have envisaged al-Qaeda's lethal plot.

Tom Kean, the chairman of the commission, said: "Every expert with
whom we spoke told us an attack of even greater magnitude is now
possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time.

"We must prepare and we must act. The al-Qaeda network and its
affiliates are sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal."

Airline staff and passengers have catalogued repeated incidents that
suggest new attacks are in preparation.

"It's happening and it's a sad state of affairs," one pilot said.

On one flight last month, 14 Syrian men on a flight between Detroit
and Los Angeles boarded the flight, sitting apart. They pretended to
be strangers, according to those on board, but once airborne they
started filing in and out of the plane's toilets. When the plane was
about to land, the men shot up to different toilets, arousing the
suspicions of air crew, passengers and air marshals.

However, air marshals who monitored the incident said there was no
"legal basis on which to take enforcement action".

In another incident, the Washington Times revealed, a flight attendant
reported a passenger using a long lens to take photographs of the
cockpit door.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Islamic militants had found a
new way to circumvent security systems at airports. Instead of trying
to take bombs onto aircraft, they would place the components on board,
which they can then assemble in mid-flight.

Security sources told newspapers that the tactic had already been
tried out, again in dry-run form, on flights between the Middle East,
North Africa and western Europe.

As early as November, the FBI was warning that "terrorists are
considering the use of improvised explosive devices assembled on board
to hijack an aircraft".

Security agencies around the globe are now trying to track down the
militants that have been trained to carry out such attacks.

The activities are a terrifying echo of the meticulous planning of the
hijackers involved in the 11 September plot, which was comprehensively
detailed in yesterday's report by the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States

The 567-page final report issued by the ten-member commission pointed
to "deep institutional failings" and missed opportunities to thwart
the hijackings carried out by al-Qaeda operatives.

"Terrorism was not the overriding national-security concern for the US
government under either the Clinton or the pre-9/11 Bush
administrations," the report said.

It said that on at least nine occasions, chances were missed that
might have led to the uncovering of the plot.

Overnight, US television networks broadcast a newly released
surveillance video from Washington's Dulles International Airport on
the morning of the attacks that investigators view as one of the
missed opportunities.

The video shows five hijackers passing through security checkpoints.
Four of them repeatedly set off alarms but were quickly cleared to
board the flight that later crashed into the Pentagon. It was not
clear what set the alarms off.

The commission was sweeping in its recommendations for change.

It proposed the appointment of a national intelligence director and
the creation of a national counter-terrorism centre to better
co-ordinate and share information about future terrorist threats.

"The national intelligence director should oversee national
intelligence centres to provide all-source analysis and plan
intelligence operations for the whole government on major problems,"
the report said.

The commission also said the US government must do more domestically
to guard against future terrorist attacks, including measures such as
setting national standards for issuing drivers' licences and other
identification, improving "no-fly" and other terrorist-watch lists and
using more biometric identifiers to screen travellers at ports and
borders.

Other recommendations included declassifying intelligence spending,
upgrading the computer technology used by US intelligence and
reorganising congressional oversight.

Given new warnings about al-Qaeda's desire to strike again on a mass
scale, James Thompson, commission member, said all US leaders would be
wise to take the commission's findings to heart.

"If it happens and we haven't moved, then the American people are
entitled to make very fundamental judgments about that," he said.

The commission's vice-chairman, Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic
congressman, appealed for political unity at the heights of America's
power. A "shift in mindset and organisation" within the US
intelligence apparatus and a smoother transition between presidencies
were also necessary, he said, to ensure "that this nation does not
lower its guard every four or eight years".

"The US government has access to vast amounts of information but it
has a weak process, a weak system of processing and using that
information," Mr Hamilton said. "Need to share must replace need to
know."

However, it will be months if not years before such recommendations
can be implemented. Yet many terrorism experts fear that al-Qaeda is
planning a terrorist attack in the next four months, in the run-up to
the November presidential elections.

"They [the 11 September hijackers] penetrated the defences of the most
powerful nation in the world," Mr Kean said. "They inflicted
unbearable trauma on our people, and at the same time they turned
international order upsidedown."

Mr Kean said the US was "faced with one of the greatest security
challenges in our long history".


===========================================================
"Ah yes, we must mollify angry fanatics who seek our destruction
because otherwise .. they might get mad and seek our destruction."
- Ann Coulter 9/26/2002

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=842422004

Terrorists attempt fresh wave of US hijackings

Scotsman

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=842422004

Terrorists attempt fresh wave of US hijackings

Scotsman