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The three German fugitives from left, Said Bahaji, Ramsi Binalshibh and Zakariya Essabar.
(AP Photos)
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THE INVESTIGATION
Anthrax letters all were dated Sept. 11
Ashcroft: German terror cell planned the terror attacks on US
By Karen Gullo, Associated Press, 10/23/01
WASHINGTON - Three letters contaminated with anthrax all were dated the same day as the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington and contained anti-American and anti-Israel messages, officials said Tuesday.
The Justice Department released copies of the letters as it sought help from the public in identifying those responsible for the mail attacks that have killed three people and poisoned up to a dozen others.
Letters sent to NBC's Tom Brokaw and The New York Post appeared identical. Both warned recipients to "Take penacilin now," an apparent misspelling, and also said, "Death to America," "Death to Israel" and "Allah is Great."
The envelope that contained the New York Post letter was written in the same sort of block letters, slanted to the right, as two envelopes addressed to Brokaw and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, released earlier.
The letter to Daschle contained seven lines written in block letters similar to the other two. "You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."
Attorney General John Ashcroft said investigators hope to garner new leads by releasing photographs of the letters and to warn Americans of mail to wary of.
"All of these ... we hope will alert citizens and others to the kind of thing to look for," said Ashcroft.
Despite the dates on the letters, Ashcroft said authorities can't prove a link to the men who carried out the airliner attacks last month.
Meanwhile, Ashcroft said a terrorist cell operating in Hamburg, Germany, and the United States since at least 1999 included three of the hijackers and three accomplices who are being sought in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ashcroft said the three fugitives, Said Bahaji, Ramsi Binalshibh and Zakariya Essabar, are sought for helping to plan the attacks. German authorities previously issued international arrest warrants for the three.
"Their connections to the hijackers are extensive," said Ashcroft, appearing at a news conference with German Interior Minister Otto Schily. He identified the three hijackers as Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, the suspected pilots of the hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and Ziad Jarrah, suspected of flying the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
Ashcroft said the three hijackers were roommates in Hamburg while attending school there in the 1990s. He said Binalshibh and Atta started a Muslim prayer group in Hamburg and Essabar went to Florida in February at a time when both Atta and al-Shehhi were known to be there. And Essabar, Jarrah and al-Shehhi all appeared in a video of Bahaji's wedding, he said.
"It is clear that Hamburg served as a central base of operations for these six individuals and their part in the planning of the Sept. 11 attack," Ashcroft said.
Bahaji, Binalshibh and Essabar "are all wanted for membership in a terrorist organization that has existed since at least 1999 in both Germany and the United States," said Ashcroft.
Schily declined to provide information about evidence developed in Germany that the three fugitives planned the attacks, citing the investigation. Ashcroft said others probably also helped in the plot.
Asked why there have been no charges brought in the United States when German authorities have pinpointed three fugitives responsible for planning the attacks, Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said, "When we feel it's appropriate to bring charges against individuals, we will do so."
Ashcroft said 12 FBI agents have been assigned to Germany to assist in the investigation.
"We must say we failed to see it" beforehand, Schily, the German minister, said of the attacks on New York and Washington. "We have to re-examine our security system."
In Alexandria, Va., a federal grand jury indicted Mohamed Abdi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, on 12 counts of forging his landlord's name on housing subsidy checks.
Abdi's name and phone number were found in a car registered to Nawaf Alhazmi, one of the 19 suspected hijackers. The car was found Sept. 12 at Dulles International Airport, where the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 departed.
U.S. authorities have arrested or detained over 900 people in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, but so far no one has been charged directly with plotting or participating.
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157 dead on planes
