Reply #10: You left out one other option [View All]

[NNN0LHI]

How did these people know who they were really working for? Did any of them actually meet with bin Laden? Do we know if any of them were ever actually in Afghanistan? If someone wants to believe this plot was planned in some Afghan cave that is fine with me. But I don't buy it. Every bit of planning or training that I have ever heard about was done in either the USA or Germany. Surely if they had been to Afhanistan there would have to be some sort of paper trail. Airline tickets, hotel or credit card receipts. Something. But what has been pesented to us as proof? Nothing. Who paid for all of the flight training and for these guys? And who paid for their rent, food, hotel bills, rental cars, and the purchase numerous airplane tickets? Do we even know that?

Don

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=5&u=/washpost/20030911/ts_washpost/a51669_2003sep9

Who Aided Hijackers Is Still Mystery

Two years after al Qaeda terrorists slammed jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, FBI and congressional investigators remain deeply divided over whether the 19 hijackers received help from other al Qaeda operatives inside the United States and still are unable to answer some of the central questions in the case.

The uncertainties persist despite the largest FBI investigation in U.S. history -- which has included 180,000 interviews and 7,000 agents -- and raise the possibility that Americans will never know precisely how the conspirators were able to pull off the most devastating terrorist attacks in U.S. history.

"We know quite a bit about the attacks," FBI counterterrorism chief Larry Mefford said last week. "Unfortunately, we don't know everything."

Some of the doubts surround intriguing details: Investigators still have no firm grasp on why the hijacker pilots booked layovers in Las Vegas during apparent practice runs on commercial airliners in 2001. Authorities also have found no definitive explanation for why ringleader Mohamed Atta and another hijacker, Abdulaziz Alomari, began their suicidal journey on Sept. 11, 2001, with a seemingly risky commuter flight from Portland, Maine, to Boston -- coming within minutes of missing their flights out of both cities. And what exactly was discussed at a pivotal meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000, where investigators believe -- but cannot prove -- that the Sept. 11 plot was put in motion?

more

http://news.theolympian.com/specialsections/TerrorinAmerica/20020430/15779.shtml

Sept. 11 hijackers left no paper trail, FBI chief says

Global hunt uncovers little evidence, Robert Mueller reports

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Originally published Tuesday, April 30, 2002

WASHINGTON -- For more than seven months, U.S. authorities probing the Sept. 11 attacks have scoured everything from caves to credit cards in the expectation that they would ultimately discover how the 19 hijackers plotted their brazen scheme.

But the global search has produced virtually nothing in the way of hard evidence about the hijackers' planning, and authorities said Monday that they now face the growing realization that they may never know many key details.

That sobering conclusion underscores the skill and sophistication of the al-Qaida network in its ability to conceal its activities -- and the equally daunting difficulties that authorities face in heading off another attack, officials said.

The hijackers "left no paper trail," FBI Director Robert Mueller III said in the text of a speech the FBI released Monday. "In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper -- either here in the United States or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere -- that mentioned any aspect of the Sept. 11 plot."

His remarks offer the FBI's most comprehensive and detailed assessment to date of its investigation, remarkable as much for what investigators have not found as for what they have.

more