Well... at least the FBI's bought my Mossad/Israeli theory on the anthrax letters....
Thursday, November 01, 2001 Cheshvan 15, 5762 Israel Time: 11:34 (GMT+2)
U.S. papers: FBI hunting suspected terrorists with Israeli passports
By Yossi Melman and Nathan Guttman
The FBI is conducting a manhunt for six men carrying Israeli passports who are suspected of plotting terror attacks in the United States - and who were released by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service after having been under arrest, according to the Knight-Ridder news service.
The six were arrested over the weekend in a state in the Midwest while traveling in two cars, and were found to have photographs and information about a Florida nuclear reactor and the Alaska pipeline, the news agency reported. There are three nuclear reactors in Florida. They also had "suspicious equipment," including box-cutter knives similar to those used by the hijackers on September 11, Knight-Ridder said.
But the six, who were decribed as having Israeli passports and a "Middle Eastern look," were released after INS officials decided that their passports and visas were valid. According to the Miami Herald, the INS released the men without consulting the FBI - or reporting the arrests. When FBI director Robert Mueller heard about the incident, he was "furious."
However, the newspaper also quoted the INS as calling the report that it had allowed the release of the six "unconfirmed." And a spokesman for the company operating the Alaskan pipeline, which carries some 17 percent of all the oil in the U.S., said he did not know of any threat to the pipe.
An Israeli embassy spokesman in Washington said he knew about the affair from the newspaper, but American authorities had made no formal contact with the embassy about the matter.
haaretzdaily.com |
