Arrest individual has important information
Federal authorities made the first arrest yesterday in the worldwide investigation into this week’s terrorist attacks, a government official said.
The suspect was arrested because authorities have determined that the individual has information highly relevant to the investigation and is a high-flight risk, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Justice Department said the warrant identified the suspect as a witness.
The official would not say where the arrest was made.
It was the first break in an investigation that has spanned the globe.
The FBI has received more than 36,000 leads and has issued hundreds of subpoenas.
A list of more than 100 people has been distributed to thousands of local police departments, the Federal Aviation Administration, border patrols and FBI field offices, said Attorney General John Ashcroft.
‘‘We believe they may have information that could be helpful to the investigation,’’ said Ashcroft.
Federal officials wouldn’t say whether the 100 names include suspects in the plot to hijack and crash four jetliners on Tuesday.
The FBI yesterday released the names of 19 hijackers who commandeered and brought down the planes.
Many lived in Florida and several had gone to pilot training school in Venice, Florida.
Some of the 19 have been linked to Osama bin Laden or his organisations, according to current and former US officials.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said four of the dead hijackers had been linked to bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network: Waleed Alshehri, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, and Saeed Alghamdi.
In addition, US intelligence agents were checking the background of suspected hijacker Khalid Al-Midhar, to see if he is connected to Zein al-Abidine al-Midhar, the former head of the Islamic Army of Aden in Yemen who was executed a few years ago in connection with a kidnapping.
The group was one of three to claim credit for last autumn’s bombing of the USS Cole.
Among the 19 was Mohamed Atta, 33, of Hollywood and Coral Springs, Florida, identified by German authorities as being tied to an Islamic fundamentalist group that planned attacks on American targets.
The Justice Department said Atta was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 that took off from Boston’s Logan Airport and crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Centre.
All the hijackers had Middle Eastern names.
FBI Director Bob Mueller would not comment on whether any of the hijackers were associated with bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who administration officials believe is behind the attacks.
Investigations are focused on several locations within the United States, including Florida, where several of the hijackers lived and attended flight training school. Seven of the 19 hijackers lived in Delray Beach, Florida.
Federal authorities have launched a massive search for individuals who assisted the hijackers, believing that there may have been a vast network of people who plotted and carried out Tuesday’s attack.
FBI Deputy Director Tom Pickard is leading the investigation.
Hundreds of subpoenas have been issued, along with more than 30 search warrants, and investigators have seized computers and other documents.
The Treasury Department announced yesterday that it had created a special team to fight terrorism, focusing on tracking down sources of financing.
The goals of the team are to block terrorist groups’ access to the international financial system, impair fundraising and expose, isolate and incapacitate terrorists’ financial holdings, officials said.
Investigators also recovered voice and data recorders from the plane that smashed into the Pentagon and the data recorder from the flight that crashed near Pittsburgh.
Mueller said the data recorders for the Pentagon flight had yielded some information, but the voice recordings for the flight had yielded nothing so far.
The FBI has a transcript of communications between the pilots and air traffic controllers for a portion of the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, officials said.
