An untold story of 9/11
VTR
BY MICHAEL DORMAN
Newsday Staff Writer
April 17, 2006
Former federal terrorism investigators say a piece of luggage hastily checked in at the
Portland, Maine, airport by a World Trade Center hijacker on the morning of Sept. 11 provided
the Rosetta stone enabling FBI agents to swiftly unravel the mystery of who carried out the
suicide attacks and what motivated them.
A mix-up in Boston prevented the luggage from connecting with the plane that hijackers crashed
into the north tower of the trade center. Seized by FBI agents at Boston's Logan Airport,
investigators said, it contained Arab-language papers revealing the identities of all 19
hijackers involved in the four hijackings, as well as information on their plans, backgrounds
and motives.
The luggage saga represents what the former federal authorities describe as an untold story of
9/11 -- offering explanations for questions long unanswered about the investigation of the
tragedy, such as how authorities were able to identify the hijackers so soon after the attacks.
The former federal investigators said information found in the bag was passed on to Justice
Department lawyers, who prosecuted Zacarias Moussaoui on charges growing out of the suicide
attacks. A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said: "Under the judge's order,
we're not going to comment on anything relating to the case."
Mohamed Atta, a chief coordinator of the hijackings, and conspirator Abdulaziz AlAlomari spent
the night before the attacks in room 232 of a Comfort Inn south of Portland. They checked out
at 5:33 a.m. on Sept. 11. Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood said they drove in a rented
blue Nissan Altima -- eventually seized by the FBI -- to Portland International Jetport.
Records show the Altima was parked in an airport lot around 5:45, allowing Atta and Alomari
only a few minutes to catch a 6 a.m. commuter flight to Boston's Logan Airport. Although they
planned to hijack an American Airlines jet that would take off from Logan later that morning,
investigators said they might have gone through Portland in the belief that airport security
would be less stringent there.
Once the commuter flight landed at Logan, Atta and Alomari boarded American Airlines Flight 11
bound for Los Angeles -- which they would crash into the trade center.
'A number of telling items'
A staff report to the 9/11 Commission later concluded: "The Portland detour almost prevented
Atta and Alomari from making Flight 11 out of Boston. In fact, the luggage they checked in
Portland failed to make it onto the plane. Seized after the Sept. 11 crashes, Atta and
Alomari's luggage turned out to contain a number of telling items, including correspondence
from the university Atta attended in Egypt; Alomari's international driver's license and
passport; a videocassette for a Boeing 757 flight simulator; and folding knife and pepper
spray, presumably extra weapons the conspirators decided they didn't need."
The report did not say how many bags were checked in Portland, nor did it differentiate them by
their contents. But three commission staff members who helped prepare the report said there
were two pieces. Two staff members, John Raidt and R. William Johnstone, said it was clear both
bags belonged to Atta. "He plopped both of them down on the luggage rack," Raidt said. "Alomari
just stood by."
An affidavit filed by FBI agent James K. Lechner in federal district court in Portland reported
that two bags checked by Atta were recovered at Logan Airport Sept. 11. They were never placed
on Flight 11 before it departed from Boston, Lechner said, but there was no explanation of why
they had not been loaded. Lechner described them as "a green Travel Gear bag" and "a black
Travelpro bag."
A former FBI agent and a former federal prosecutor who helped direct the New England
investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks told Newsday that one bag found in Boston contained far
more than what the commission report cited, including the names of the hijackers, their
assignments and their al-Qaida connections.
"It had all these Arab-language papers that amounted to the Rosetta stone of the
investigation," former FBI agent Warren Flagg said. The former federal prosecutor, who declined
to be identified publicly, supported Flagg's account.
Hijacker IDs
"How do you think the government was able to identify all 19 hijackers almost immediately after
the attacks?" Flagg asked. "They were identified through those papers in the luggage. And
that's how it was known so soon that al-Qaida was behind the hijackings.
The former prosecutor agreed that papers from the luggage helped identify suspects. "I can't
speak on the record about that evidence," he said. "This evidence was gathered under grand jury
subpoenas and I can't discuss grand jury matters."
The papers discovered in the hijackers' luggage were bolstered by other evidence gathered
against the conspirators by the FBI, the former federal prosecutor said. "These guys left
behind a paper trail," he said. "They had bank accounts. They rented cars. They had to show
what they were doing in the United States. We investigated 9/11 from day one on the assumption
that there might be a criminal prosecution."
But when it seemed clear that all 19 hijackers had been killed in the attacks, jurisdiction
transferred from various federal prosecutors' offices around the country to Justice Department
headquarters in Washington.
Flagg, an FBI agent for 22 years, worked on terrorism cases, among others. Now president of
Flaggman Inc., a Manhattan-based investigative firm, he was retired by Sept. 11 but stayed in
close touch with former FBI colleagues and prosecutors.
He said he first heard the account of the luggage's significance in the investigation on Sept.
28, 2001, after attending the funeral for John O'Neill, a former top FBI antiterrorism official
who died helping others to safety Sept. 11 in his new job as director of security at the World
Trade Center.
After the funeral, he said, he fell into conversation with a young FBI agent he had helped
train in the New York office. The agent, working on the Sept. 11 investigation, told him about
the luggage. The agent said the New England prosecutor helping direct the investigation -- whom
Flagg also knew -- was familiar with the evidence. Flagg said he telephoned the prosecutor that
same day and received confirmation of the agent's account.
"I was devastated because word had already leaked out of the hijackers' identities," Flagg
said. "But I was also excited that the FBI had so much evidence so quickly."
The young FBI agent, who has since left the agency, works in private industry and is reportedly
in Dubai. He could not be reached for comment.
News reports published in late September and early October 2001 described a piece of luggage
apparently belonging to Atta that had been discovered at Logan Airport after the attacks.
That piece of luggage was said to contain Arab-language papers amounting to Atta's last will
and testament, along with instructions to the other hijackers to prepare themselves physically
and spiritually for death. The papers also admonished them: "Check all of your items -- your
bag, your clothes, knives, your will, your IDs, your passport, your papers. ... Make sure that
nobody is following you." Similar papers were also found in the wreckage of another crashed
airliner.
Flagg and the former prosecutor, however, said it was the second bag that identified all 19
hijackers.
"That was the one that became the Rosetta stone," Flagg said.
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