It looks like these events were intended to be a part of more than just A Day of Terror . . . they may be part of an intended reign of terror.
Investigation points to more violence
Wednesday, September 19
Associated Press
Washington — There is evidence of plans for a second wave of violence on Sept. 22, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Authorities have grown increasingly certain about the planned attacks, as they collected intelligence intercepts, interviews with witnesses and evidence gathered from the hijackers‘ cars and homes during the first eight-days of the massive joint-forces police investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Authorities arrested three Detroit airport employees on Tuesday on charges of identity fraud and misuse of visas.
According to court records concerning the arrest, the FBI seized documents from a Detroit-area apartment that included information about an U.S. military base in Turkey, a U.S. "foreign minister," an airport in Jordan and diagrams of aircraft locations and runways.
The documents also showed that the three men worked in airline food preparation.
U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft was not ready, however, to call the arrest a break in the eight-day investigation.
The arrests occurred after FBI agents raided a residence looking for one of the nearly 200 witnesses being sought in the investigation. Instead, they found the three men and a cache of documents. The trio were charged Tuesday in Detroit with fraud and misuse of visas, passports and other immigration documents.
The Sept. 11 attacks were "part of a larger plan with other terrorism acts, not necessarily hijacking of airplanes," said Democratic Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Those acts were going to occur in the United States and elsewhere in the world."
In the face of the evidence, Mr. Ashcroft vowed to wage a "concerted national assault" on terrorists.
The investigation has detained at least 75 people for questioning and has four people under arrest as material witnesses, law-enforcement officials said.
The government also announced a new policy that gives immigration authorities 48 hours, or longer in emergencies, to decide whether to charge an alien with status violations, up from 24 hours. Many of those questioned in Tuesday‘s attack were being detained on immigration violations.
Mr. Ashcroft said Wednesday that the terrorists behind the attacks in New York and Washington probably received support from foreign governments.
Emerging from a visit at the Pentagon that was badly damaged by last week‘s attacks, the Attorney-General raised the possible involvement of foreign states.
"It is pretty clear that the networks that conduct these kind of events are harboured, supported, sustained and protected by a variety of foreign governments," he said.
"It is time for those governments to understand with crystal clarity that the United States of America will not tolerate that kind of support for networks that would inflict this kind of damage on the American people."