The French intelligence report says the leader of the Mossad cell in Florida rented apartments ''right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi''.
More than a third of the Israeli ''art students'' claimed residence in Florida. Two other Israelis connected to the art ring showed up in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, eight of the hijackers lived just north of the town. Put together, the facts do appear to indicate that Israel knew that 9/11, or at least a large-scale terror attack, was about to take place on American soil, but did nothing to warn the USA. But that's not quite true.
In August 2001, the Israelis handed over a list of terrorist suspects - on it were the names of four of the September 11 hijackers.
. Significantly, however, the warning said the terrorists were planning an attack ''outside the United States''.
To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.
Back in Israel, several of the men discussed what happened on an Israeli talk show. One of them made this remarkable comment: ''The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event
ISRAELIS TRAPPED IN TERROR ROUNDUPS CAUSE WORRY AT HOME, ANGER AT U.S.
More than a third of the Israeli ''art students'' claimed residence in Florida. Two other Israelis connected to the art ring showed up in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, eight of the hijackers lived just north of the town. Put together, the facts do appear to indicate that Israel knew that 9/11, or at least a large-scale terror attack, was about to take place on American soil, but did nothing to warn the USA. But that's not quite true.
In August 2001, the Israelis handed over a list of terrorist suspects - on it were the names of four of the September 11 hijackers.
. Significantly, however, the warning said the terrorists were planning an attack ''outside the United States''.
To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.
Back in Israel, several of the men discussed what happened on an Israeli talk show. One of them made this remarkable comment: ''The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event
There were also fresh pictures of the men standing with the smoldering wreckage of the Twin Towers in the background. One image showed a hand flicking a lighter in front of the devastated buildings, like a fan at a pop concert. The driver of the van then told the arresting officers: ''We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.''
His name was Sivan Kurzberg. The other four passengers were Kurzberg's brother Paul, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.
The men were dragged off to prison and transferred out of the custody of the FBI's Criminal Division and into the hands of their Foreign Counterintelligence Section - the bureau's anti-espionage squad. A warrant was issued for a search of the Urban Moving premises in Weehawken in New Jersey. Boxes of papers and computers were removed. The FBI questioned the firm's Israeli owner, Dominik Otto Suter, but when agents returned to re-interview him a few days later, he was gone. An employee of Urban Moving said his co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. ''I was in tears,'' the man said. ''These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'''
This makes it clear that there was no suggestion whatsoever from within American intelligence that the Israelis were colluding with the 9/11 hijackers - simply that the possibility remains that they knew the attacks were going to happen, but effectively did nothing to help stop them. After the owner vanished, the offices of Urban Moving looked as if they'd been closed down in a big hurry. Mobile phones were littered about, the office phones were still connected and the property of at least a dozen clients were stacked up in the warehouse. The owner had cleared out his family home in New Jersey and returned to Israel. Two weeks after their arrest, the Israelis were still in detention, held on immigration charges. Then a judge ruled that they should be deported. But the CIA scuppered the deal and the five remained in custody for another two months. Some went into solitary confinement, all underwent two polygraph tests and at least one underwent up to seven lie detector sessions before they were eventually deported at the end of November 2001. Paul Kurzberg refused to take a lie detector test for 10 weeks, but then failed it.
The men were dragged off to prison and transferred out of the custody of the FBI's Criminal Division and into the hands of their Foreign Counterintelligence Section - the bureau's anti-espionage squad. A warrant was issued for a search of the Urban Moving premises in Weehawken in New Jersey. Boxes of papers and computers were removed. The FBI questioned the firm's Israeli owner, Dominik Otto Suter, but when agents returned to re-interview him a few days later, he was gone. An employee of Urban Moving said his co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. ''I was in tears,'' the man said. ''These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'''
This makes it clear that there was no suggestion whatsoever from within American intelligence that the Israelis were colluding with the 9/11 hijackers - simply that the possibility remains that they knew the attacks were going to happen, but effectively did nothing to help stop them. After the owner vanished, the offices of Urban Moving looked as if they'd been closed down in a big hurry. Mobile phones were littered about, the office phones were still connected and the property of at least a dozen clients were stacked up in the warehouse. The owner had cleared out his family home in New Jersey and returned to Israel. Two weeks after their arrest, the Israelis were still in detention, held on immigration charges. Then a judge ruled that they should be deported. But the CIA scuppered the deal and the five remained in custody for another two months. Some went into solitary confinement, all underwent two polygraph tests and at least one underwent up to seven lie detector sessions before they were eventually deported at the end of November 2001. Paul Kurzberg refused to take a lie detector test for 10 weeks, but then failed it.
ISRAELIS TRAPPED IN TERROR ROUNDUPS CAUSE WORRY AT HOME, ANGER AT U.S.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, GA). (Nov. 18, 2001): News: pA15.
Nazareth, Israel --- On the day after the world changed, Roy Barak and his partner were in an empty rental truck, eastbound on I-80 in northern Pennsylvania. The men were movers, near the end of a 16-hour deadhead run from Chicago to a chaotic New York.
Over the truck radio, the 23-year-old Israeli Jew listened to the confusion that billowed from the rubble of the fallen World Trade Center towers. He heard the news reports that five suspected terrorists had been picked up in a white van headed for the city via the George Washington Bridge.
Angry witnesses had seen the five at a waterfront park in New Jersey apparently laughing, clowning and photographing themselves in front of the burning towers.
Barak had no way of knowing the arrested men were his friends, Israelis working for the same moving company. But he found out quickly.
At noon Sept. 12, Barak and his partner, 25-year-old Motti Butbul, were blue-lighted by a patrol car and pulled into a rest stop. The formal charges were minor: a broken turn signal, a missing fire extinguisher and the fact that Barak had overstayed his six-month visa. Butbul also had no work permit.
But the quick appearance of four FBI agents made it clear this wasn't a normal stop. A box cutter was found in the truck.
"Then I disappeared," Barak said with a smile.
He would not be seen again for nearly two months. Barak and Butbul reappeared only a few days ago, aboard an El Al flight to Tel Aviv and home.
Barak was interrogated first as a possible terrorist, then as a potential spy. He said he did not see a lawyer for two weeks and never appeared before a judge. His parents did not know where he was for six weeks, until someone from the Israeli Consulate could sneak a cellphone into the prison.
"I'm a little bit angry," Barak said. "I understand what they were doing. But it took too long."
Parents grow impatient
Civil liberties groups estimate that federal authorities arrested 1,100 foreigners in the United States in the days after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The Justice Department will say very little about them. Most of those arrested are young men between the ages of 20 and 30. Most are from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt.
But 90 to 100 of those detained are Israeli citizens, according to that nation's Foreign Ministry. It doesn't know for sure. Nor does it know where all of them are. None has been charged with anything other than improper documentation or failure to obtain work permits.
Most Israelis understand America's initial reaction to a terror attack that killed thousands of civilians and the need to prevent another. But parents whose children are still in U.S. jails are becoming increasingly impatient with the pace at which authorities are sorting through the detainees.
Israeli journalists are pressing the U.S. ambassador, Daniel Kurtzer, on the issue. Members of the Knesset have handed him a petition. The parents of the five movers still being held in a federal prison in Brooklyn, N.Y., have enlisted the help of Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and are relying on his close ties to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Olmert has called Giuliani twice, to no avail. Custody of the men is a federal affair, he was told. "Quite frankly, I don't know why they have to hold them such a long time," Olmert said. "It's ridiculous. It's stupid."
The families of the five movers have been asked to remain quiet, to make it easier for the Israeli government to intercede. But privately, the parents think their sons are being punished --- and harshly treated --- for their behavior Sept. 11.
Olmert thinks the parents probably are right. "They acted in a silly, irresponsible, childish way," he said. "So what?"
The release of Barak and Butbul --- the first Israeli authorities are aware of --- is seen as a hopeful sign. "I think we're coming to a happy ending," said Irit Stopper, deputy spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry.
'Why are they smiling?'
Israeli youths often travel, after a compulsory stint in the military and before settling down or going to college. To pay their way, many have found niches in the U.S. economy. In New York, young Israeli men --- fresh from the rigors of the military --- do heavy lifting for the moving industry.
Barak, an ex-paratrooper, got a job with Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., in the summer of 2000. Starting pay was $7 an hour, plus tips. Mostly Barak stayed east. He saw Miami, delivered furniture to Atlanta and drove by Graceland in Memphis.
Like other Israelis, he gave little thought to his expired visa --- until Sept. 11.
At the police station, Barak was allowed his one telephone call. He called his employer --- it was a toll-free call and so the only one he could make. That's how he found out the five suspected terrorists in the white van were his friends.
They had been arrested, and circumstances had inspired even more suspicion: One of the five has the first name Omer, which is close to the Arabic name Omar. Another had a German as well as an Israeli passport --- unusual in America, but not in Israel, where dual citizenship is common.
And a third mover had booked a flight to Thailand for Sept. 13. The FBI raided the company warehouse and took a dozen computer hard drives and files.
In York, Pa., Barak and Butbul were fingerprinted, photographed and delivered to a nearby prison, where they would spend nearly two months in orange jumpsuits.
For the first formal interrogation session, Barak said, FBI agents brought a polygraph machine --- and a photograph of the five Israelis in front of the flaming towers.
"They came and they showed me the picture. And they asked me, 'Why are they smiling?' I look in the picture, and I told them that I don't see them smiling," Barak said. "They don't look sad, but they're not smiling."
And even if they were smiling, he said, Americans have to understand that the reactions of Israelis with fresh military experience are bound to seem peculiar to others. His friends had seen acts of brutality and terrorism nearly every day. Barak himself had spent six months in Lebanon.
He said, "It's a little bit different how the Israeli thinks."
An Israeli spy?
At some point, agents stopped thinking of Barak as a possible terrorist and began to suspect he might work for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.
Barak thinks it was his past as a paratrooper that triggered suspicions. Barak's cohort had been a cook and was not questioned nearly as intensely, Barak said. Butbul declined to be interviewed.
"They asked if someone sent me to the United States," Barak said. "They asked me if I worked in a moving company so I could monitor people's movements."
On the second visit, again with a polygraph machine, the agents told him they were satisfied with all but one of his answers --- the one he gave when they asked who sent him. The agents did not return a third time.
Barak spent his first week in a cell and his second in solitary confinement. No books, television or radio --- not even a rubber band to tie back his hair. He still doesn't know why.
Afterward Barak was released into a general population of illegal immigrants who had been rounded up. The Israeli Consulate found him a month after his arrest, then returned two weeks later with a cellphone so he could talk to his parents.
In the beginning, his cellmates were mostly Hispanic. "But when we left, it was mostly Arabs, mostly Muslims," Barak said. He and Butbul were the only Jews, but there was no tension. "We were all in [the] same boat," he said.
Unless boredom can be considered torture, Barak was not mistreated, he said. He and Butbul arrived home Nov. 9, wearing the same clothes they had on when they were arrested Sept. 12.
He plans to stay at home awhile, then continue his travels. To Australia.
'Some due process'
The Israeli Foreign Ministry says the other five movers should be released by Thanks- giving. But dozens of Israelis remain in custody, said Colette Avital, a member of the Knesset and a former consul general in New York.
Avital received word last week of a half-dozen Israelis arrested near Cleveland in mid-October still being held incommunicado. She also said a young Israeli woman is missing. The young woman is believed to have been arrested in the United States.
"Somehow we would like to see some due process," Avital said.
Besieged by inquiries, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv has composed a stock response for Israelis who call to demand an explanation. Even after deportation is agreed to, an embassy statement says, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has 90 days to arrange transportation and documents and schedule officers to escort prisoners to the airport.
And, the embassy says, "The INS has put in place special procedures to ensure that no alien having valuable information relevant to this or future terrorist attacks is removed until appropriate."
It declines to speculate on how long that might take.
CAPTION(S):
Israeli Roy Barak was arrested Sept. 12 and held until early this month.
Authorities have learned the identities of 18 hijackers, attorney general says
The New York Times. (Sept. 14, 2001): L, News: pA4.
Officials in Boston said tapes of the Logan Airport garage showed that a car believed to have been used by the hijackers drove through the parking area at least four times in the week before the attack.
At the same time, the investigation broadened to other states. A man identified as Hady Hassan Omar, 22, was arrested in Fort Smith, Ark., in connection with the investigation. He was taken in handcuffs out of the F.B.I. office at Waldron Place in Fort Smith by law enforcement officers. A worker at the detention center said Mr. Omar was being held for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Information on charges was not available.
In New Jersey, where officials believe the hijackers received assistance from an accomplice, Sherri Evanina, a F.B.I. spokeswoman in Newark, said five men were detained late Tuesday after the van in which they were driving was stopped on Route 3 in East Rutherford.
She said witnesses had reported seeing the men celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center earlier in the day in Union City.
Angry witnesses reported the men's license plate to the authorities. The plate was registered to Urban Moving Systems, a truck-rental company based in Weehawken, N.J., Ms. Evanina said.
The five men were detained on administrative grounds by the immigration service, officials said. No criminal charges have been filed against them.
Dominik Suter, the owner of Urban Moving Systems, did not return telephone messages left at his office. A woman who answered the phone at the company's offices, but would not give her name, said, ''We have no comment.''
Authorities have learned the identities of 18 hijackers, attorney general says
The New York Times. (Sept. 14, 2001): L, News: pA4.
Witnesses took the plate number and the FBI sent out an alert to area cops, reading:
"Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack . . . Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion."
Port Authority cops nabbed the three as they drove along Route 3 in East Rutherford in the van, which had the words "Urban Moving Systems" painted on it.
After grilling the men and searching the van in vain for explosives, the FBI turned the men over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation.
FIVE MEN DETAINED AS SUSPECTED CONSPIRATORS; WERE DRIVING SIMILAR VAN AS 3 SEEN CELEBRATING AFTER ATTACK
The Record (Bergen County, NJ). (Sept. 12, 2001): News: pA8.
By PAULO LIMA, Staff Writer
About eight hours after terrorists struck Manhattan's tallest skyscrapers, police in Bergen County detained five men on the suspicion that they are tied to the blasts.
The five men were stopped by East Rutherford police late Tuesday afternoon. As of Tuesday evening, they had not been charged with any crime, as authorities awaited a search warrant for the van the men were driving.
Sources close to the investigation said the men said they are Israeli tourists, but police had not yet been able to confirm their identities. East Rutherford police did not release their names.
East Rutherford officers stopped the van along Route 3 about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday after the FBI's Newark Field Office asked officers to watch for a white Chevrolet van, police said.
"We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side," said Bergen County Police Chief John Schmidig. "Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down."
The East Rutherford officers summoned the county police bomb squad, New Jersey state troopers, and FBI agents, who waited alongside the van as prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office tried to obtain a warrant to search the van late Tuesday, Schmidig said.
"They want to make sure this case is bulletproof," Schmidig said.
Schmidig said the van was stopped as it headed east on Route 3, between the Hackensack River bridge and the Sheraton hotel. As a precaution, police shut down Route 3 traffic in both directions after the stop and evacuated a small roadside motel near the Sheraton.
Sources said the FBI alert, known as a BOLO or "Be On Lookout," was sent out at 3:31 p.m.
It read:
"Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration with 'Urban Moving Systems' sign on back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center.
"Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals."
Business records show an Urban Moving Systems with offices on West 50th Street in Manhattan and on West 18th Street in Weehawken. Telephone messages left at the businesses Tuesday evening were not immediately returned.
Business records show the owner as Dominik Suter of Fair Lawn. A woman answering the telephone at Suter's home acknowledged he owned the company but refused to comment further. She also declined to identify herself.
It was not clear Tuesday whether the van stopped by police is related to Suter's company.
FIVE HIJACK SUSPECTS HAD LINKS TO N.J. 'MATERIAL WITNESS' IN CUSTODY IN N.Y.C. THE INVESTIGATION
The Record (Bergen County, NJ). (Sept. 15, 2001): News: pA1.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
http://www.northjersey.com
Closer to New York, FBI agents and Bergen County Sheriff's Department crime scene technicians spent three hours Thursday night searching the Weehawken headquarters of Urban MovingSystems at 3 W. 18th St.
Investigators first became interested in the business after witnesses reported Tuesday that three men seemed to celebrate the World Trade Center explosions in Liberty State Park, then drove away in a company van.
"To the best of my knowledge, my client Urban Moving Systems and Dominik Suter are not targets," said attorney Jay Hamill of Jersey City. "This is an informational situation. We're cooperating completely and have objected to nothing they've requested."
Agents took pictures inside the company's office Thursday night and seized 13 computer hard drives. They also showed a keen interest in the roof, which had a very clear view of the World Trade Center until Tuesday. A half-dozen agents searched the roof with flashlights and appeared particularly interested in the the sight lines from the roof toward downtown Manhattan.
East Rutherford police stopped an Urban Moving Systems van on Route 3 Tuesday and detained five men inside, at least some of them company employees. The occupants said they were all Israelis. They were being detained because they are in violation of immigration regulations, and all have expressed a desire to leave the country on their own, according to an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman.
An employee of Urban Moving Systems, who would not give his name, said the majority of his co-workers are Israelis and were joking on the day of the attacks.
"I was in tears," the man said. "These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'"
In Fairfield, owners of the Caldwell Flight Academy said FBI agents had visited the business on Thursday and taken documents relating to people who had rented planes from the school.
"We have been contacted by the government and given them any information they wanted," said Richard Bonsignore, a co-owner of the company at Essex County Airport, less than a mile from Wayne.
Bonsignore said federal agents had presented a list of names to the academy, which matched records of former customers. But Bonsignore could not say how long the list was or what, if any, connection those named had to Tuesday's attacks.
In other New Jersey developments, state police said they had put 65 detectives on a multi-agency task force working with the FBI; deployed 72 troopers to Newark Airport for security at the request of the Port Authority; and doubled security at Atlantic City casinos as a proactive step, because they are heavily trafficked and may be an attractive target for terrorists.
Staff Writers Scott Fallon, Herb Jackson, Paulo Lima, Mitchel Maddux, and Alex Nussbaum contributed to this report, which also contains material from The Associated Press.
