New evidence leads some investigators to believe the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were part of a larger plot involving as many as seven passenger jets, according to ABC News.
Documents seized in caves in Afghanistan recently were matched with visa applications indicating several al-Qaida terrorists tried unsuccessfully to enter the United States at about the same time as the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks.
If the men had been able to enter, some investigators believe, al-Qaida might have been able to commandeer six or seven planes instead of four, ABC said. Others think the plan was to use the men in a separate, second wave of attacks.
“Our assumption at the White House at the time was that there were more attacks planned,” Roger Cressey, the former director for counterterrorism for the National Security Council, told ABC News. “Maybe not on 9-11 but certainly afterward. [Osama] bin Laden and his people think strategically.”
Suspected al-Qaida mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was arrested in March, has told interrogators bin Laden’s original plan was to take over as many as 10 airplanes, including five departing from Los Angeles and San Francisco to attack California skyscrapers. The plan reportedly was scaled back in 1996 because it was too complex.
ABC said some of the suspected terrorists have been killed or captured overseas, but one who traveled to the U.S. with a suspected would-be hijacker is still unaccounted for. That man, who might still be in the country, was traveling with a Saudi national who left the U.S. just before Sept. 11 for unknown reasons.
Another possible terrorist, according to the joint Sept. 11 intelligence report released earlier this year, left the country in July 2001, ABC said. The report links the suspect to hijacker Hani Hanjour and describes him as “an experienced flight instructor who was certified to fly Boeing 737s.”
A terrorist network might still be in place in the U.S., said Cressey.
“In fact, there probably is,” he told ABC. “Just because the FBI has not found it yet does not mean that it doesn’t exist.”
Related offer:
Michelle Malkin’s “Invasion” gives us the bad news – terrorists are all still welcome in America – even after Sept. 11, 2001
WATCH: Can someone translate Kamala’s latest word salad?
WND Staff