Investigation Widens, Points to Wide Conspiracy

The hijackers in Tuesday’s attacks likely had outside help on the ground, federal law enforcement officials said yesterday.

While no arrests have yet been made, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said authorities have interviewed hundreds of people in connection with Tuesday’s attacks. In addition, several people were detained during security scares at New York’s newly reopened airports.

A number of people who could be involved in the plot were held overnight for having false identifications, Justice Department spokesperson Mindy Tucker said, although she declined to comment further.

On Wednesday, FBI agents raided a Boston hotel and detained three men, who were later released.

In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” yesterday, Ashcroft said new information pointed to a widespread conspiracy involving as many as 50 people, including the 18 hijackers already identified. Each plane had four or five hijackers that probably had on-the-ground help, he said.

“[To have] operated with technical proficiency to target and to land an aircraft of that size with the deadly accuracy of these acts of war was something obviously that resulted from a complex organization with significant ground support,” Ashcroft said.

The special task force of 4,000 FBI agents, comprising the largest investigation in America’s history, was busy yesterday checking some of the leads garnered from the 2,055 calls to the FBI’s hotline and the 22,700 tips received from a special website set up for the investigation.

“Some of these leads have been helpful to the investigation,” Ashcroft said.

About 40 of the people involved in the attacks have been accounted for, including those killed in the attacks, but 10 remain at large, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing an unidentified source with knowledge of the investigation.

Meanwhile, other investigators were kept busy with several security scares that shut down New York’s airports soon after they opened yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, an unidentified man was stopped at New York’s Kennedy airport for carrying a false pilot’s identification, the city’s police commissioner said.

In addition, five or six suspicious people, some of them Arabs, were detained at city airports for questioning by the FBI.

@D:Hijacks

@A:The FBI’s massive investigation stretches from the Canadian border to Florida, where some of the participants learned how to fly commercial planes before the attacks.

The Justice Department said at least one hijacker on each plane was trained at a U.S. flight school, although they must have received additional sophisticated training elsewhere.

In Florida yesterday, FBI agents were interviewing three Saudi Arabian flight engineers who are taking classes at Flightsafety International’s flight school in Vero Beach, Fla., said company spokesperson Roger Ritchie.

The school does not have simulators for Boeing 767 and 757 aircraft such as the ones involved in Tuesday’s attacks, Ritchie said.

Investigators who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity said that multiple cells of terrorist groups participated in the coordinated operation and the hijackers had possible ties to several Middle Eastern countries.

Investigators were gathering evidence that the terrorist cells may have had prior involvement in earlier plots against the United States, and may have been involved with Saudi exile Osama bin Laden—including ties to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole bombing in a Yemenite harbor last fall and the foiled attack on Los Angeles airport during the millennium celebrations.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday named bin Laden as a prime suspect in engineering Tuesday’s terrorist attacks.

—Material from Associated Press reports was used in the compilation of this article.

—Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.