The Hull Thread
Events from the TWA 800 Downing to December 31, 1996
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July 18, 1996 NY Times
Airline security has been higher than usual ..... for several reasons.....
including ....the bombings in Saudi Arabia.......... the tone of the
meeting emphasized the seriousness with which the intelligence community
viewed the current dangers of terrorism against airplanes .........
July 18, 1996 EmergencyNet NEWS Service Vol.
2 - 200 ENN 7/18/96 10:36CDT
Internationally, the government of South Korea quickly tightened security
checks for flights to and from the United States. A police official in Seoul
said, "In view of the possibility of a terrorist attack on the airliner,
we have decided to strengthen security drills at the airport, particularly
flights to and from the United States. Tighter security checks would continue
until the end of the Olympics." In Pakistan, security at the country's
main Karachi international airport was tightened. An official said that all
fights, particularly coming from and leaving for New York were being checked
thoroughly.
July 19, 1996 CNN Web posted at: 10:50 a.m. EDT
A main investigator in the case on Friday said terrorism had not been ruled
out as a cause of Wednesday night's crash of the Paris-bound Boeing 747.
"We are looking at mechanical malfunction and at a criminal act," said Robert
Francis, vice president of the National Transportation Safety Board.
"Certainly the possibility of a criminal act is
a distinct one." ... Two parallel investigations -- one looking
into accidental causes and the other into possible criminal activity-- are
under way. The FBI will continue its probe into the crash until the possibility
of criminal activity is ruled out as a cause, said Jim Kallstrom with the
agency's Anti-terrorism Task Force. "We will get to the bottom of this, whatever
the bottom is," he vowed. The CIA's Counter-terrorism Center also has begun
a worldwide search for any clues that terrorism may have been involved in
crash. But so far, a CIA official said, "We have
nothing that points us in one direction or another." There was
some speculation that a surface-to-air missile, perhaps fired from a boat
off the coast of Long Island, could have brought the plane down.
A top Pentagon intelligence official told CNN such
a possibility has been ruled out.
(Note from author - See
Musing #5 which disputes this
statement) The reason: a stinger
missile is heat-seeking, and analysts concluded it would have had to make
too sharp a turn to hit the TWA flight, the source said. Also
the plane was "too high," about 10,000 feet, which is at the outer edge of
the range for such a missile. Counter- terrorism analysts in Washington assigned
to the case also looked into several calls claiming responsibility for the
crash, but all but one such claim has been ruled out. The source declined
to discuss the nature of the possible threat they were still looking at.
Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday two calls claiming responsibility
for the crash had been received after the plane went down, but she said there
are "no indications" yet of terrorism. One of the
calls mentioned by Reno was received at Tampa, Florida, television station
WTSP from a man who identified himself as a member of a "Jihad," a station
official said. Jihad, meaning "holy war," is a word used by Islamic militant
groups. The WTSP spokesman said the caller gave no name and offered no motive.
Newsday.com
http://www.newsday.com/jet/jet9main.htm
In the absence of explanations, theories abounded. One focused on a fax sent
Wednesday to an Arabic language newspaper in Beirut warning of an attack.
State Department and CIA officials confirmed they had received copies of
the fax Thursday. The message said "tomorrow morning
we will strike the Americans in a way they do not expect and it will be very
surprising to them," according to one official. A counterterrorism
source familiar with the fax said that it was sent at 11 a.m. New York time
Wednesday, more than nine hours before the
bombing. But a CIA source said that the agency
"does not attach too much significance"
to the fax.
The fax, witten in Arabic, ends with the following threat: "The Mujahadeen will respond harshly to the threats of the stupid American president. All will be shocked by the magnitude of the response. The determining of the place and time are in the hands of the Mujahadeen. The invaders must get ready to leave alive or dead; and their rendezvous will be morning, and isn't morning near." U.S. News and World Report magazine, in the July 29, 1996 issue, identified the group who sent the fax as, "The Movement of Islamic Jihad/The Jihad Wing of the Arabian Peninsula.".
July 19, 1996 Reuters
Attorney General Jane Reno said she was unaware of any threats before the
crash but there were "some calls'' afterward claiming responsibility.
ABC News reported that an Arabic newspaper received
a warning of an attack on an American target Wednesday from
the same group that claimed
responsibility for a bomb attack that killed five Americans in Saudi Arabia
in November. But the State Department said it had viewed the warning
letter as a political tract and not as a specific threat of an extremist
attack. "To us it seemed to be a general political tract. We don't see it
as a specific threat,'' State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said of
the letter sent to Al Hayat, an Arabic language newspaper published in
London.
July 19, 1996 New York Times.
A specific warning about the flight had been sent
by an extremist Saudi organization called the Movement of Islamic Change,
the organization that claimed responsibility for blowing up US military personnel
in Saudi Arabia last November. "Late this morning we got a copy
of a letter in Arabic that we then had translated, and got it to the FBI"
said a State Department spokesman ... "It's a ... statement that seems aimed
at the Saudi regime or the American presence in Saudi Arabia"......... Officials
said they were reviewing a telephone call placed to a Tampa, Florida
television station yesterday morning from a man who identified himself
as a member of a jihad and claimed responsibility
for the crash.
July 19, 1996 ABC News Reports
Government sources were quoted as saying the explosion was a
"deliberate criminal act", possibly an
act of sabotage or the result of a hit by a "small missile". Again,
quoting unnamed government sources, it was stated
that infrared imagery from an orbiting satellite may have detected a missile
fired at the aircraft.
July 19, 1996 CNN
A senior federal law enforcement source told CNN Friday night that FBI
investigators have found residue on wreckage from the airliner that they
believe could be from a bomb, but need more of the downed plane to determine
if a bomb caused the crash.
July 20, 1996 London Times.
New York: Jurors at the trial here of the alleged mastermind of the World
Trade Centre bombing, who is accused of plotting to attack US airliners over
Asia, were told to ignore reports about the crash while considering the case
against Ramzi Yousef, arrested in Pakistan
last year.
July 21, 1996 New York Times.
Officials of Al Hayat, a prominent Arabic-language
newspaper, said they had received faxes in London and Washington early on
Wednesday, warning of a planned attack on an American target. The
letter was signed by a group identifying itself as the
Movement of Islamic Change, the Jihad wing.
July 21, 1996, The Jerusalem Post
French Defense Ministry experts say it is possible that the TWA Boeing 747
which exploded Thursday was accidentally hit by a missile fired by a US Army
unit. According to information reaching The Jerusalem Post, the French experts
believe that if reports about a surface-to-air missile hitting the plane
are confirmed, the infrastructure needed to fire a missile powerful enough
to hit a plane at that altitude is only possessed by army units. They ruled
out the possibility that a Stinger missile could hit the plane.
Such missiles were delivered by the US to Moslem
guerrilla forces in Afghanistan, and later according to several intelligence
reports were transferred to Moslem fundamentalist terrorist groups.
According to the experts, human or technical error could have
led to the TWA disaster. They noted the incident in which a US Navy plane
shot down an Iranian civilian plane over the Persian Gulf a few years ago,
killing some 180 passengers. The experts added that if the TWA plane was
accidentally shot down by a military unit, it is unlikely that the US army
will admit it. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called US President
Bill Clinton on Thursday and offered Israel's help in the war against terror.
However, the US government said there was still no evidence that would favor
the terror theory as the cause of the TWA explosion. ..... Israeli terrorism
experts are looking for possible links between Moslem militants and the explosion
of TWA flight 800, the newspaper Ha'aretz said on Friday. The paper quoted
an unidentified senior security source as saying Israel was helping US
intelligence agencies and the FBI in every way it could in their investigation
of the crash. Netanyahu's office declined comment on the report. But Israeli
security sources told Reuter that Israel routinely cooperates on such matters
with the US. TWA said flight 800 used to go on from Paris to Tel Aviv, but
the Israel leg was discontinued in January. Israeli officials have not drawn
any connection between the air disaster, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. They
say they have yet to determine whether it was an accident or an attack. "We
still don't know if this is an attack," Brig.- Gen. Yigal Pressler, Netanyahu's
adviser on counter- terrorism, told Israel Radio. But he cited previous attempts
he said involved Iran, Syria and Libya. He said some airports and airlines
were not as diligent as Israelis in conducting security checks. In Paris,
TWA spokesman Gilbert Dennemont ... described as "pure speculation" French
media reports which said investigators were increasingly convinced the plane
was the target of an attack, possibly downed by a surface-to-air missile
fired from the American coast or from a ship at sea. The senior security
source cited unspecified recent warnings of a possible attack on a plane
July 22, 1996 Aviation Week and Space Technology
Concerning a theory the 747 might have been brought down by a ....missile,
White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry declared acidly,
"There is no American official with half a brain
who ought to be speculating on anything of that
nature"......But a U.S. Air Force C-130
pilot, reportedly said he had seen what appeared to be the trail of a
shoulder-fired SAM ending in a flash on the 747.
(Note from website author: For further
information on this observation see the eyewitness
reports.) (McCurry) also dismissed an Arabic
tract received by the U.S. government the morning after the crash ... attributed
to the Movement for Islamic Change and containing an apparent warning.
July 22, 1996 CNN
According to the sources, a machine called the Egis, which is capable of
picking up even minute traces of explosive residue, detected the residue
on the trailing edge of one wing near the rear baggage compartment of the
jet. (Horizontal stabilizer?)
July 23, 1996 The London Times
An American spy satellite positioned over the Brookhaven National Laboratory
on Long Island is said to have yielded important information about the crash.
A law enforcement official told the New York Post
that the satellite pictures show an object racing up to the TWA jet, passing
it, then changing course and smashing into it.
July 23, 1996 The London Times
The Tel Aviv paper Yediot Ahronot disclosed yesterday that Israel had been
asked by the CIA to check the Athens-New York passenger list of TWA Flight
800. The involvement of Mossad, Israel's secret service, emerged after it
was made known that the Israelis warned US Intelligence
before the disaster that an American aircraft would be the target of "sabotage
or hijacking" by Islamic extremists. "The American intelligence
agency gave Mossad the passenger list of the TWA plane from Athens to New
York and asked that it check the passengers' backgrounds to reveal if one
of them had connections to a terror group," reported the paper, which has
closelinks to the Israeli security services. .... Earlier this month, a Mossad
officer monitoring Middle East terrorist groups passed an unspecific warning
to his American counterpart in TelAviv. The officer said: "The threat of
sabotage or a hijacking against an American plane was analysed and considered
serious enough for us to pass on to the Americans. It was then up to the
Americans to assess the dangers and decide whether to pass it on to their
airlines."
July 23, 1996 Newsday - Long Island
A chemical test showed traces of a rare explosive
on a wing from TWA Flight 800 .......The explosive material, ...
is so unusual that federal investigators have only seen traces of it once
before .... A senior federal law enforcement official yesterday noted that
60 witnesses have now reported seeing something
streaking up toward the plane before it was consumed by an orange fireball.
...The sources said the explosive which showed up was not one of the more
common ones such as dynamite, or the plastiques, such as C-4 or semtex. But
the sources refused to name it or the incident in which it had turned up
previously ....."It was descending for four to five
seconds before it blew up," said Mike
Gilligan, an Eastport resident who was in his back yard with his
sons on Wednesday evening. "The red glow, I think, was a fire. I can't say
it was the fuselage or the engine. I think it was corkscrewing down. The
wing would turn and occlude the fire. Then it would turn and I'd see the
fire."
July 23, 1996 CNN
Earlier Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta told reporters that
investigators believe they are "close to finding out what happened" in the
crash of TWA Flight 800. He said some chemical residues had been found on
some of the bodies and plane parts, but more testing will have to be done
to determine what those residues are.
July 23, 1996 Newsday
But detection of the rare explosive, if verified, could prove a decisive
point in the investigation. The sources said the
explosive which showed up was not one of the more common ones such as dynamite,
or the plastiques, such as C-4 or semtex. But the sources refused to name
it or the incident in which it had turned up previously.
July 23, 1996 Newsday
The explosive material, which the sources did not
identify by name, is so unusual that federal investigators have only seen
traces of it once before, said one of the sources, who spoke on condition
of anonymity. "The divers reported pitting in the external metal
portion of the section," said one senior federal official. But the official
added that the pitting may merely be a sign of metal stress and, "is not
necessarily related with an explosion."
July 24, 1996 The Jerusalem Post
The suspicions surrounding the crash of TWA Flight 800 in New York have led
to debates on the nature of terrorism. They focus mainly on terrorism linked
to Islamic fundamentalism because, unlike the IRA, the Basque ETA, or the
US militia fringe, Moslem fundamentalists aspire to a global reach. They
blew up an American airliner at Lockerbie, bombed the World Trade Center
and, a couple of weeks ago, hit the US military complex in Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia. So is there really a coherent terrorist plan against American interests
around the world? And who could organize the master plan? Last week, the
London-based Arabic daily, A-Sharq Al-Awsat, published an interview with
the leader of Egypt's Moslem Brotherhood movement,
Mustafa Mashur. He said that the brotherhood
has no international leadership controlling all its activities. At most,
he said, local leaders convene from time to time to exchange views and to
preserve relationships. Mashur went on to say that, after the Moslem Brotherhood
leadership was expelled from Egypt, its birthplace, during Nasser's regime
in the 1950s, it became scattered across the Arab world and beyond. It set
about accommodating itself to native circumstances, operating in each country
according to local possibilities. He said many intelligence services had
tried to pinpoint a world leadership, but to no avail. Yet Cairo remains
one of the brotherhood's most important centers. Palestinian Authority head
Yasser Arafat maintains contact with this movement through its Cairo center.
(But a highly placed PA source said the brotherhood's real headquarters is
in Germany). Mashur's statement that the brotherhood has no worldwide
super-command is probably true. At the same time it cannot be ignored that
those who carried out the Dhahran attack do not lean on Iran, as often stated,
but look within Saudi Arabia, to the Mujahideen, the former American-backed
fighters of the Afghanistan war. They were originally recruited by the heads
of the "Afghan Arabs" who viewed the war in Afghanistan as merely the opening
of a general war against the Christian world (Russian or Western), or the
"Crusaders" as the Moslem fundamentalists prefer to call them, to demonstrate
the historical continuity of their struggle. Chief among them was the
fundamentalist terrorist Usama Bin Ladun. Bin Ladun was last reported somewhere
in Pakistan after being expelled from Sudan, where he found shelter after
the Afghan war. A sure sign that the Dhahran attack points to these formerly
Saudi-funded Mujahideen can be deduced from the tensions that quickly developed
between the FBI investigators sent in to Dhahran and the Saudi authorities.
The Americans got a clear message that the Saudis were concealing key information
from them. The Mujahideen believe they toppled the Soviet Union and that
they can do the same to the equally "Crusader" US. Bin Ladun was most probably
connected with the World Trade Center attack in 1993 those convicted by the
American courts were his colleagues from the time of the Afghan war. One
of those Mujahideen, the notorious Ramzi
Yousef, a Pakistani with Palestinian roots, revealed after his
capture in Pakistan that his motives were mostly Palestinian nationalist.
He wanted the US to pay for the support it extends to Israel. Whatever the
motives, or declared excuses, there is now a new
kind of global terrorism, which ironically the US and Saudis helped fund,
train and motivate in Afghanistan, and which is now coming back to haunt
its former paymasters. Today it is privately financed by shadowy millionaires
much like the villains in the James Bond stories.
July 27, 1996 Los Angeles Times
Government investigators, poring over information from air traffic control
radar and the recently recovered aircraft ''black boxes,'' moved much closer
Friday to concluding that a bomb is the only explanation for the crash of
Trans World Airlines Flight 800. Although the National Transportation Safety
Board and the FBI continued to refuse to say the crash was caused by an explosive
device, a leading investigator said the evidence collected so far is consistent
with a bomb and with no other explanation. .... The investigator said information
from radar and the airplane's two black boxes indicates the plane lost electric
power and began an abrupt descent about 41 seconds
before it was engulfed in a fireball.
He said it appears that an initial explosion shattered the plane's mechanical
equipment and ruptured its fuel tanks, although the fire did not start
immediately because it took time for the fuel to
mix with enough air to cause it to ignite. .... The investigator
said .... the position of two distinct underwater debris fields indicates
that something blasted through the right side of
the aircraft before the rest of the wreckage fell into the sea.
.... Primary radar showed the plane continued at about 400 miles per hour
for ... 41 seconds then disappeared from the screen, engulfed in the fireball.
Much of the wreckage debris is spread in the same direction as the plane
had been flying, the expected pattern caused by the plane's momentum. But
the investigator said there is a smaller debris
field located to the right of the plane's track and behind the position recorded
by the final radar image. He said this could have resulted only if something
had been blown out of the plane at about the time the black boxes and transponder
cut out. The investigator said specialists know of no kind of
mechanical failure that would produce such a debris pattern. ...
The investigator said the information gained from
the black boxes and radar is remarkably consistent with eyewitness accounts,
especially with the version told by nine pilots who were in the air at the
time. At the news briefing, James Kallstrom, the FBI's top official
on the case, said his agents had interviewed a number of witnesses who recalled
seeing something in the air ''ascending''
toward the aircraft, possibly the track of a ground-to-air missile.
July 27, 1996 11 Raby` al-awal 1417 A.H.
11 Av 5756
Olympic Park Bombing
July 29, 1996 Aviation Week & Space Technology
Experts on terrorism believe a shoulder fired SAM is an unlikely weapon since
the shards from a blast could be readily identified and subsequently traced
.....
July 29, 1996 Electronic Telegraph
Issue 437
Federal investigators believe the initial blast destroyed the cockpit and
first-class section .... .... Shrapnel injuries
have been found on the bodies of some first-class passengers and
analysis of radar readings shows that, after the initial explosion, most
of the Boeing 747 flew on under power for between 10 and 12 seconds.
July 31, 1996 Reuters
Samples of apparent residue found on the landing gear have been sent to a
Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratory in Washington to find if they
hold chemical traces of an explosive.
August 1, 1996 CNN
FBI chief (says) U.S. 'under attack' by
terrorists. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee,
Freeh pointed to a series of arrests and convictions since four Islamic
fundamentalists were found guilty in the February 1993 bombing that killed
six people ...at New York's World Trade
Center. He referred to two fatal bombings
in Saudi Arabia ..... and the still unexplained crash of
TWA Flight 800.
August 1, 1996 CNN
At the daily news briefing held by the NTSB and FBI, investigators were asked
Wednesday why they have yet to find chemical or explosive residue on wreckage
or victims' bodies. "I haven't said I haven't found
it. I just haven't commented on it," responded FBI Assistant Director
James Kallstrom.
August 3, 1996 EmergencyNet NEWS Service Daily Report Vol.
2 - 216
The USA Today reported on Friday that classified U.S. intelligence documents
indicate that ....Iran has a network of eleven camps to train terrorists.
It is believed, according to the documents, that the bombers who conducted
the attacks on the U.S. military sites in Saudi Arabia in November of 1995
and on 25 June 1996 were trained at these Iranian terror camps....Two
organizations known as the Organization of Islamic Revolution and
the Hezbollah of Hejaz are said to have received bomb training at
the Imam Ali camp. ...According to the documents, Iranian president Hasemi
Rafsanjani set up the camps two years ago. The instructors in the camps are
from Iran's Revolutionary Guard and intelligence service. All of the terrorist
attacks are said to be approved by Iran's Supreme Council.....Three or four
sources have been telling ENN of a "terrorist summit" that has recently taken
place in Teheran. Israeli intelligence sources have said that attacks "to
be directed primarily against U.S. targets." were discussed at the
meeting.....An official international terrorist organization, represented
by Iran, Libya and Syria, was said to have been formed. It is to be called
the "Movement for Islamic Change."
Other members are said to be from the Hezbollah terrorist organization in
Lebanon and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Later in the day on Friday, U.S.
Secretary of Defense William Perry warned that
"strong action" will be taken against
any nation that is linked to the bombing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
In an interview, Perry said that Great Britain and France have already been
briefed "in general terms" about U.S. plans. The Secretary was asked if that
there may be a connection to Iran and he replied,
"Possibly ... we know that Iran is very active in
international terrorism, some of it linked against the United States. It's
no secret, they have announced that themselves. The Saudis, I think, are
close to completing their investigation on that case and will be announcing
that soon. I anticipate that we will find, when they announce it ... there
will be an international connection, yes." The SecDef said that
he, himself, has not yet come to a final conclusion about who was responsible
for the bombing attack on 25 June 1996, but he called Iran "the leading
candidate" for international terrorism that is directed against the United
States. He said, "If we have compelling evidence
of international sponsorship of that bombing, we will take strong
action."....According to the Defense Secretary, the U.S. is watching
several different groups in the Gulf region very closely, including militant
groups in the Saudi kingdom. He said, "There is direct evidence that some
of these groups are internationally supported. They have support in training,
in the funding, in providing materials to them, maybe even in planning and
directing their operations." ERRI analysts are saying that recent activities
in Washington are ringing "alarm bells", in several quarters throughout the
world.
August 5 1996 International News The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition)
Issue 442
Iran has embarked on the most far-reaching campaign of state-sponsored
terrorism ever conducted against the United States, threatening US airliners,
public buildings with a wave of destructive attacks. US officials
are convinced that the clerical regime in Teheran has made a strategic decision
to escalate its permanent war against the "Great Satan", striking US targets
on American soil for the first time in a systematic way. Although it is too
early to conclude that the crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of New York
was caused by sabotage, the view in Washington is that it was almost certainly
a bomb. Coming just weeks after the Iranian-backed
bombing of the US barracks in Dhahran, which killed 19 American servicemen,
it is now widely suspected that the TWA tragedy is part of Iran's ugly new
campaign. "This is just the
beginning," said Kenneth Timmerman, publisher of the Iran Brief
in Washington. "More aircraft are going to fall
out of the sky." ..... "For 10 years, the attacks against Americans
always took place outside the US - either in Europe or in the Middle East.
Now it's moving here," said Daniel Pipes, author of a book on the Iranian
terror machine. He argued that the mullahs were enraged when the speaker
of the House, Newt Gingrich, threw down the gauntlet last December, after
calling Iran "a permanent, long-term threat to civilised life on this planet".
Gingrich pushed through legislation forcing the CIA to spend $20 million
on a covert operation targeting the Iranian government. Teheran retaliated
immediately, announcing that it would match the funding dollar for dollar
with its own undercover operation against Washington. ... Alarmed by the
regime's fast-track programme to build nuclear weapons, the Clinton
administration imposed a ban in May 1995 on all US trade with Iran. Since
then, it has been in a bidding war with Republicans in Congress, who have
been pushing increasingly tougher measures.Little by little, the noose has
been tightened. In June this year, Washington imposed a "secondary boycott":
French, German, or other companies that do business with Iran will
now be banned from the US. US intelligence sources believe that Iran's president,
Hashemi Rafsanjani, made his strategic decision at the beginning of this
year to strike on American soil. It was driven in part by changes in the
domestic politics of Iran, notably the rise of Ayatollah Ahmed Jannati, leader
of a "Brown Shirt"-style street militia, who has been demanding all-out war
against the US. It may also have been prompted by a perception that the Clinton
administration, for all its tough talk, lacked the will to deploy strong
military force.......Bill Clinton has already burned his fingers once by
allowing Iran to gain a foothold in Bosnia, a costly lesson that has been
well-studied at the White House. Henceforth, US policy will consist of bombs,
bombs, and more bombs, all delivered from a safe distance.
August 5 1996 Electronic Telegraph Issue
442
The Clinton administration is drawing up detailed plans for military strikes
against Iran to punish the Islamic regime for backing terrorist attacks against
US targets. .... William Perry, US Secretary of Defence, has already
briefed the British and French governments "in general terms" about a plan
of attack - expected to be a missile and bombing strike on carefully selected
targets. But hawks in Washington, eager to seize the opportunity for a crippling
blow to Iran's growing military power, are pushing for a Pearl Harbour-style
attack to annihilate the entire Iranian navy and the nuclear weapons programme
of the outcast regime. Newt Gingrich, the House Speaker, called it "intolerable"
that America could only wait while up to 5,000 terrorists were being trained
for attacks on Americans. "We have every right as
a nation to defend ourselves by saying to the Iranian government either you
close those camps down or we will," Mr Gingrich said.
"We do know that international terrorism is almost
entirely subsidised by Iran, and that means that Iran is engaged surreptitiously
in acts of war against the United States." Mr Gingrich spoke as
if offering Mr Clinton the support of the opposition, but his comments could
also be read as a challenge. If evidence mounts
of Iran's sponsorship of international terrorism, and especially in regard
to the TWA Flight 800 crash, Mr Clinton could find himself forced to act
by the weight of public opinion. Mr Perry said that the detonator
and type of explosive used to bomb a US barracks in Saudi Arabia last month
were from military stocks, which suggested a foreign government's involvement.
It was well known that Iran was at the forefront of attacks on American
interests, he said, and promised "strong action" if Teheran is found to be
behind the bombing which killed 19 American servicemen. However, he played
down the likelihood of an imminent military US operation against
Iran..The severity of an attack on Iran could depend
on the outcome of the investigation into TWA Flight 800 ....
FBI agents say they are actively looking to see
if there is a link between the Saudi bomb and the mid-air destruction of
the TWA aircraft. If sabotage is confirmed, the crash would be
the most deadly act of terrorism ever committed in the US. Any shred of evidence
that indicated an Iranian role in the disaster would elicit a ferocious response
from the American military machine. Mr Perry has already announced that Iran
is the "leading candidate" for the recent wave of terrorist acts against
US targets. He said he would elaborate once he received the Saudi government's
report - to be completed later this week - outlining foreign sponsorship
of the Iran-backed terrorist groups operating in the kingdom. Iran's official
news agency accused the US of trumping up terrorism charges to justify an
attack. Iran's permanent mission at the United Nations accused Washington
of trying "to make political gain" from the fate of Flight 800.
"Our power comes neither from training terrorists
nor supporting terrorism, but from our unshakeable commitment to fight [US]
domination," the statement said. There are no doves in Washington
when it comes to Iran. Both Democrats and Republicans
are agreed that devastating action is needed.
August 5 1996 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic
Edition) Issue 442
There will be no shortage of targets if the United States goes ahead with
its plans to retaliate against Iran for continuing to support
international terrorist organisations. .... the Iranians ... provide practical
and financial support to two dissident Saudi groups - the Organisation
of Islamic Revolution and Hizbollah of the Hejaz. Both groups - linked to
Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden,
the Afghan veteran who has threatened to wage an international terrorist
war against the US - have been linked to June's lorry bomb against the American
military base at Dhahran. Members of the two groups have been trained at
the Imam Ali camp on Teheran's outskirts, one of the ayatollahs' main
terrorist-training bases.
August 9, 1996 The Seattle Times.
According to a report in Newsday, the theory that a missile downed the jet
.... remains alive because investigators have chronicled
an "unusual" amount of radar use among slow-moving
ships along the coast for several days before the crash, and have
interviewed credible witnesses who say they saw a fiery streak head toward
the aircraft before it plummeted in flames.
August 12, 1996 TIME Magazine
A well-placed U.S. intelligence source has told
TIME that calls and transmissions tracked by the CIA out of Tehran "have
raised suspicions" that there is an Iranian connection to the
crash. The CIA is also looking at intelligence on a meeting of
terrorist leaders in Iran the month before the crash to see if any green
light was given for the attack. "There is a hard
look being taken at the Iran possibility," says a senior U.S.
intelligence official. However, he adds. the intelligence gathered so far
is "vague, nothing solid." Even so, he says, it is "tantalizing". the Iranian
links to terrorism were further highlighted last week when Defense Secretary
William Perry, in a National Public Radio interview, hinted that an ongoing
Saudi investigation of the June 25 bombing of a U.S. military complex in
Dhahran may "possibly" point to Iran's involvement. He suggested that the
U.S. might have to consider "strong action".
August 13, 1996 CNN
The FBI forensic lab in Washington has found chemical explosives residue
inside the passenger cabin of TWA Flight 800, sources told CNN Friday.
Investigators told CNN the chemical PETN was found
on the right side of the forward passenger cabin between rows 15 and 25.
The PETN residue suggests that the explosives plastique or detcord, or possibly
even a missile, were involved in the crash, the sources said.
August 14, 1996 NY Times
During the last two days ... investigators discovered that some pieces of
the fuel tank were charred or covered with soot from a fire, while other
pieces showed little or no significant damage, suggesting the tank did not
explode. One official said recovered parts of the fuel tank are in "pristine
condition."
August 19, 1996 Aviation Week & Space Technology
The debris exhibits a confusing, and sometimes, apparently contradictory
array of damage. Sections that show extensive fire damage and crushing are
adjacent to ones that show no fire damage or distortion. Metal on one side
of a fracture has been found that has heavy fire damage, while the mating
piece of the fracture is clean. ... Based on radar data from the flight,
investigators believe that debris blew out of the right side of the
747 at 13,700 ft., before the aircraft began falling to the sea.
August 23, 1996 Jane's Defence Weekly
Israel believes that Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon have amassed
a stock of 1,000 unguided rockets, mostly from Iran. Thirty are said
to be for a new 240 mm system, able to reach 40 km and hit Israeli coastal
cities.
August 23, 1996 NY Times
Stinger missiles from Afghanistan might have made their way into the U.S.
was a long-standing assumption within law enforcement circles.
The presence on the crash scene of officials with
the National Security Agency and the Defense intelligence Agency reinforced
in some minds that there might have been some intercepted intelligence regarding
a missile attack.... Mr. Kallstrom ordered his agents to research the Mistral,
a French-made missile that could be launched from a tripod and
that would have had the range capability.
August 23, 1996 NY Times
Chemists at the FBI crime laboratory ...have found traces of PETN
...between rows 17 and 27 .... senior investigators said... that they are
not ready to declare that the crash was the result of a criminal act until
they can say for sure whether the explosion was caused by a bomb or a missile
... Five days after the crash, a chemical test indicated
a trace of PETN on ...the right wing where it met
the fuselage.... By saying that the FBI will not .. declare that
the plane was brought down by a criminal act until they have enough evidence
to present a strong legal case, investigators are raising an evidentiary
threshold that could take ... months to meet.
August 23, 1996 CNN Web posted at: 7:45 p.m. EDT
Minute traces of an explosive substance "of unknown origin" were found on
wreckage from TWA Flight 800, but investigators have no evidence to prove
a bomb caused the jet to crash, the top FBI investigator said Friday.
August 23, 1996 NEWSDAY
D.C. Lab Tests Suggest: Explosive Residue FBI chemists have found possible
traces of a plastic explosive on a small piece of wreckage from TWA 800,
a senior federal law enforcement source said yesterday. The discovery, made
by workers at the FBI laboratory in Washington, came from debris in the Boeing
747's passenger cabin, in the area where the two
wings join the fuselage, the source said.
August 24, 1996 CNN Web posted at: 11:00 p.m. EDT
If explosive residue on wreckage from TWA Flight 800 is not enough to prove
sabotage, then what is? To make such a determination, the FBI says it needs
to see physical signs of bomb-type damage amid the wreckage of the plane,"You
will have marks on the metal that show stress and impingement of small explosive
fragments. A pitting or 'cratering' effect can sometimes be seen." That's
what the FBI is looking for now. Asked if any evidence of pitting had been
found, FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom said,
"I'm not going to answer that, which neither confirms
nor denies that we have."
August 24, 1996 NEWSDAY
The chemical tests have been confirmed by "another
laboratory of great reputation" outside the federal government,
Kallstrom said, and he added that the chances of a false positive result
-- like the one that found PETN in a field test on Long Island less than
a week after the crash -- are "slim to none.'"
August 25, 1996 Times of London
U.S. officials are investigating reports that Islamic terrorists have smuggled
Stinger ground-to-air missiles into the United States from Pakistan.
Senior Iranian sources close to the fundamentalist
regime in Tehran claimed this weekend that TWA flight 800 was shot down last
month by one of three
shoulder-fired Stingers of the type
used by Islamic guerrillas during the Afghanistan war. The sources said the
missiles arrived in America seven months ago after being shipped from
Karachi via Rotterdam and on to the Canadian port of Halifax. They claimed
an Egyptian fundamentalist group backed by Iran was responsible for
smuggling the weapons across the Canadian border into the United States.
The group, the Gama'a al-Islamiya, comprises followers of
Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Egyptian
cleric jailed in the United States over the 1993 New York World Trade Center
bombing. A senior White House official responsible for counter-terrorism
told The Sunday Times this weekend that he had seen a report that a Stinger
missile had been smuggled into the United States from Pakistan. The
official, who is involved in collating intelligence relating to the TWA inquiry
for the White House, said investigators were aware of reports that Stingers
may have been smuggled into the country.... If a Stinger was the cause of
this, our first theory would be that it came from Afghanistan." The official
was commenting on reports from Tehran that claimed
several groups funded by the religious authorities
in Iran are active in the United States. The reports claim one previously
unknown underground group called Falakh may have as many as 50 highly trained
terrorists in the country.
August 26, 1996 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic
Edition) Issue 460
FBI agents are ...re-examining evidence from a New York trial that reveals
in chilling detail how Islamic militants have perfected sophisticated techniques
for bombing civilian airliners. Three Muslim fundamentalists are on
trial for an audacious plan to destroy 12 American-owned Boeing 747s in a
series of attacks in the Far East during just two days in January 1995. Had
the plan succeeded, as many as 4,000 passengers would have perished in the
most sustained assault to have been carried out against civilian aircraft
in peacetime...... The alleged mastermind of the plan was
Ramzi Yousef......the alleged
brain behind the New York World Trade Centre bombing..... the detail
emerging about what caused the destruction of TWA 800 bears an uncanny
resemblance to the techniques it is claimed Yousef ... planned to use in
... bombing blitz of American 747s flying out of airports in the Far East.
A stable form of liquid nitroglycerine was carried in a bottle labelled
as contact-lens solution and not detectable by airport X-ray machines......To
make sure their plan worked, the bombers are said to have carried out a "dry
run" on a Philippines Airlines flight when a Japanese businessmen had the
bottom half of his body blown away ......few will be surprised if the culprits
are somehow linked to the evidence that has been produced at Yousef's New
York trial.
August 26, 1996 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic
Edition) Issue 460
FBI looks to Muslim trial for TWA bomb clue....traces of nitroglycerine,
in addition to .. a chemical used in plastic explosive, have been detected
on wreckage from TWA Flight 800. .... the discovery of the nitroglycerine
.... is also baffling investigators. "The amazing
thing is that nitroglycerine is water soluble, so to get a positive test
result from a piece of wreckage that was under water, is kind of amazing,"
one of the investigators said yesterday. "Right now, we aren't
sure what to think." .... Officially, the FBI is refusing to comment on ...
reports that nitroglycerine had been discovered. But it did confirm ... that
traces of.... PETN (penta-erythritol tetranitrate), had been found ....
Nitroglycerin ..... has been used before in a terrorist attack on a Boeing
747. PETN, often used with other explosives and chemicals to make it malleable,
was used in the Lockerbie bomb and has been found in at least two
other explosive devices on American aircraft.
August 29, 1996 14 Raby` al-THaany 1417 A.H.
14 Elul 5756
Reported in the NY Times on September 9, 1996
The pilot of an American Airlines jet reports that
he saw a missile off the wing of his 757 plane while he was traveling from
San Juan to Boston. The plane was over Wallops Island, VA. According to the
NTSB's report on the near-miss, "the missile was a Black Brant V missile,
with an inert payload and was launched ... in support of the Department of
Defense."
August 30, 1996 NY Times
Federal investigators have created a ...computer simulation of the final
moments of TWA 800 showing that almost everything ...first... blown... from
the airplane came from... the right side of the jet, above and ahead of
the wing. ... The... traces of ..PETN ... were also discovered in this
general area. ..... An aviation expert and a law enforcement official who
is an explosives specialist both said they saw
several fist-size holes that had been punched through
the backs of two seats on the far right side of row 23. The holes in the
sheet metal on the seat back are pushed through from the rear .... and row
24, the seats just behind them is missing ..... traces of ...PETN
... were also found in this general area.
August 30, 1996 CNN
Law enforcement sources said the earlier trace evidence was residue from
PETN, a chemical ingredient of plastique or plastic explosives. Those traces
of PETN were found between rows 15 and 25 on the right side of the passenger
cabin. FBI and National Transportation Safety Board investigators said in
a joint statement Friday: "Based on all of the scientific and forensic evidence
analyzed to date, we still cannot conclude that TWA Flight 800 crashed as
the result of an explosive device." They said evidence of "physical damage
or patterns characteristic of a detonation" still must be found before they
can say with certainty that a bomb or missile brought down the Boeing 747
bound from New York to Paris.
August 30, 1996 CNN Web posted at: 7:00 p.m. EDT
Additional traces of explosive residue
have been found in the wreckage of TWA Flight 800, federal investigators
said Friday, but that does not prove the July 17 crash was caused by a bomb.
A source close to the investigation told CNN the residue came from the same
explosive detected in laboratory tests on microscopic evidence last week,
but was found in a different part of the
plane, making it difficult to draw a pattern. The source didn't
say where the recent residue was detected. A source close to the investigation
told CNN the residue came from the same explosive detected in laboratory
tests on microscopic evidence last week, but was found in a different part
of the plane, making it difficult to draw a pattern. The source didn't say
where the recent residue was detected.
August 30, 1996 CNN
Two sources close to the probe told CNN it was RDX. RDX and PETN -
traces of the latter were found on TWA debris earlier this month --combine
to make Semtex, the explosive used in the Pan Am crash in 1988 that killed
270 people. That crash was blamed on terrorists. FBI scientists found the
trace of PETN on a section of flooring from the center of the TWA Boeing
747 jetliner. According to one source, the RDX was
found on a curtain used in the cargo compartment of the jumbo jet. This source
said the curtain was thought to have come from a cargo hold at the rear of
the plane. (Note from website
author: There is substantial evidence that two missiles brought down the
aircraft. One of the missiles exploded/struck the rear of the plane. The
findings of RDX and PETN in different parts of the plane also fits the two
missile explanation. See for example Two
Projectiles and
Report
to the Subcommittee on Aviation on the Crash of TWA Flight
800
)
September 4, 1996 CNN
The source said RDX was found on a curtain that would have been near row
40 in the passenger cabin, an area located behind the wings. The PETN found
earlier was on a piece of the flooring in the mid-section of the plane, on
the right side between rows 17 and 27 which begin just ahead of the front
edge of the wings.
September 15, 1996 The Telegraph (U.K.
Electronic Edition) Issue 480
According to Dr Mylroie, the attempt to blow up the twin towers of the World
Trade Centre in New York on February 26, 1993 .... was an act of Iraqi
state-sponsored terrorism conducted by proxies. After studying the telephone
records and document archives from the trial, she has concluded that the
mastermind said to be behind the bombing, a shadowy figure called
Ramsi Yousef, was working for Iraqi
intelligence. The Justice Department did not address this issue in the official
investigation. It concluded that the bombing was the work of Islamic
fundamentalists loyal to a blind Egyptian cleric. Jim Fox, then head of the
New York FBI office, suspected Iraqi involvement but says that the Washington
headquarters refused to look at the evidence. Increasingly, the question
being asked in Washington every time a bomb goes off is which of the pariah
states is guilty - Iran or Iraq? Ramsi Yousef was recently convicted for
plotting to blow up 12 US jumbo jets in a single day in the Far East. The
presumption that he was a religious militant does not bear scrutiny. Yousef
had a Filipino girlfriend and was known to frequent nightclubs when he was
living in Manila. It is also inconceivable that he was working for the Shiite
regime in Iran. Yousef is a Pakistani Baluch of Sunni background, an anti-Iranian
ethnic group that is frequently used by the Iraqi intelligence services for
covert operations. It suggests that the Clinton administration is at last
beginning to treat terrorist attacks as potential acts of warfare, carried
out by enemy powers, that must be traced to their source, rather than as
criminal acts that can be left to prosecutors. Increasingly, the question
being asked in Washington every time a bomb goes off is which of the pariah
states is guilty - Iran or Iraq? And when will it strike next?
September 20, 1996 CNN
As part of a training exercise, law enforcement authorities carried packaged
explosives aboard the TWA Boeing 747 that burst into flames off Long Island
two months ago, the FBI confirmed Friday. Several packages of explosives
were used to train bomb-sniffing dogs in St. Louis six weeks before the July
17 crash of TWA Flight 800; all the materials were removed after the training
session, agents said. Investigators, who requested anonymity, insisted
to CNN that the training exercise had nothing to do with the explosion.
September 22, 1996 The New York Post
More than 150 credible witnesses - including
several scientists and business executives - have told the FBI and military
experts they saw a missile destroy TWA 800.
"Some of these people are extremely, extremely
credible," a top federal official said.
"When we asked what they saw and where they saw
it, the witnesses out east pointed to the west, and the people to the west
pointed to the east, " ...FBI technicians mapped the various paths
- points in the sky where the witnesses said they saw the rising "flare-like"
object - and determined that the triangulated convergence point was virtually
where the jumbo jet initially exploded. Struck by the number and confidence
of the witnesses, the FBI sat down many of the witnesses with U.S. military
experts, who debriefed them and independently confirmed for the FBI that
their descriptions matched surface-to-air missile attacks.
"The military experts told us that what the witnesses
were describing was consistent with a missile," a federal official
acknowledged. "They told us, 'You know what they
are describing is a missile' "... Investigators are reviewing
an anonymous threat received after the October 1, 1995 conviction of radical
sheik Omar Abdel Rahman .... the threat was that a New York airport or jetliner
would be attacked in retaliation ........
September 23, 1996 Aviation Week and Space Technology
Investigators are puzzled by the damage just aft of the second main-cabin
doors and forward of the wing leading edges. The structure and skin
here was blown away in small pieces almost entirely around the circumference
of the fuselage..... That debris and cabin contents from that area were found
.... in the debris area closest to JFK airport ... and is believed to contain
debris that came off the aircraft first.
September 23, 1996 Associated Press
Investigators reconstructing the debris say there is a hole going into the
plane and a hole going out of the plane .... a source...said on condition
of anonymity ..."There's metal bent in, metal bent
out. Metal you can't tell. I see a hole going in and a hole going out
....."
October 7, 1996 The Telegraph (U.K.
Electronic Edition) Issue 502
Bombers fail to undermine the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia is waiting for
its next bomb. Platoons of heavily armed soldiers ring the royal palaces
in the capital, Riyadh; security guards cruise its opulent shopping centres,
and the 5,000 American servicemen who are the focus of the terrorists' wrath
are moving to a new impenetrable compound in the heart of the desert. ...
From his exile in Afghanistan, the government's most feared enemy ... Osama
bin Laden, has declared jihad, or holy war, against the foreign presence.
Quietly, embassies and barracks are tightening security......Pessimists draw
close parallels between Saudi Arabia and its neighbour Iran, where the
Western-supported Shah was overthrown in 1979 by a broad-based Islamic revolution
......
October 8, 1996 The New York Times
For several weeks, some investigators pursuing the theory that a missile
brought down the plane were intrigued by a
persistent pile of unidentified metal
shards, and thought they might be missile parts. But experts who
began examining these pieces ...said they had not found any that appeared
to come from a missile.
October 13, 1996 EmergencyNet News Special Report
(ENN)
According to the independent SNS news service and several other Mid-East
sources, Israeli security officials have announced that intelligence information
that they have gathered points to an increased likelihood of planned attacks
against Israeli targets in coming days. According to intelligence officials
there, Hamas and other Islamic extremist affiliated terrorists in the US,
and elsewhere, have been distributing information about threats and potential
attacks, via the internet. At the same time, similar news of US targets
being threatened have reached ENN from the US, the Middle East, and UK sources.
These threats have come from Hamas, Hizbullah, the radical Islamist Hizb
al-Tahrir (Liberation Party) in Jordan, and the anti-Saudi/US groups:
Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights and "Legion of the martyr
Abdullah al-Huzaifi," from both outside and inside of Saudi Arabia......
ERRI analysts are urging caution and special alertness
during the period from now until the U.S. elections in November.
October 19, 1996 The New York Times
...about 20 percent of the tank's exterior is still missing, including about
5 percent of its top and bottom. The missing section of the tank's top is
located in the upper right corner, near where the plane split in two ....
the gap on the bottom is also located on the right side of the aircraft,
slightly behind the hole in the top of the tank...
October 27, 1996 Electronic Telegraph Issue
522
Tens of thousands of supporters of Islamic fundamentalist parties will attempt
to storm Pakistan's parliament in Islamabad today to demand the resignation
of the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and her government. As hundreds of
mullahs were arrested across the country before the rally, paramilitary troops
and police have been deployed across the capital to prevent the protesters
from even reaching Islamabad's outskirts....... Last week, when the prime
minister rose in the National Assembly to defend herself, her face was drawn
and exhausted. But her words were defiant. "I will
not resign under any pressure. I pledge with the people of Pakistan that
their sister along with her colleagues will confront the conspiracies,"
she said ...... Ms Bhutto has been saved only by the opposition's
inability to unite, even though all parties demand her resignation. Saturday's
strike was led by the 14-party secular opposition alliance led by the former
prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. Today's rally has been organized by the
Jamaat-e-Ialami and other Islamic parties.
November 3, 1996 The Electronic Telegraph.
A race between terrorists and the Western powers for control of a huge cache
of missiles is underway in the arms bazaars of Afghanistan. The hunt, that
has pitched the resources of intelligence services against terrorist groups
and pariah states, is for an arsenal of shoulder-launched Stinger anti-aircraft
missiles. The weapons were sent into Afghanistan by the CIA during the Soviet
occupation and were a key factor in tipping the balance of firepower against
the Red Army. Now the West fears that, if they fall into the wrong hands,
the Stingers could turn the tables in future conflicts or prove devastating
if used by terror groups against civilian aviation. ..... The CIA has spent
more than £70 million in a belated and often bungled operation to buy
back the missiles. As a result, the weapons are fetching up to £200,000
each on the Afghan black market - 10 times their official "retail" price
- and have proved lucrative investments for their current owners, a mixture
of warlords, black marketeers and drug barons. ....
There is evidence that Afghan military commanders
have been only too eager to sell them to embassies in Kabul such as the North
Koreans' and the Iranians'. The two pariah states are believed
to have bought 40. .... "The Stinger is a status symbol weapon and would
be a significant weapon for any terrorist group," said Damon Bristow of the
Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. "With little training
it can bring down any aircraft. The CIA has botched its shopping trip in
Afghanistan." When the CIA first sent covert shipments of missiles to Afghanistan
through Pakistan in June 1986, it kept a check of their serial numbers and
distribution. But at least 1,000 had been sent by April 1988 and the Americans
now admit to having no idea what became of most of them. ..... "The Stingers
do need to be maintained, and would need battery packs and trigger mechanisms
checked," said Tony Cullen, editor of Jane's Land Based Air Defence. "But
if they have been kept properly the weapons will still function. They were
designed to be portable and withstand rough treatment. Their other attraction
is that they are simple to use. You aim and fire. "
"The Israelis found Stingers held by Hizbollah,
American Special Forces found the wreckage of some in Iranian patrol boats
destroyed in helicopter attacks in the Gulf war and the Tamils
have used them in the Sri Lankan civil war." The FBI is still unsure whether
a heat-seeking missile might have brought down TWA flight 800, the civilian
airliner that crashed earlier this year in the sea near New York.
November 6, 1996 Jane's Defence Weekly
Iran has developed a 240 mm artillery rocket with a range of over 40 km.
Allegedly supplied to Hezbollah, FADJR-3 has the same calibre, range
and warhead weight as three known North Korean systems.
November 9, 1996 St. Louis Post Dispatch
Some TWA Pilots....who would not identify themselves, say investigators and
Pentagon sources have told them recovered wreckage backs the idea that the
Navy is responsible. Despite firm denials from federal officials, some TWA
pilots say they are convinced that Navy gunners accidentally shot down TWA
Flight 800. The pilots, who refused to reveal their names for fear of reprisal,
on Friday said members of the crash investigation committee and sources in
the Pentagon had told them that undisclosed recovered wreckage supported
the Navy missile theory. One TWA pilot said he had flown Flight 800 from
New York to Paris on July 16 and since the explosion had worked to gather
information about the explosion from friends within the investigation committee.
The TWA veteran of almost 20 years said a source on the committee had told
him investigators had found a hole in the center of the aircraft they
believed was caused by a missile. .... Another
TWA pilot of eight years said he had heard strong hints from "high level
sources in the Pentagon" that a missile was accidentally fired at the airplane.
The area in which Flight 800 exploded was a known military testing
area, three pilots said. "At least nine out of 10
pilots will tell you they believe this was a missile," said a
TWA pilot of three years. "We know of military practices where they will
lock (missile systems) onto commercial aircraft for testing, but then do
not detonate the missile." ...... Federal officials on Friday unconditionally
rejected public relations executive Pierre Salinger's allegations that "friendly
fire" destroyed TWA Flight 800. Most of the TWA pilots interviewed Friday
said Salinger's announcement only reinforced a belief they had held since
military personnel in New York reported what they believed to be a missile
at the time of the crash. Many said they believed people who had information
concerning the explosion, including those who reported seeing a missile,
had been pressured to remain silent.
November 10, 1996 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic
Edition) Issue 536
US base placed on alert over Islamic bomb threat. American troops and diplomats
based in Saudi Arabia have this weekend been placed on high security alert
following intelligence reports that Islamic militants are planning a fresh
wave of bomb attacks. The report, which coincides with the anniversary of
the bombing of an American military complex in Riyadh last year, follows
a massive security clampdown by the Saudi authorities that has resulted in
the arrest of 40 Islamic dissidents. All the estimated 10,000 American personnel
in Saudi Arabia have been ordered not to leave their residential compounds
except in extreme emergencies. .... According to American intelligence reports,
Islamic militants are planning a new round of bomb attacks against US
targets to show that their terrorist capability has not been affected
by the Saudi crackdown. (Note from website
author: This attack took place on November 16, 1996 when an attempt
was made to shoot down TWA 884, New York to Tel Aviv - See below and see
also The Tale of the
Tapes) The militants also want to put pressure
on Washington to abandon its long-standing support for the Saudi royal family.
.... The Saudis now believe that they have detained the ringleaders of the
Dhahran attack, including the man who drove the explosive-laden vehicle that
was detonated just outside the military complex. Despite mounting speculation
that the group responsible for the bombing had been trained and equipped
by Iran, the Saudis are refusing to provide any details of the evidence they
have acquired from confessions and other sources.
November 16, 1996 22:00 (EST) 4 Rajab
1417 A.H. 5 Kislev
5757
Co-pilot of Pakistan International
Airlines Flight 712 Leaving Kennedy at 9:25pm, bound for Frankfurt saw
an orange light coming from the left hand side to the right hand side of
the airplane. The object was 3 - 4 miles in front of the aircraft and above
it. TWA 884 following behind was diverted onto another departure
track
November 17, 1996 WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV reports that last night Pakistani International
Airlines flight 712 radioed Logan International (Boston) that a missile had
just flown by their plane (the story implied 'just missing them')
...Boston confirmed 'two unidentified blips' on radar at the same
time as the PIA report.
November 17, 1996 Associated Press
FBI spokesman Joseph Valiquette said Sunday, "At this point we don't know
what, if anything, was seen." Shah (pilot of PIA 712) said they were told
by Boston air traffic controllers that there were no military exercises in
the area. He also said the pilots were interviewed by officials with the
U.S. Embassy in Frankfurt... A TWA plane flying immediately behind the
Pakistanis jet Saturday made a similar sighting and asked to turn around
.... The TWA plane was rerouted and the air
corridor used by the Pakistan Airlines flight was closed.
December 12, 1996 Associated Press
The new, more violent face of terrorism in the 1990s can be summed up in
a single word - 'revenge' - an FBI assistant director (Kallstrom)
said in a speech at a synagogue Tuesday.
December 12, 1996 1 SHa`baan 1417 A.H. 2
Tevet 5757
A Saudi Arabian Airlines
crew reported sighting a bright greenish object streaking by their plane
as it approached Kennedy Airport Thursday morning. It was approaching Kennedy
airport, 15 miles south west of East Hampton, at about 12,000 feet when the
object appeared on radar. At least one crew member saw the object from the
cockpit window for about two seconds.
December 12, 1996 N.Y. Times
The NY Times publishes a diagram provided by the NTSB showing the sequence
in which the Boeing 747 came apart. The debris which fell from the aircraft
first came from the region to the rear, and including, the R2 hatch just
forward of the wing. The nose section fell next and the remainder of
the aircraft, including the center fuel tank, fell last. (Subsequent photos
of reconstructed wreckage show an apparent exit hole on the starboard side
of the aircraft where the aircraft apparently split apart and which exhibits
no fire damage forward of the split and extensive fire damage aft of the
split).
December 15, 1996 N.Y. Times
...at 2 a.m. the next day, top intelligence and security officials were told
in a video-conference from the White House situation room that radar tapes
showed an object headed at the plane before it exploded. Days later, the
object was found to be an electronic anomaly.
December 17, 1996 The Washington Times
An official with the Defense Intelligence Agency, spy arm of the Pentagon,
has informed congressional staff members that, in his opinion, a shoulder-fired
missile brought down TWA Flight 800. The same DIA official, described as
an expert in missile technology, told the staff members last week that he
personally was called in by the FBI in the days following the explosion of
the TWA jet to assist with witness interviews, a source present for the
congressional briefing told Inside the Beltway yesterday. ......
"In his opinion, the plane was brought down by at
least one shoulder-fired missile," said the congressional source,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "When he
said that, we all took a deep
breath," the source added.