Database of Events from January 1997

sitemap Database of Events from January 1997 - June 1997

The Hull Thread

Chronology of Events From January 1997 - June 1997

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January 3, 1997 Excerpted from ENN Daily Intelligence Report -Vo.3, No. 003
Alarm bells are ringing this morning throughout the Emergency Response & Research Institute's (ERRI) computer operation center. Incident reports continue to pour in from Washington, DC, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, Hebron, Israel, Damascus, Syria, and other pressure points that suggest that America should be at a heightened state of alert for possible terrorist action. The ERRI threat computer currently indicates an 88% likelihood of an attack on U.S. targets, somewhere in the world, within the next 30 days. ....The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning for Americans traveling to the Mid-East, urging caution in public places and on public transportation.

January 12, 1997 Electronic Telegraph Issue 597
Iran is planning a fresh wave of terrorist attacks throughout Europe using purpose-built "super-mortars"..... developed specially by Iran's Organisation of Military Industry for terrorist operations. The 320mm mortar, which can be dismantled and transported in lorries and is considerably more powerful than the conventional weapon ..... ........ Reports received by Western intelligence agencies suggest that Iran has dispatched 15 similar weapons to terror cells throughout Europe..... "The Iranians are keen to deploy their super-mortars throughout Europe....Western intelligence agencies have been closely monitoring the activities of suspected Iranian terrorist cells in Europe after a prototype of the mortar weapon was discovered in an Iranian freighter ....... on docking in Antwerp last year. ... A team of international intelligence officials, including British and US technical experts, studied the mortar parts for several months and concluded they belonged to an exceptionally powerful weapon Iran has developed with terrorist operations in mind. American intelligence officials fear the weapon might be used to attack US bases in the Middle East. William Perry, the outgoing US Defence Secretary, ordered American military personnel in Saudi Arabia to relocate from Dhahran .... to a remote desert air base .... at the end of last year to increase their protection from the weapon. .... The launchers weigh more than half a ton, while the mortar rounds each contain more than 250lb of explosives. .... The Iranians were also embarrassed by the seizure of their prototype super-mortar by Belgian officials last year, especially as two senior Iranian intelligence officials were on board the freighter when it was searched in Antwerp.

January 19, 1997 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 604
Syrian intelligence officers played a key role in last year's bombing of the American military base in Saudi Arabia in which 19 US servicemen died. This is one of the central conclusions that has been reached by two inquiries into the bombing conducted by American and Saudi officials ......... After the bombing, a key Saudi dissident suspect fled to Syria to seek sanctuary. But when Saudi investigators asked Syria to hand him over, the suspect was killed by Syrian intelligence to prevent him from disclosing details of Syria's involvement in the attack...........News of Syria's involvement has caused alarm in Washington. It is one reason why details of the lengthy inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which sent a team of specialists to Dhahran, have not been made public. ....... Iran provides training and support for numerous Arab terrorists, including two groups of Saudi dissidents which have been involved in previous attacks within the kingdom: the Organisation of Islamic Revolution of Jezier al-Arab, and the Hizbollah of the Hejez, both outlawed in Saudi Arabia. ....... the Saudis were put in contact with Osama bin Laden, a 40-year-old Islamic fundamentalist terrorist. bin Laden, who works for Iranian intelligence, is a fierce opponent of both the Saudi regime and America's presence in the Gulf. bin Laden had recently taken up residence in Peshawar, on Pakistan's north-west frontier, where he fought with the Muhajideen during the Afghan civil war............ Any doubts about bin Laden's involvement in the Dhahran attack were removed by an interview he gave in Peshawar shortly afterwards. He said: "The Saudi bombing marked the beginning of war between Muslims and the United States".

January 21, 1997
NOTICE: CONTINUATION OF EMERGENCY REGARDING TERRORISTS WHO THREATEN TO DISRUPT THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS - THE WHITE HOUSE - Office of the Press Secretary
On January 23, 1995, by Executive Order 12947, I declared a national emergency to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by grave acts of violence committed by foreign terrorists that disrupt the Middle East peace process. By Executive Order 12947 of January 23, 1995, I blocked the assets in the United States, or in the control of United States persons, of foreign terrorists who threaten to disrupt the Middle East peace process. I also prohibited transactions or dealings by United States persons in such property. Because terrorists activities continue to threaten the Middle East peace process and vital interests of the United States in the Middle East, the national emergency declared on January 23, 1995, and the measures that took effect on January 24, 1995, to deal with that emergency must continue in effect beyond January 23, 1997. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing the national emergency with respect to foreign terrorists who threaten to disrupt the Middle East peace process. This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress. WILLIAM J. CLINTON

February 7, 1997 28 RamaDHaan 1417 A.H. 30 Shevet 5757
New York Area Event # 6
Passenger from JFK to Atlanta on Delta Flight 592 observes a missile/rocket.

February 21, 1997 ENN Daily Intelligence Report Vol. 3, No.052
According to reports from the British television documentary show, "Dispatches", and the Reuter's News Service, Osama bin Laden, Saudi dissident exile and alleged Islamic Fundamentalist terror financier, has again threatened United States forces in Saudi Arabia. In a television interview from Afghanistan, Bin Laden said that 1996 attacks on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran and a November, 1995 military assistance unit in Riyadh were carried out as "a warning to Washington." Bin Laden went on to threaten additional attacks on U.S. personnel, unless all American and allied military forces are immediately withdrawn from Saudi Arabia. ...... terrorist financiers like Bin Laden may be part of an emerging trend in "stateless warfare", where the insurgent objectives and policies of identifiable nation-states such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and others are being carried out by specially put together teams of "deniable" political and religious fanatics. These terrorists, after carrying out a terrorist act, can easily melt back into the civilian population of any sympathetic nation and make it next to impossible for the United States or her allies to trace and "legally" take action against the nation that actually condoned or sponsored the atrocity. The resulting circumstances of this trend may explain the difficulty we have seen encountered by the FBI investigation of .... several other recent terrorist acts .... "There is no recognizable cell/group before the attack, and there is no recognizable cell or group after the attack...they only exist as an very compartmentalized organization during the planning and conduct of the operation,......"This makes detection, prevention or apprehension very difficult, at best...and limits the public ability of the victim nation to engage in legitimate retaliation for what could be considered 'acts of war'."

March 10, 1997 Aviation Week and Space Technology
Two NY Air National Guard pilots with the best view of the crash of TWA 800 ....... One believes the airliner was struck by a fast-moving object coming from the east, while the other saw a fiery trail from the west.... Meyer's attention was first called to the area ...."by a streak of light moving from my right (west) to my left (east)," the same direction as the TWA flight, he said.....Baur, on the left side of the cockpit, saw a streak moving from left to right toward the approaching TWA aircraft before the initial explosion. The streak of light that Meyer saw .....was red-orange in color .....there was what Meyer describes as a hard, very sudden, yellowish-white explosion that looked identical to the detonation of an antiaircraft shell ....."It left a cloud of smoke just like a flak explosion does," Meyer said. "One to two seconds later, there was a second, hard explosion almost pure white in color ... almost immediately there was a third explosion and fireball....Baur also saw three explosions ...he contends that they started from left (east) and went to the right (west)....

March 10, 1997 The Press-Enterprise
Solid fuel to propel missiles is not an everyday commodity .... but the basic recipe remains the same ... "If you picked up a piece of the stuff it would look like hard rubberized material," .....James Sanders ...acquired a sample from TWA 800 seats embedded with red residue. He had the sample analyzed ad is convinced laboratory tests reveal solid fuel left a telltale wake through the plane..... The rubber, in liquid form, is the base into which the fuel is mixed before being poured into a container where it hardens into the solid fuel. "The rubber bonds the material together so it doesn't fragment." (Note from author: the reddish residue was apparently found embedded in only 15 seats of the aircraft from rows 17 - 19 and debris found closest to Kennedy Airport, and therefore ejected from the plane first, included seats from rows 17 through 19. The plane's front section broke off just forward of the residue trail).

March 10, 1997 The Associated Press
Newly disclosed evidence "points to a missile" .... the Press-Enterprise reported today. The evidence includes reddish residue found on several seat backs that laboratory analysis showed to be "consistent with solid missile fuel" ingredients. .... James Kallstrom ...confirming that the reddish residue was found on seats (denied) that it had anything to do with missiles. "There's a logical explanation but I'm not going to get into it," Kallstrom said.

March 11, 1997 The Associated Press
Federal investigators ... disputed the latest report that TWA Flight 800 may have been downed by a missile, saying the conclusions of a newspaper account are not supported by the facts ... the Press-Enterprise of Riverside, California, said newly disclosed evidence "points to a missile" .... the newspaper cited reddish stains on seat fabric that it said contained chemicals consistent with solid-fuel propellant.

March 12, 1997 The Associated Press
An Air National Guardsman who witnessed the explosion of TWA Flight 800 repeatedly told authorities he thought a missile had struck the plane .... After searching for survivors the night of the crash, Capt. Chris Baur, a helicopter pilot, returned to his base and "told officials immediately he thought he saw a missile" ... A NTSB investigator who interviewed Baur said that what the pilot saw could be explained by mechanical malfunction that might have created "a tongue of flame coming from the aircraft".

March 13, 1997 The Associated Press
The FBI agent in charge of the TWA Flight 800 investigation acknowledged for the first time Thursday that the plane could have been brought down by a shoulder-fired terrorist missile. But so far, there is no evidence to prove that theory, James Kallstrom said. "This terrible, terrible tragedy was not caused by our military" ...... Kallstrom said that it is "technically possible'' a terrorist using a shoulder-fired, Stinger-type missile could have caused the tragedy, and he said investigators are examining that possibility ........ he noted that similar missiles have been used to down more than 25 commercial planes over the past two decades in places such as Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. ..... "There were too many people who describe strange events like flares and streaks of light in the sky to ignore the missile possibility", Kallstrom said.

March 13, 1997 The Associated Press
Pierre Salinger today offered an expanded version of this theory that a Navy missile shot down TWA Flight 800. "We have now reached the point where we are totally sure what we are saying is true". Salinger ...said that this time, he had absolute proof. ... At the news conference, Salinger and Sommer claimed the missile was fired during a "super-secret" U.S. Navy exercise of Long Island, NY and was meant to target a Tomahawk missile, but hit Flight 800 instead.... Salinger's report says that witnesses monitoring secret Navy anti-terrorism exercises reportedly heard a male voice say, "Oh, my God, I just hit that plane", and that another sailor reportedly confessed to his father, "Dad, we shot it down."

March 14, 1997 The NY Times
Loeb ... said lab tests were complete on red residues on passenger seats that investigators had long assumed were from adhesives, but others had said were exhaust from a missile. "We have demonstrated that adhesive is adhesive," he said.

March 16, 1997 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 660
An internal memo from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), dated November 15, complains that sensitive radar tapes were given to the White House before they were provided to crash investigators. According to the document, the radar data indicated that a missile was converging on the Boeing 747 seconds before the aircraft broke up off the coast of Long Island ......The document goes on to say the NTSB was not allowed to take notes when it was shown witness statements prepared by the FBI - which admits that 34 people deemed “credible” said they saw a missile heading for the plane. The FBI’s preferred theory in public is that vapours set off an explosion in a central fuel tank.

March 16, 1997 The Tribune Review
Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom ..... has categorically denied the Press-Enterprise claims that a red residue found on the plane's seats .....came from rocket fuel. The FBI chief says the residue is equally consistent with the chemical composition of the glue that held the aircraft's seats together. The sequencing report noted that wreckage found from the front of the plane's fuselage - including dozens of bodies and passenger seats from rows 17 through 19 - were ejected from the plane first ....The sequencing report demonstrated that more than 4,700 feet after this initial debris was found, the front section of the plane broke off and fell. At about that time, the center fuel tank erupted, causing the rest of the plane to spiral into the ocean. The trail of wreckage clearly shows that the initial event that caused the crash was not the explosion of the center fuel tank...... the FBI has only ruled out that a U.S. Navy ship or other government "asset" destroyed the American civilian airliner. If it was a missile, and if it was not fired by a U.S. ship, who did it?........

March 17, 1997 19:15 (EST) 8 Thw al-Qi`dah 1417 A.H. 8 Adar II 5757
(See reports for April 9, and April 10, 1997
Northwest Airlines D93 Flight 775 Newark to Minneapolis and Flight 361 A320 Laguardia to Minneapolis report missile both departing at 6:55 PM about 15 Minutes into flight. Plus Delta and US Airways flights.

March 25, 1997 Communication from S. Finkelman to Flight-800 list on August 8, 1997
From Stephen Jones' petition for a writ of mandamus to Federal judge Richard P. Matsch on behalf of Timothy James McVeigh that he should issue more discovery orders for material to be turned over, dated March 25, 1997: See The I.R.A., Iraq and Oklahoma City.

<<<An official in the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service reported < reference 17> on April 19, 1995, and possibly earlier, that Iraq had hired seven Pakistani mercenaries, all veterans of the Afghanistan War, to bomb targets in the United States, one of which was the Alfred P. Murrah Building. D.E. 2191 at 3 (Exhibit "A"). A former Chief of Counterterrorism Operations for the Central Intelligence Agency provided this information to the United States government and described his source as "responsible for developing intelligence to help prevent the (Saudi) Royal Family from becoming victims of a terrorist attack." Id.>>> Footnote 17: Significant portions of this material are in the public record either through media account or court proceedings. ...... The Saudi Arabian official reported that the bombing of the Murrah Building was sponsored by the Iraqi Special Services, who "contracted" the mission to seven (7) former Afghani freedom fighters currently living in Pakistan. The official also advised that the identity of the true sponsor of the bombing was concealed from the Pakistanis and the Afghan mercenaries may not have knowledge of Iraqi involvement or sponsorship. This is not unusual..... Despite repeated requests, the defense has been provided the sum total of three pages of information concerning this aspect of the case. See D.E. 2191 Exhibit "A." The defense requested assistance from the United States State Department, via letter to the Secretary of State, to assist in defense investigation and travel to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has very stringent entry requirements and the defense was unable to facilitate investigation there. The State Department declined politely to assist the defense's travel to Saudi Arabia and attempt to interview the Saudi Arabian official. However, the State Department sent a list of law firms practicing in Saudi Arabia to the defense; ...... the State Department had no difficulty in facilitating entry into Saudi Arabia of American FBI agents traveling there to investigate the death of Americans in Saudi Arabia.

March 29, 1997 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 673
A Saudi dissident with links to Iran took part in the Dhahran bombing that killed 19 US airmen and injured 500 others last summer, according to Canadian intelligence authorities. Hani al-Sayegh, 28, was arrested while working at a grocery in Ottawa. ...... They claim he is a member of a terrorist organization called Saudi Hizbollah and that he spoke about the bombing in phone calls to Iran tapped by the intelligence services. The details match the Saudi version of the blast. If proved conclusive, they would force President Clinton to act against Teheran, either through a military strike or sanctions.....Sayegh arrived in Canada last August, carrying an international driving permit issued by Syria in 1994. On it, he gave his permanent address as Damascus. The Canadians said that Hizbollah was building a haven for its members in North America.

March/April? 1997
A BA Concorde from JFK passing FL 270 on the climb before Nantucket Island reportedly had a near miss with a missile.

April 5, 1997 EmergencyNet NEWS Service Vol. 3, No. 095
The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday that the arrest of a Saudi Arabian suspect in Canada in March may have done more harm than good to the U.S. investigation into the terrorist truck bombing in Dhahran that killed 19 U.S. airmen on 25 June. ....The Canadian decision may have thwarted U.S. hopes that the suspect could prove to be more valuable as an intelligence asset that would tell U.S. authorities about individuals, groups and countries that may have played a role in the terrorist attack last June. ... Federal law enforcement officials think that the suspect does have information that they want, but don't think that they will get it now...... the Washington Post was reporting ....that months before the 25 June terrorist truck bombing in Dhahran, Syria reportedly refuse to assist Saudi authorities in apprehending the individual who has now been identified as the leader of the Saudi branch of the Hezbollah terrorist group..... the Post said that the Saudi government was searching for Ahmed Ibrahim Mughassil because he was suspected in being involved in the earlier bombing of a U.S. military facility in Riyadh in November of 1995. ....Syria declined to help Saudi Arabia because it was unwilling to risk an armed clash with Hezbollah. As a result, Mughassil remained at large.

April 9, 1997 Los Angeles - Drudge Report
The Saint Paul Pioneer Press is set to report on Thursday that Federal authorities are investigating claims from pilots of three commercial jetliners -- including one from a Northwest Airlines DC-9 bound for St Paul, Minnesota -- that they saw what appeared to be a missile or rocket over the New York area the evening of March 17. In the March 17 incident, the paper will report, the Northwest DC-9 took off around 7 p.m. from Newark International Airport in New Jersey. About 15 minutes into the flight, the captain of Flight 775 told the control tower of a possible missile sighting, according to the NTSB. Later, reports of similar sightings around the same time came in from the other two crews. In addition to the three separate crews, another pilot, operating an aircraft that had departed from La Guardia Airport in New York, reported seeing a similar sighting that night, a source tells the Press' Doug Iverson. He writes, "The possibility of a missile in commercial airspace is particularly significant in the aftermath of the crash of Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 moments after takeoff last July 17 from Kennedy Airport in New York. "If the object viewed in the New York sky March 17 was a missile, it raises a series of disturbing questions: How close was it, and who launched it?" Similarly, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune was preparing to report on Thursday that one of the Northwest cockpit crews gave a live, verbal report of the March 17 "missile" sighting by radio to the Federal Aviation Administration's air-traffic-control tower on Long Island. "We are reviewing voice tapes and radar," a NTSB spokesman tells the Star Tribune . (Note from website author - the voice tapes may be heard at The Tale of the Tapes).

April 10, 1997 Reuter
Northwest Airlines pilots reported that they saw what appeared to be a missile or a rocket over the New York area the evening of March 17, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press reported Thursday. In a copyrighted story, the Pioneer Press reported that investigators are piecing together tapes of air traffic control radar recorded the night of the sightings. Two other flight crews, from Delta Airlines and US Airways have filed similar reports, the newspaper said. The possibility that missiles are flying in commercial airspace is particularly significant in the aftermath of last summer's crash of TWA flight 800 minutes after takeoff from JFK International Airport in New York, the Pioneer Press said. The pilots of a Northwest Airlines DC-9 reported a possible missile sighting about 15 minutes into their flight from Newark International Airport in New Jersey in March, according to the Newspaper. A second Northwest flight crew, in an aircraft that left from La Guardia Airport in New York reported a similar sighting.

April 10, 1997 CNN
The Federal Aviation Administration now believes that a missile sighted by several commercial airline pilots flying over the northeastern United States on March 17 was actually part of a Navy test off the coast of Florida. The National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation after four separate airline crews from three different airlines all reported seeing a rocket or missile that night. The missile sightings come amidst persistent -- and, investigators say, unfounded -- speculation that a military missile test gone awry may have brought down TWA Flight 800. "It, again, stretches the imagination to think that the military would be involved in any kind of a missile test around New York City," said Capt. Michael Doubleday, a Pentagon spokesman. But while investigators have discounted the scenario that the TWA disaster was the result of a military accident, they have refused to rule out the possibility that a missile from some other source could have brought down the plane. U.S. military officials continue to insist that missile tests pose no danger to civil aviation. The United States tests missiles at bases that are either near remote desert areas, such as White Sands, New Mexico, or along coasts where missiles can be fired over open ocean and from ships at sea, such as Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Tests are never conducted over populated areas or in busy commercial air corridors. And missiles are designed to self-destruct in the event a test goes awry.

April 17, 1997 International News Electronic Telegraph Issue 692
American intelligence officials tried to sabotage a Russian weapons deal with Iran yesterday by leaking details of two meetings monitored in Moscow in which arms shipments were agreed. These included the transfer to Teheran of 500 advanced shoulder-launched "Igla" anti-aircraft missiles. The US is indicating that the shipments are being organised by Russian brokers acting separately from Rosvooruzheniye, the state arms exporter, and offering discount prices. Other older surface-to-air systems were also discussed, as well as the transfer of T-72 tanks and Mi-17 transport helicopters. ... Washington fears that the missiles are destined for use by Hizbollah, the Teheran-backed terrorist group. With a range of 10,500 feet, they could be used in Lebanon against Israeli aircraft. Any new arming of Hizbollah is alarming to Washington because of the growing suspicion that it provided the logistics for last summer's bombing in Dharhan, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 US airmen and injuring 500. A group opposed to the Iranian regime, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, gave reporters in Washington what they called conclusive evidence yesterday that the bombing was directed by Iranian intelligence. The attack, it was claimed, was masterminded by Brig Gen Ahmad Sharifi, a commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The bombers were allegedly trained at the Imam Sadeq base near the Iranian city of Qom, a Shi'ite religious centre where Ayatollah Khomeini taught before his overthrow of the Shah.

April 20, 1997 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 695
Hard-liners at the US Defense Department are pushing for a massive strike against Iran to punish the mullahs for their alleged role in the bombing of a US barracks in Saudi Arabia last year..... there is also strong pressure within the Pentagon for a broader attack to cripple the growing military power of the Islamic regime. Sources say that this would include a Pearl Harbor-style strike to annihilate the Iranian navy before it can become a threat to US naval operations in the Gulf, and heavy bombing raids to set back Iran's nuclear weapons programme. The Clinton administration has been weighing its options for several months, waiting to see whether there is conclusive evidence of Iranian involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing. But US intelligence has now linked a top official in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Brigadier Ahmad Sherifi, to a bombing suspect arrested in Canada last month. "Iran was the organizing force behind the attack," said a senior US official. ....Analysts argue that US policy provoked fury in Teheran and prompted a strategic decision by the Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani to launch a campaign of terrorism against the Great Satan. Bill Clinton now has to decide how far to ratchet up the cycle of escalation in the most dangerous and volatile region in the world. ......"The worst possible response would be a silly missile attack in the middle of the night that stirs up a hornet's nest without doing any real damage," says Ken Timmerman, editor of the Iran Brief in Washington. "If you are going to hit them, you've got to do it so hard they spend the next 10 years recovering." This view is widely shared at the Pentagon, which has watched with alarm as the Iranians acquired three Russian Kilo-class submarines with quiet diesel engines that are hard to detect. Iran has also been buying advanced C-802 cruise missiles from China which could pose a serious danger to US warships in the Gulf. Hard-liners see retaliation for the Khobar Towers bombing as an opportunity to deal with the Iranian military before it has the means to choke the Straits of Hormuz, the source of 12 million barrels of oil a day, a third of the industrial world's oil supply....... Military analysts are afraid that the Clinton policy of "dual containment" of both Iran and Iraq is becoming a dangerous fiction. Herb Meyer, former vice-chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council, warns that Iran and Iraq may join forces to drive the US out of the Gulf and seize the Saudi oil fields, with consequences that are almost unthinkable. It is a nightmare waiting to happen ........

April 24, 1997
Bill Donaldson - The Wall Street Journal - Letters to the Editor (in response to an earlier letter from Jim Hall)
"I was a Navy carrier pilot for 25 years and a crash investigator. The FBI is reported to have interviewed more than 100 eyewitnesses, more than 30 of whom were considered to be extremely reliable. This list includes airborne military pilots. What many witnesses describe fits the depiction of a successful surface-to-air missile engagement. Mr. Hall's logic would have us believe that a pedestrian killed by a hit-and-run driver in front of 30 eyewitnesses died from unexplained natural causes. He would discount all eyewitnesses simply because the victim's body showed no evidence of tire marks. When faced with the choice of believing Mr. Hall or the eyesight of military aviators, I'll stick with the professionals." (Note from website author - See Cmdr. Donaldson's Report to the Subcommittee on Aviation on the Crash of TWA Flight 800 )

May 5, 1997 TWA statement
The recent comments of the FBI move us no closer to an answer than we were yesterday or last week or at this time last month. A conclusion based on "...the evidence we have not found...." is clearly no conclusion at all. Suggestions of mechanical malfunction as the cause are unproven speculation and no evidence recovered to date would conclusively support such a theory. While TWA is far more interested in conclusions based on evidence that has been recovered, it should be noted that an estimated 15 - 25,000 pounds of debris from Flight 800 remain at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island. As a party to the Federal investigation, we are committed to discovering the truth. This air accident investigation has proven to be the most exhaustive and costly in aviation history. .... TWA hopes that as the investigation continues to move forward, those following the investigation will remain open-minded and patient.

May 6, 1997 C-SPAN Confirmation hearing on CIA Nominee George Tenet
Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) questioning George Tenet:
Levin: On the national intelligence estimate issue, relative to ballistic missile defense: Was that estimate, in your opinion, done based on the best objective evidence available at the time?
Tenet: Yes sir, in fact I think one of the findings of the Gates panel was . . . the analysts could have brought more evidence to bear to better make their case.
Levin: Do you believe that the judgment that was concluded, that was reached, was the appropriate judgment?
Tenet: I believe the analysts reached this judgment without pressure and that they believed they reached it on the basis of the facts that they knew at the time.
Levin: And you have in your answer, I believe to Senator Kyl, [said] that you would be making a separate update or an ongoing analysis of some kind relative to the long-range missile threat?
Tenet: Yes.
Levin: Would you at the same time that you do that make another assessment for us as follows: Would you make an estimate or an analysis . . . assessing non-traditional threats to our national security, other than ballistic missiles, including; delivery means of mechanisms of mass destruction, such as cruise missiles, terrorist chemical and biological attacks, the use of ships positioned adjacent to our shores? Would you, at the same time that you give us those annual updates . . . that other threat assessment and an analysis of the likelihood of each of the various potential threats being used?
Tenet: Senator, these scenarios or alternative scenarios would fit right into an estimate, of course we would, and give you our best judgment as to their likelihood.
BLevin: I think that would give us a balanced view of threats in this area and that would be very helpful . . .

May 8, 1997 ENN Daily Intelligence Report Vol. 3 - 128
Officials say that the recent arrest of a Saudi Arabian national believed to be connected to a deadly terrorist attack in the Middle East in 1996 has given authorities a glimpse of what is said to be a largely hidden network of terrorists that use Canada to raise money, recruit members, provide a safe haven and plan additional terrorist attacks. ......officials believe ... the pro-Iranian Hezbollah has established a presence in Canada. ..... Canada's open borders and its refugee policies make it easy for suspected terrorists to enter the country to hide or to find an easy way to get into the United States. The Saudi national, Hani Abdel Rahim al-Sayegh, is accused of belonging to Hezbollah and taking part in the 25 June 1996 terrorist bombing of a military complex in Dhahran ..... Canadian intelligence officers believe that Hezbollah members in Canada helped al-Sayegh find safe haven in the country last August. .... In a 1993 interview with agents of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Mohammed Hussein al-Husseini said, "Hezbollah has members in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, all of Canada." .... In the U.S., officials say that there was at least one Hezbollah cell in Canada in 1993. U.S. intelligence said that at the time, the Canadian arm of Hezbollah was providing planning and logistical support for terrorist attacks, perhaps in North America. The CSIS said that it believed that the terrorist groups use Canada for fund raising, safe haven ....they also provide "logistical support for terrorism outside of Canada" ....According to al-Husseini, Hezbollah is made up as "a military organizational and popular apparatus." He also said that "orders for these three units come from Iran, but final approval is obtained from Hazzan Nasrallah and Sayid Fadlallah," who are the political and religious leaders of Hezbollah." .... Al-Husseini was deported back to Lebanon three years ago. ....Before being arrested in March, al-Sayegh had arrived in Canada by way of Rome and Boston. He was kept under close surveillance for several months.

May 14, 1997 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 719
Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, the Saudi Arabian billionaire with stakes in Apple Computer, Disneyland Paris and Canary Wharf, ..... has a reputation for astutely targeting companies at the nadir of their fortunes. .....in March he bought 5pc of TWA.

May 23, 1997 (1:20am) 16 MuHarram 1418 A.H. 16 Iyyar 5757
Witness states: We were driving south on Route 67 in Oxford.. heading home.. we saw a bright green light, just slightly paler than a traffic light, going at high speed, coming from a generally NNW direction heading generally ESE --The light was not blinking, it actually looked like a blowtorch, a bright point of green light with a paler triangular vaporous 'tail' behind it...

May 30, 1997 The Press-Enterprise
The Federal Aviation Administration has rejected a plea by the National Transportation Safety Board to reverse its radar analysis that a missile may have hit TWA Flight 800 and caused the July 17 crash that killed all 230 aboard. ..... The NTSB had asked the FAA to renounce its early analysis, in part to contend with potential public or media inquiries about the findings.

June 18, 1997 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 754
A Saudi dissident was being deported to the United States by Canada last night for FBI questioning about his role as a "look-out" in the bombing that killed 19 Americans in Dhahran last year. CIA sources say that, two years before the blast, Hani al-Sayegh, 28, secretly met Brig Ahmad Sherifi, the top official in Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Sherifi's duties include organising Hizbollah cells in Arab countries around the Gulf. If Sayegh provides conclusive evidence of Iranian involvement in the attack, President Clinton will come under heavy pressure to retaliate against Teheran with a military strike. Canadian intelligence sources said he spoke about the bombing in tapped phone calls to Teheran.

June 19, 1997 NY Times
Five FBI agents sneaked into a hostel in Afghanistan, where Afghan informants had told them they would find Mir Amal Kansi, one of the world's most wanted men, the suspect in a deadly 1993 rampage outside CIA headquarters. Kansi .... The breakthrough in the hunt for Kansi came about through the CIA's Near East division via the intelligence agency's station in Pakistan... cooperation followed some pressure brought to bear on Pakistan under a June 1995 presidential decision directive, a secret order in which the United States resolved to "induce cooperation" from foreign nations where suspected terrorists and criminals reside.

June 19, 1997 The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 755
CIA agents have captured the Pathan tribesman that they have been hunting for four years after he allegedly came to America from Pakistan to shoot two of their leading intelligence operatives. The murders were thought to be his revenge for the death of his father during the spy agency's 1980s covert operation to undermine the Soviets in Afghanistan. Mir Aimal Kansi, 33, was tracked down after America put a $2 million (£1.2 million) reward on his head. He was held by what officials described as "Afghan individuals". A CIA team working out of Peshawar, Pakistan, received information from the Afghans and the handover was supervised by .... an FBI official .... Kansi's father, Abdullah, was a prominent leader in Quetta, Pakistan, which was used by the CIA as a way-station for the shipment of arms to Afghan guerrillas. The father died after working undercover for America and Pakistan. Kansi .... fled to Pakistan. The FBI has wondered if he was connected to Ramsi Yousef, the mastermind of the World Trade Centre bombing in New York, who escaped by the same route to Islamabad before disappearing a month later.

June 19, 1997 NY Times
A Saudi dissident who says he will cooperate in the investigation of the bombing that killed 19 Americans in Dhahran last year will plead guilty ... in an earlier plot to kill Americans. The first plot was never carried out. ...This brought him one step closer to a deal under which he would provide evidence about the June 1996 truck bombing in Dhahran in return for not being extradited to Saudi Arabia. .... The federal grand jury indictment ... says Sayegh was paid by an unnamed terrorist organization as part of a plot to "kill nationals of the United States residing and working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" in 1994 and 1995. ..... Sayegh, 28, says he is a member of Saudi Hezbollah, the Party of God, a branch of a terrorist organization based in Lebanon and backed by Iran. He was deported on Tuesday from Canada, where he had arrived last August, about six weeks after the Dhahran bombing.

June 20, 1997 Official TWA statement to its employee/owners.
After spending eleven months and thirty million dollars, the National Transportation Safety Board has not produced a single piece of evidence of a maintenance problem or mechanical failure that could have caused the disaster.

June 21, 1997 NY Times
Kansi's motives remain unclear........But one of Kansi's cousins ...... said his experiences as a fellow student with Kansi ..... suggested that he might have acted out of political motives. They might have involved anger at the United States for its policies toward Muslims ..... This relative said that Kansi had become passionately involved with a number of political groups while studying in Quetta, and that while his political commitments oscillated, a fixed element was "anti- Americanism".

June 24, 1997 Reuter
Defense Secretary William Cohen on Tuesday reminded military forces to be alert for possible terrorist attack one year after a truck bomb killed 19 American Air Force troops in Saudi Arabia. Officials for months have been seeking independent verification of allegations by Saudi Arabia that Iran was behind the attack. A Saudi dissident who has agreed to cooperate with the U.S. investigation into the truck bombing was charged last week in Washington with conspiracy to commit murder and ''international terrorism.'' Sayegh, 28, a Shiite Moslem, has been identified as a member of the radical Saudi Hizbollah (Party of God). They said he may have valuable information about those responsible for the massive bombing that killed 19 U.S. airmen and injured 500 others.

June 25, 1997 MSANEWS Mohammad Jalal-Abadi - On behalf of Bangladeshi Muslim Literary Circle in Great Britain, 5 Bloomsfield House, Old Montague Street, London, E1 5PA
Agence France Presse quoting ABC reported from Islamabad that American government paid a sum of $3.5m and used Pakistan military and intelligence as intermediaries while abducting Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani citizen from Pakistani soil and flew him to America. So far it is known Kansi has not committed any crime in Pakistani soil. There is no case pending against him in any Pakistani court nor the Pakistani authorities issued any arrest warrant for him. Moreover, there exists no extradition treaty between Pakistan and America. It is not known who is/are the recipient(s) of $3.5m which the American government paid for Kansi's abduction. ...... As an elected Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan did Mr Sharif know anything beforehand the abduction of this Pakistani national? ..... Stage is now set for the Mossad and its lackeys in the CIA to use Pakistani military intelligence and their "expertise" and the intermediaries to abduct Sheikh Osama bin Laden whom the Zionist entity and American State Department have declared 'world's number one terrorist'! .....Pakistanis who are accusing Mr Sharif of compromising national sovereignty and abandoning Islamic honour are not "Islamic terrorists" as claimed by the Zionist terrorists and their puppets in the White House.

June 29, 1997 NY Times
A Saudi fugitive deported from Canada to the United States has told investigators that an Iranian intelligence official helped direct a plot to attack American installations in Saudi Arabia, officials familiar with the investigation said Saturday. The plot was never carried out. Investigators said they had no conclusive evidence linking Iran or the Iranian officer, Brig. Ahmad Sherifi, to the later bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded about 500 people last year. U.S. intelligence officials say they believe that the Iranian officer serves as a liaison to the Party of God, a Shiite Muslim terrorist group based in Lebanon and financed by Iran. ....... Canadian court documents say .... that he was a member of the Saudi branch of the Party of God and that he had contacts with Iranian intelligence officials in the decade he spent as a student in Iran.

June 30,1997 AP
Iran's top military commander has said his country does not intend to start a war with the United States, but promised to turn the Persian Gulf into a slaughterhouse if attacked. "If the Americans one day decide to attack Iran, then they will have committed suicide because the Iranians will turn the region into a slaughterhouse for them,'' said Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaie, commander of the 120,000-strong Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Iran's main fighting force. His comments, published Sunday in the English-language Kayhan International daily, coincided with the start of four days of Iranian amphibious military exercises in the Persian Gulf. The United States has about 22,000 troops in the area, a region Iran long has considered in its sphere of influence. 'The Persian Gulf belongs to the regional countries and the Americans should leave it,'' Rezaie said. 'Iran has vital interests in the region and is going to defend its interests.'' Iranian officials say they are concerned over U.S. warships in the gulf, particularly in the wake of American threats to retaliate if Iran is found to be behind a June 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen. Iran has denied any role.

June/July 1997 Air & Space Magazine (ISSN 0886-2257) Title - "Dodging a Bullet"
SAMs .... are the most widely used surface-to-air missiles of all time, with tens of thousands deployed in the Soviet Union and its client nations during the cold war...... The missiles were hard to see in the daytime, but at night pilots could spot the reddish glow from the booster, then a silvery white plume from the sustainer engine.