FBI Alerts Hazardous Material Haulers
Authorities Charge 20 People With Fraudulently Obtaining Trucking Licenses

By Dan Eggen and Brooke A. Masters
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 26, 2001; Page A01

Authorities have charged 20 people with fraudulently obtaining licenses to haul hazardous materials, including some who may have links to the terrorists who staged the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Justice Department officials said yesterday.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the arrests and other information investigators have developed show that the United States must be on alert for attacks. "Terrorism is a clear and present danger to Americans today," he said.

Ashcroft's remarks and the disclosure of the new charges focused attention on the prospect of a new terrorist threat -- not in the skies, but on the roads. Congress and the Bush administration have been moving to tighten security at commercial airports, and the Federal Aviation Administration has twice grounded crop-dusters for fear that they could be used in chemical attacks.

But the FBI and the Department of Transportation also warned the trucking industry to watch for suspicious activity in connection with hazardous chemicals, including radioactive waste and other substances that can be used to create weapons of mass destruction.

On Monday, the FBI also asked mosquito-control personnel to take an immediate inventory of their trucks and other equipment and report any missing or stolen pieces.

As the FBI continued its sweep yesterday for possible accomplices in the Sept. 11 airliner hijackings, documents unsealed in federal court showed that prosecutors are holding an Alexandria man. His name and phone number were found in a car left by suspected hijackers at Dulles International Airport who boarded the flight that slammed into the Pentagon.

Mohamed Abdi, 44, is being held on unrelated forgery charges while authorities try to determine if he is connected to the attacks. Nearly 7,000 people are missing and presumed dead after two hijacked airliners hit the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania.

In a car registered to alleged hijacker Nawaq Alhazmi, authorities found a Washington road map that contained Abdi's name, a cashier's check made out to a Phoenix flight school, four drawings of a 757 cockpit and a box-cutter knife similar to ones authorities believe were used in the hijackings, according to the affidavit unsealed in federal court in Alexandria.

On the map, someone had written "Mohumed" and a phone number that authorities traced to Abdi's apartment, the affidavit said.

The developments came as authorities released a San Antonio radiologist they had arrested in the belief he had important information about the attacks. His attorney said he was prevented from speaking to lawyers for six days.

Law enforcement agents also pressed their investigation in several nations abroad. In France, anti-terrorist police detained several people early yesterday in connection with a suspected planned attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris and other U.S. interests, according to police and media reports.

Federal investigators in the United States began to focus on hazardous waste permits after the arrest of Nabil Almarabh, a former Boston cabdriver with ties to an associate of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. Almarabh had recently obtained a Michigan permit to haul hazardous waste.

Further investigation revealed about 20 men who allegedly obtained such permits through fraud, law enforcement officials said.

"The concern is that there is the potential for a problem because of the sheer size of the industry," said Mike Russell, spokesman for American Trucking Associations Inc., a trade group. "It's hard to keep our eye on every single truck."

Justice officials yesterday declined to specify how many of the 20 people may have connections to the suspected terrorists.

In the Virginia case, law enforcement sources said they have not determined why Abdi's phone number was in the alleged hijackers' Toyota, and said that Abdi was refusing to cooperate with investigators. One source cautioned that the 19 suspected hijackers left behind many phone numbers.

Abdi, a U.S. citizen who came to this country from Somalia, works as a security guard and has six children. He has been charged with forgery for allegedly failing to turn over 13 rent-subsidy checks to his landlord, forging the landlord's signature and cashing them instead. Abdi's lawyer declined to comment.

In other developments yesterday:

・Authorities released Albader Al-Hazmi, 34, the San Antonio radiologist who had been held as a material witness. He had been on an FBI "watch list" of people who might have information about the events leading up to the attack.

・Canadian officials issued orders yesterday to seize or freeze the assets of fundraising groups connected to bin Laden. The amount of known money and assets was not released.

・In Toronto, a Yemeni man arrested by Canadian authorities after the Sept. 11 attacks, Nageeb Abdul Jabar Mohamed al-Hadi, was given time by a court to find a lawyer for a hearing on his extradition to the United States. Federal prosecutors in Chicago have charged al-Hadi with two counts of passport fraud. The FBI is trying to connect al-Hadi with Almarabh.

・In San Diego, law enforcement sources confirmed that three men were detained over the weekend as material witnesses because of their possible relationships with the suspected terrorists who lived in San Diego last year. Mohdar Abdallah, Osama Awadallah and Yazeed Al-Salmi were friends and one-time roommates of another man, Omer Bakarbashat, who was detained as a material witness last week and flown to New York for questioning.

・The FBI today will turn over control of the crash scene at the Pentagon to the Defense Department. The move means the agency has removed all evidence it could recover from the area and will no longer protect it as a crime scene, officials said.

・Administration officials said they now doubt whether there actually was a telephone threat made against Air Force One on the day of the attacks, which prompted the Secret Service to keep President Bush away from Washington for hours, the Associated Press reported.

Staff writers William Booth, DeNeen L. Brown, Marc Kaufman, Bill Miller, Leef Smith and Steve Vogel and researcher Margot Williams contributed to this report.