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FBI Storms Hotel in Boston, Five People Detained: US Today
A heavily armed FBI team searching for suspects in the terrorism attacks in New York and Washington stormed a Boston hotel Wednesday.
Guests were ordered to evacuate the 36-story Westin Hotel in the Back Bay section, according to a guest leaving the hotel who declined to give his name.
As a large crowd gathered outside, one person was taken out of the hotel and put in a van. In Washington, FBI head Robert Mueller said no arrests had been made in the case. Five people were detained because of their immigration status, but Justice Department officials would not say where they were taken into custody.
''SWAT teams were all around holding machine guns,'' said R.J. Ryan, who was among hundreds of onlookers. ''They put somebody in the van. Then they started moving everybody.''
The Boston Globe reported on its Web site Wednesday that three people were taken into custody at the hotel. The Globe said the three were linked to a credit card used to buy tickets on the flights that crashed into the World Trade Center. It cited an anonymous source close to the investigation.
A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that while no one was arrested in the hijackings, a Boston search turned up a link to a name on the manifest of one of the hijacked flights. Two of the four planes that were hijacked and crashed Tuesday came from Boston.
Officers also converged Wednesday on the Park Inn at Chestnut Hill in Newton, a Boston suburb. Newton police officer Russ Adam said the FBI was conducting an investigation at the hotel, but is was unclear if the search was related to the attacks.
In Boston, agents wearing bulletproof vests and carrying shields were seen bringing fiber-optic equipment, which can check under hotel room doors, into the Westin Hotel.
In Providence, R.I., authorities stopped an Amtrak train that had come from Boston, ordered off passengers, and went on board. One man wearing a green turban was led away in handcuffs.
Col. Richard Sullivan, the Providence police chief, said later that the man did not appear to have any connection with the terrorist acts. But he was charged with a weapons violation for carrying a knife, Sullivan said. He remained in custody at late afternoon.
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