US Investigators Identify Team of 50 Terrorists

A team of 50 infiltrators who supported or carried the airliner attacks on September 11 have been identified, Los Angeles Times quoted a source familiar with the investigation as saying.

In its online edition for Thursday, the newspaper said that about 40 of the men have been accounted for, including those killed in the suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, but 10 remain at large.

In the hours immediately after the attacks, the newspaper quoted the source as saying, agents searching cars and apartments up and down the U.S. East Coast found suicide notes in New York that some of the hijackers wrote to their parents.

Also recovered were credit card receipts showing that some of the hijackers paid for flight training in the United States. Los Angeles Times quoted another source. a federal agent involved in the probe, as saying that authorities believe 27 suspected terrorists in all received various kinds of pilot training.

The infiltrators, who carried Middle Eastern passports, belonged to four independent cells, said the newspaper. Authorities kept the U.S. airports closed to commercial traffic for a second day partly to prevent the conspirators from fleeing the country.






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