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by Larry Wheeler, Scott Streater, Ginny
Graybiel
U.S. Sen. Bob Graham is requesting
information on published reports of a possible Pensacola Naval Air
Station tie-in to last week's terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington, D.C.
As many as four of 19
suspected hijackers may have participated during the 1990s in the base's
flight training program for foreign military trainees, according to
reports in The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine.
In addition, The New York Times reported
that one of the four also may have lived at the Fountains apartment
complex near the University of West Florida, leaving about a year ago.
Graham, D-Miami Lakes,
who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was briefed early
Sunday on the latest intelligence information, but there was no mention
of suspected hijackers having been enrolled as pilot trainees in
Pensacola, said his spokesman, Paul Anderson.
Since then, Anderson said, Graham has
requested more information on the possible Pensacola tie-in as well as
updates on suspected hijackers who may have been receiving civilian
flying lessons at commercial training academies elsewhere in Florida.
Graham and a number of state lawmakers
returned to Florida aboard a Florida Air National Guard flight Saturday.
He could receive the requested information today, Anderson said.
It's not unusual for foreign nationals to
train at Pensacola-area bases.
Pensacola NAS and Whiting Field train
many of the more than 6,000 foreign military students who receive flight
training each year at U.S. military institutions.
The students are instructed in everything
from warfare specialty training to air navigation meteorology and
land/water survival, according to the NaPentagon and local military
officials refused to comment on the media reports on Sunday. They
referred calls on the subject to the FBI, which also refused comment.
The news articles caution that there are
slight discrepancies between the FBI list of suspected highjackers and
the military training records, either in the spellings of their names or
in their birth dates. They also raise the possibility that the hijackers
stole the identities of military trainees.
Tracking names
The Newsweek article says U.S. military
officials gave the FBI information suggesting that five of the alleged
hijackers received training in the 1990s at secure U.S. military
installations.
It says three of them listed their
address on driver licenses and car registrations as 10 Radford Blvd. on
Pensacola NAS, a base road on which residences for foreign- military
flight trainees are located.
Those suspects are:
Saeed Alghamdi, believed to have helped
hijack United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
Ahmad Alnami, who also was aboard Flight
93.
Ahmed Alghamdi, who is suspected of
helping commandeer United Airlines Flight 75, which hit the south tower
of the World Trade Center.
Saeed Alghamdi listed the address in
March 1997 to register a 1998 Oldsmobile; five months later, he used the
same address to register a late-model Buick.
The other two used the address on driver
licenses issued in 1996 and 1998.
The Newsweek article cites two other
suspects with possible U.S. military training: One may have been trained
in strategy and tactics at the Air War College in Montgomery, Ala., and
one may have received language training at Lackland Air Force Base in
San Antonio.
A Washington Post article adds a fourth
suspect who may have trained in Pensacola:
Hamza Alghamdi, who also is believed to
have been aboard Flight 75.
A New York Times article, using an
alternative spelling, says that Ahmed A. al-Ghamdi lived in the
Fountains near UWF. The article says he moved out about August 2000 and
does not specify how long he may have lived there.
The Fountains, off University Parkway,
caters to UWF students and also has a number of military personnel,
according to several residents. The apartment manager could not be
reached on Sunday.
The FBI's official list of suspected
hijackers gives the most recent addresses of the four with possible
Pensacola links as possibly Delray Beach.
Complicating the effort to learn if the
suspects ever trained in Pensacola is the fact that Alghamdi is an
extremely common name. Scores of people with that name live throughout
Florida.
Foreign trainees
Naval Education and Training Security
Assistance Field Activity, which administers training of foreign
aviation students for the Navy, is headquartered in Pensacola.
Robert Pemberton, the technical director,
declined to comment Sunday. But the group has estimated that 15 percent
of aviation students on any given day are foreign nationals.
They come from as far away as Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Norway.
Locally, foreign pilots contribute to the
Pensacola-area economy, spending an estimated $10 million a year in
local malls, restaurants and shops, the Security Assistance group has
estimated.
A consulting firm that conducted an
international business opportunities study for the Pensacola Area
Chamber of Commerce four years ago said the local economy would receive
a boost by increasing the number of foreign flight and aircraft
maintenance students training at area bases.
News Journal reporter Amie Streater contributed to this story.
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