Reports outline Bangor link

While Bangor officials claimed to have no knowledge of a possible Bangor connection to Tuesday’s acts of terrorism, a former CIA officer told a Canadian newspaper he was certain five of the suspected men had regrouped in Boston after departing from Bangor International Airport.

In a story in Thursday’s edition of the Montreal Gazette, Vincent Cannistraro claimed five of the men who crashed two passenger jets into New York City’s World Trade Center entered Maine from Canada.

The former chief of intelligence for the CIA who now makes his home in McLean, Va., was quoted as saying the five Middle Eastern terrorists entered the state from either the U.S. Customs Station at Jackman on the Quebec border or in a rented car aboard one of two ferries from Nova Scotia: The Cat, which docks in Bar Harbor or the Scotia Prince in Portland.

According to the Gazette, Cannistraro said the group drove to Bangor where they “boarded a feeder plane, but only three of them could get on board because it was full and the other two went on to Portland and got a flight from Portland.” From there, Cannistraro claimed the men regrouped in Boston’s Logan International Airport where two of Tuesday’s four airline hijackings were launched.

Efforts by the Bangor Daily News to reach Cannistraro for further comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

Although Bangor city and police officials would not confirm or deny reports that terrorist attacks could have a local connection, FBI agents have been active in Maine, urging the people they interview not to speak with reporters. It is clear from a number of known developments that FBI agents are aggressively investigating several Maine angles involving:

. The departure of Mohammed Atta, 33, from Portland to Boston. Atta actually may have been in Bangor, and, according to The Boston Globe, was a pilot who may have guided American Airlines Flight 11 into the first of the two World Trade Center towers that later collapsed.

. The recovery of a 2001, silver-blue Nissan Altima from Portland International Jetport on Tuesday. Gov. Angus S. King and Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood confirmed that the FBI suspects the vehicle may have been used by two of the terrorists to reach the jetport.

. Confirmed reports that FBI agents had taken the manifests for the entire season from the offices of The Cat in Bar Harbor and the Scotia Prince in Portland. The Boston Globe also reported that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police impounded a late-model Chevrolet Malibu in Halifax, Nova Scotia, saying the seizure was ‘in connection with the situation in the U.S.”

. Room 232 of the Comfort Inn in Portland where two of the terrorists stayed before their departure Tuesday.

. Confirmed reports from sources at Unicel in Bangor that a group of Middle Eastern men had attempted to buy cellular phones Monday but were refused after they failed to produce adequate identification.

. A confirmed report from a Jackman convenience store owner, who said a group of Arab men purchased gasoline at his business last month. One of the men produced a credit card with a home address of United Arab Emirates. According to the Montreal Gazette, Abu Dhabi Television in the United Arab Emirates reported that two men with Saudi Arabian passports and international driver’s licenses issued in the UAE were linked to a Mitsubishi sedan seized Tuesday night at Logan airport.

Cannistraro, the former CIA officer, told the Gazette that U.S. investigators are actively pursuing the Canadian link.

“What we know is that a five-man cell came to Maine from Canada,” he told the Quebec paper. “Now obviously there are two ways of doing it, by ferry or by land. I don’t know which one it was, but I know that the investigators believe they came from Canada.”

Gov. King said during a Maine Public Broadcasting Corp. radio show Thursday that a car believed to have been used by suspected terrorists and retrieved from a Portland parking lot originally had been rented in Boston. King said it was possible the suspected terrorists could have entered the state via other points, but he added there was no evidence that they had.

The governor speculated it was more likely the men had driven to Portland from Boston, and then boarded a flight out of Portland to Boston on Tuesday morning. King did not say when the men entered Maine or where they entered the state.

“The governor is as curious as anyone else about the travels of these people,” the governor’s spokesperson, John Ripley, said later. “But bottom line is we have not been told anything about a Bangor connection. We are only told what the FBI knows to be true or close to the truth. I’m sure there are things the FBI is investigating that we haven’t been told about yet.”

Ripley said the governor was briefed formally one time on Thursday and said that briefing was done by the state police.

“He is not being briefed directly by the FBI. The FBI briefs the state police who then brief the governor,” he said. “It is still early and, to be honest, the governor wants to let these investigators do their job.”

State police spokesman Stephen McCausland said state police had received more than 100 calls, some of which were simply sightings of people of Middle Eastern descent.

“Some of those calls have resulted in important information,” he said. “But most of that information has to do with the two who left from the Portland jetport.”

In Bangor, Police Chief Donald Winslow said his office also was responding to sightings of people of Middle East descent.

“Any information we collect is being forwarded to the FBI,” Winslow said. “We still have no knowledge that any of these terrorists were in Bangor.”