Former CIA official defends story of Maine link to terrorism Governor, police spokesman deny hijackers were in Bangor

AUGUSTA – The former chief of counterterrorism for the CIA defended his assertions Friday that Bangor International Airport served as a connection point for a cell of five terrorists en route to Boston.

In a telephone interview from his home in McLean, Va., Vincent Cannistraro said his sources and former associates at the FBI would have had no reason to mislead him while discussing how a cell of five suspected terrorists entered Maine from Canada.

Cannistraro’s claims conflicted with statements made Thursday by Gov. Angus S. King and Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland. Both state officials said that based on the information provided to them by the FBI to date, there appeared to be no Bangor or Canadian connection with the airline hijackings. And Rebecca Hupp, interim director at BIA, said Friday she had received no inquiries from the FBI concerning any activities at the airport.

Cannistraro, a 27-year intelligence veteran with a private consulting firm that includes ABC News among its clients, conceded Friday it was possible some Maine officials were simply not in the loop.

“I can only tell you what the FBI told me and that was that three of these people got on the flight from Bangor,” Cannistraro said Friday.

As doubts continued to surround events in Bangor, investigations intensified in Portland where the Portland Press Herald reported Friday that a local woman may have had a relationship with one of the suspects in Tuesday’s attack on the World Trade Center. According to The Associated Press, Portland police detectives were conducting interviews to determine whether a mystery man reported to police by a university student was one of the terrorists using an assumed name.

On Wednesday, King and McCausland confirmed that a 2001 silver-blue Nissan Altima used by one of the terrorists had been transferred to the Maine State Police Crime Lab from the Portland International Jetport. Federal officials confirmed Friday that Mohamed Atta drove the rental car to Portland from Boston.

The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed Friday that Abdul Alomari and Atta flew out of Portland on Tuesday to Boston where they boarded American Airlines Flight 11. That flight was hijacked and became the first airliner to crash into the World Trade Center. The Portland woman may have had a relationship with Alomari, who may have resided in the city for the past year. She contacted authorities immediately after Tuesday’s terrorist acts.

Maine State Police, Bangor police and officials at Bangor International Airport continued Friday to maintain that the FBI had not indicated any link between the terrorist plot and the airport.

Cannistraro said it could not be ruled out that the group that passed through Bangor could have been part of a support system for the terrorists who actually boarded the airliners. He said it was conceivable that 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. The FBI has taken the passenger lists.

Cannistraro said the group drove to Bangor where they attempted to board a connecting flight to Boston, but were unable to get on due to a lack of available seating. Ultimately, he said, three of the group boarded the Boston feeder flight and the two men left behind drove to Portland and caught a connecting flight to Boston.

There has been no independent confirmation of Cannistraro’s claims, and efforts to obtain passenger lists from the airlines at BIA were unsuccessful Friday.

It is known that a group of Middle Eastern men were in Bangor attempting to purchase cellular telephones Monday. An official with the Unicel cellular telephone company told reporters Friday that a group of Middle Eastern men had offered his salesmen $3,000 Monday to purchase cellular telephones. The salesmen refused when the men were unable to produce adequate identification. The FBI met with Unicel employees this week to discuss the incident.