Question of Bangor link to attacks unanswered

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BANGOR – It has been well-documented that two of the suspected terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon had been in Portland. The evidence includes widely publicized pictures of the two men at the Portland International Jetport. They also were caught on security cameras at Wal-Mart and at ATMs.

But a month after the devastating attacks, the question remains unanswered of whether some of the 19 men authorities believe hijacked and crashed four planes were ever in Bangor.

On Friday, Bangor Police Chief Donald Winslow reaffirmed earlier statements that his department has received no substantiated information that the suspected terrorists were in Bangor. Winslow added that he is not discounting the possibility that they were in the city at one point. After all, he said, some were believed to have been in the United States for years.

Enough people have reported sightings in the Bangor area to keep investigators busy.

A former chief of counterterrorism for the CIA has asserted that sources and former associates at the FBI told him that Bangor International Airport was a connection point for some of the terrorists. Three of them took a flight to Boston, while lack of space on the plane prompted two others to drive to Portland where they picked up a flight to Boston, according to Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of intelligence.

Later reports indicate the two hijackers who flew from Portland to Boston had first rented a car and driven from Boston to Portland, contradicting Cannistraro’s version of events. But what about the three terrorists who allegedly got on a plane in Bangor? There have been no media reports on their movements and the FBI isn’t commenting on the investigation.

Bangor police and airport officials said Friday that they have not received anything to substantiate the reports of the hijackers in Bangor. Rebecca Hupp, acting director of Bangor International Airport, acknowledged that the airport did turn over about 20 surveillance tapes to the FBI.

Cannistraro isn’t alone in believing there is a Bangor connection.

Three taxicab drivers say they provided rides to people they believe to be among those men identified by federal authorities as being the hijackers. The rides were provided as recently as the day before the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. The cabdrivers said they called the FBI with their reports, but have not been interviewed.

Laura Monteith has been driving cabs for four years and says she has a good eye for detail. She’s had to develop the skill after the difficulties she had in the past.

“I’ve been robbed; I’ve been beaten up; I’ve been threatened,” she said. “I take note of all my passengers.”

Ten days before the attack, Monteith said, she was driving for Paul’s Taxi and picked up three men at about 12:45 a.m. outside Jimmy V’s, a Bangor bar and restaurant. She said they asked her to take them to the Hampden and Winterport line, but gave her no specific address.

She said she can’t forget the face or words of the man who sat in the front seat with her. Shown separate pictures of the hijackers, she identified Mohamed Atta, the man authorities suspect piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, as the man in the front seat. A second man she identified as Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan Al Qadi Banihammad, who the FBI said was on United Airlines Flight 175, which struck the South Tower.

Monteith said that inside the cab, the man she identified as Atta kept asking her bizarre questions, including whether she played with guns as a girl or whether she ever considered suicide. He also asked her whether she had ever been raped.

“I thought he was asking too many questions that shouldn’t have been asked,” she said this week.

Monteith said that while on Main Street in Bangor, near the Burger King restaurant, the passengers had a change of plans and asked her to drive them to Dysart’s in Hermon for breakfast. Another passenger in back didn’t have the Middle Eastern appearance of the other two. She said he was tall and lanky with blond hair and glasses and was wearing tan dress slacks, a tan shirt and thin brown jacket.

She believed that they initially were headed to the blond man’s residence, but changed their minds when the man said he didn’t have any food at home.

Diverted to Dysart’s, the men made Monteith promise that if she couldn’t wait for them that she would return in an hour for them. She left and never returned. Monteith said she couldn’t after what they said to her.

Tom Sullivan drives for Town Taxi and said that the day before the terrorist attacks, he took several men resembling the terrorists to Staples at the Airport Mall in Bangor and later dropped them off at the Bangor Mall. He believes some of those men were hijackers.

A third cabdriver, who did not want to be identified, said that on Saturday, Sept. 8, he brought four men he now believes were among the terrorists to Ames Department Store at the Airport Mall. He said that they were in a rush to make a 4:30 p.m. flight and quickly bought seven or eight suitcases.

There have been other reports of possible terrorist sightings in Bangor as well.

An official of the Unicel cellular telephone company on Union Street reported last month that a group of Middle Eastern men unsuccessfully attempted to purchase cell phones there.

If the FBI knows of a Bangor connection, it isn’t saying.

Special Agent Gail Marcinkiewicz of the Boston office of the FBI said that her division is evaluating all the information they have received and responding appropriately. She said her office is responsible for agents in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and that as of Sept. 27, had received more than 8,000 tips.

As for whether there was any information that placed some of the terrorists in Bangor, Marcinkiewicz said she could not comment on the investigation.

If no terrorists were in Bangor, how can the sightings be explained?

Hupp of BIA said that it’s not uncommon to see Middle Eastern people in the area as Saudi Arabia airlines, carrying members of the royal Saudi family, have landed at BIA from time to time in the past. It wasn’t known when a Saudi plane last landed in Bangor.

Chief Winslow said that his department has received about 50 reports that have been noted and forwarded to the FBI, although nothing specifically links the terrorists to visits in Bangor. On Thursday, for example, someone reported seeing some Middle Eastern people driving near the tank farms by Maine Avenue and the airport and that the people appeared to be lost. An officer went to investigate, but the people were gone on arrival.