A Phoenix Field Office Special Agent Spotted bin Laden’s Strategy: New 9/11 Clue
The agent noted an "inordinate number" of suspicious flight students; guessed their intentions; made recommendations—FBI did none.
On August 23, 2001, FBI analyst Margaret Gillespie, based at the Counterterrorist Center, noticed existing intelligence regarding bin Laden's strategy that had gone unnoticed. She recommended adding Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to the Department of State's watch-list for denied visas. By this time, U.S. Customs and the Immigration and Naturalization Service had concluded that at least al-Mihdhar was still present in the U.S. and that al-Hazmi had not left.
The heightened activity led the FBI's New York and Los Angeles field offices to conduct searches for the men. However, the New York field office found no evidence of either individual, while the Los Angeles office received the search request on September 11, 2001.
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