7 Years Later, 9/11 Hijackers' Remains Are In Limbo

If I had a nickel for every time we have been told about the "ongoing investigation" of 9/11 as being the reason why we can't have access to information, I would be a rich man. - Jon

Source: nytimes.com

By SEAN D. HAMILL
Published: September 20, 2008

Seven years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the remains of 13 of the 19 men responsible have been identified and are in the custody of the F.B.I. and the New York City medical examiner’s office.

But no one has formally requested the remains in order to bury them.

“Politically, one can understand that this is a hot potato,” said Muneer Fareed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America and a former professor of Islamic studies. “People don’t want to identify with the political equivalent of Jeffrey Dahmer.”

What would happen if someone asked for the hijackers’ remains is not clear.

Neither the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which holds the remains of the nine hijackers whose planes hit the Pentagon and crashed in a field in Somerset County, Pa., nor the New York City medical examiner’s office, which holds the remains of 4 of the 10 hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center buildings, has policies to deal with such a request.

“If and when it comes up, we’ll address it then,” an F.B.I. spokesman, Richard Kolko, said.

The bureau could turn down such requests, Mr. Kolko said, because the Sept. 11 investigation is an open case.

The medical examiner’s office, which, like the F.B.I., refuses to say where exactly the remains are being kept, will eventually put together a committee to come up with a policy, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the office.

Groups representing the victims of Sept. 11 are not sure what should be done with the remains.

“It would be sadly ironic if they ended up being properly buried or sent to a Muslim country when many of the remains of the victims remain buried in a garbage dump,” said Kurt Horning, a founder with his wife, Diane, of the group WTC Families for Proper Burial. “I know we’d feel very distressed.”

The Hornings’ son, Matthew, 26, was working at the World Trade Center and died there on Sept. 11. Their group has been advocating for excavation of the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island where ash and other debris from the World Trade Center site was buried. The group believes the debris may contain identifiable remains.

The identified remains of the victims of Sept. 11 are regularly returned to their families upon request, after officials have made positive identifications.

At the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, investigators first identified the victims, and the remains that could not be linked to a victim’s DNA profile were assumed to belong to the terrorists.

For the World Trade Center site, with a much larger area to search and an initially undetermined number of victims, the F.B.I. identified the 10 terrorists’ DNA profiles from personal items, Mr. Kolko said, which included recovered luggage and cigarette butts left in a rental car. The unnamed DNA profiles of those terrorists were then supplied to the medical examiner’s office.

But, since the DNA profiles were unnamed by the bureau, the office could not say which hijackers have been identified, just that 4 of the 10 have been so far.

Three of them were identified as hijackers within two years of the 2001 attack. But the fourth set of remains was not found until September 2007, when the discovery of numerous bone fragments at a building near the World Trade Center site prompted a reinvestigation of the entire site.

The only semblance of a request from a hijacker’s family member to any of the agencies that handled the recovery of remains came in the summer of 2002 from an uncle of one of the men on Flight 93, which crashed in Somerset County.

“I got a call from Beirut at 4 a.m.,” said Wallace E. Miller, the Somerset County coroner. “He said he was an uncle of one of them and wanted to know what the situation was. I said if he sent a DNA sample, we’d make a cross-reference to confirm, but I never heard anything more from him.”

The uncle — Mr. Miller said he could not recall his name or who his nephew was — was apparently prompted by a British or South African journalist who had put the man on the phone after interviewing him about the events of Sept. 11.

Is this the first...

Mention of hijacker remains as being verified aside from the two at the Pentagon?


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

If the method used by the

If the method used by the FBI to "positively identify the hijackers" was by matching DNA samples, this would infer that the FBI (or some other agency) already possessed DNA samples from each hijacker *prior to the 9/11 attacks* from which they could make a match. If this was indeed the case, by what method was the DNA obtained, how much contact did they FBI (or other US government agencies) have with the hijackers prior to the attacks, and most importantly, why did the FBI have DNA samples from all these men in the first place? (I am assuming the official story's position here, in that these men had been on board those planes and had commandeered them).

DNA...

http://www.911blogger.com/node/16712


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

funny thing is...

We have no hard evidence that there were even any hijackers actually on any planes. There is no video surveillance footage of the alleged hijackers. The still shots we were shown were from a different airport on a different day. The telephone calls from folks on the planes claiming hijackers were on board apparently can't be verified. So why don't we stick with the facts? We have no facts supporting the theory that hijackers took over planes that day, so let's not even talk about the alleged hijackers or post articles about said alleged hijackers.

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

Total BS absolutely unbelieveable

You mean to tell me that steel buildings are turned to dust. the basements swimming in molten metal. Pieces of human remains measured in microns blown all over Manhattan and these lieing POS are saying they've got documented remains from specific individuals. People how much of this ridiculous BS are we going to stand for. THE CRIMINALS ARE RUNNING THE SHOW,KILLING RANDOMLY NOW ROBBING THE BANKS. STEALING OUR MONEY TO REPLACE THE TRILLIONS STOLEN BY THEIR BUDDIES ON WALL STREET. WTF?

Tried to get some answers to this at JREF

The most logical thing would be for the named hijackers to have been on the planes. After all, the CIA and FBI ITOS appeared to be protecting these people from arrest. Yet there are questions:

1) Why did we hear from Touhey (Portland Jetport) but not from any of the 9/11 flight gate agents? If Touhey was freaked out by Atta then one would think the Flight 11 gate agent may have had the same reaction. Maybe the gate agents don't remember anything. The point is the public doesn't know and IMO that is odd.

2) AFAICT, Dulles and Newark had cameras in the departure gates but Logan evidently had no cameras. Does the FBI have any footage of the departure gates? Again it is strange that they released a video of a baggage checkpoint at Dulles and video of Atta and Alomari in Portland but no other airport footage.

3) How did the FBI know they gave the forensic team the exact 10 DNA samples BEFORE the samples were matched with DNA from people on the planes? That seems too precise for DNA samples found on rental car steering wheels and hotel rooms.

4) Why didn't the FBI get DNA samples from the families of the hijackers?

There is one known account of the Flight 93 gate agent's experience:

A United Airlines manager finds that a gate agent has already singled out boarding passes belonging to four suspicious passengers who were on Flight 93. Terri Rizzuto is the United Airlines station manager at Newark Airport, from where Flight 93 departed. Some time after hearing that this plane has crashed, she speaks on the phone with the FBI, which is requesting the plane’s manifest and its Passenger Name Record (PNR). After arranging permission to release these, she goes to Gate 17, from where she knows Flight 93 departed, wanting to talk to her staff there. When she arrives, a supervisor hands her four boarding passes. The supervisor tells her they are “The men, who did this maybe,” and points her toward one of the gate agents who had boarded the passengers onto the flight. When Rizzuto asks the gate agent, “How do you know?” he replies: “They were too well-dressed. Too well-dressed for that early in the morning. And their muscles rippled below their suits.… [A]nd their eyes.” [Murphy, 2006, pp. 71-73] However, this report of men with rippling muscles contradicts the 9/11 Commission’s description of the so-called “muscle” hijackers (i.e. the non-pilot hijackers) on the four targeted planes: They “were not physically imposing,” with the majority of them being “slender in build.”

Flight 93 gate agent pulls suspicious boarding passes

passenger lists

none of the alleged hijackers were on the passenger lists, not even under aliases. that settles it.

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

Not...

True.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Claim: "NO Alleged hijackers... on the passenger lists"

"none of the alleged hijackers were on the passenger lists, not even under aliases. that settles it."

This is a false claim. See them for yourself:

9/11 Misinformation: Flight “Passenger Lists” Show “No Hijacker Names”

"In July of 2006 a large collection of documents was published on a website containing prosecution and defense exhibits for the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui… The faxes, reproduced below, include the names of the alleged hijackers.”

Note: Claiming these documents were "faked" is a completely different claim than "they don't have their names on them".

According to the Washington Post, Hanni Hanjour’s name was “not on the American Airlines manifest for [Flight 77] because he may not have had a ticket.”... There is no source for this claim, but presumably, it comes from the FBI. This claim is interesting considering that it is contradicted by the fact that Hanjour’s name shows up on the reproduced faxes provided by the Moussaoui trial.
http://arabesque911.blogspot.com/2008/08/911-misinformation-flight-passe...
_______________
A 9/11/2008 Resolution: Start Your Own 9/11 Blog

I went to that website, but

I went to that website, but I could not see the manifests closeup. All it had were small images. I saw the passenger lists on CNN's website more than 2 years ago. The alleged hijackers names were not on them. No false claim here.

Oh look, CNN still has the lists available. I suggest we all copy them while we still can. This is from an email I sent out over 1.5 years ago:

It would have been impossible for these men to board these planes without being on the official passenger lists (links provided), and yet the Pentagon came up with their names and photos within minutes. There were no hijackers.

American Airlines #11 Boeing 767 - North Tower

Alleged hijackers:
Satam Suqami - still alive
Waleed Alshehri - still alive
Wail Alshehri - still alive
Mohamed Atta - still alive
Abdulaziz Alomari - still alive

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html

.

American Airlines #77 Boeing 757 - Pentagon

Alleged hijackers:
Khald Almihdhar - still alive
Majed Moqed
Nawaf Alhazmi
Salem Alhazmi - still alive
Hani Hanjour

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA77.victims.html

.

United Airlines #175 Boeing 767 - South Tower

Alleged hijackers:
Marwan Al-Shhhi - still alive
Fayez Rashid
Ahmed Alghamdi
Hamza Alghamdi
Mohand Alshehri

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua175.victims.html

.

United Airlines #93 Boeing 757 - Pennsylvania

Alleged hijackers:
Saeed Alghamdi - still alive
Ahmad Haznawi
Ahmed Alnamj - still alive
Ziad Samir Jarrah

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua93.victims.html

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

Do you notice...

The word "victims" twice in the URL's you provided? It seems to me that before you start telling people what they should focus on, you should get your facts straight.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

What is your point?

What is your point?

Look, Jon, I am challenging you, and I am sorry if you are upset about it. This movement has come far enough to stop diddle daddling about the facts. 'Arab terrorists' had little to nothing to do with the tragic events of 9/11. Any reference to hijackers helps to protect the powerful forces that have taken control over this country and consequently over the world. I feel strongly that the time for being soft about the issues is over. Let's use the most provocative, attention grabbing aspects of the evidence we can to bring as many people into the truth movement as quickly as we can.

Any discussion about the hijackers helps to comfort the sheep that what they have been told is true. On the other hand, I have found over the past couple of years that talk about controlled demolition of the twin towers and building 7 brings the sheep into the truth pretty fast.

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

Take it up with Jon via email.

Thanks.

Jon

Sorry for jumping on your case. I personally have little patience for what I perceive as pointless discussion over irrelevant issues in regards to 9/11. I know that sounds judgmental, and I guess it is. To me we have only one mission currently, and that is to wake up as many people as we can, especially those in uniform. Anything else has little relevance these days.

Please accept my apology.

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

passenger lists

"Let's use the most provocative, attention grabbing aspects of the evidence we can to bring as many people into the truth movement as quickly as we can."

Bruno... if you had taken the time to read my article you would have seen, "CNN describes its criteria for including persons in its memorial in a pop-up window labelled ‘About this site’… ‘(Those identified by federal authorities as the hijackers are not included)…’"
http://arabesque911.blogspot.com/2008/08/911-misinformation-flight-passe...

Promoting "provocative" information that is actually untrue is shooting ourselves in the foot, I think. Yes, it is important to fact check claims and not just repeat things that we hear second hand. One day I decided to fact check this claim after hearing it so many times and it turns out it wasn't true. How does this help the 9/11 truth movement at all?

See the passenger lists released during the 20th "patsy" trial here:
http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/passengers.html
_______________
A 9/11/2008 Resolution: Start Your Own 9/11 Blog

promoting provocative information

I agree with you. Talking about hijackers is not the way to go. That's why I focus almost exclusively on the controlled demolition of the twin towers and buidling 7.

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

FBI's story

As far as I can see, what the FBI did is, after the attacks, they went to places they thought the hijackers had been (hotel rooms, their cars) and collected some DNA samples. Some of these samples then matched DNA samples taken from the crash sites. The FBI then assumed that the DNA samples were those of the hijackers it had identified by other means (e.g. looking at INS records, talking to acquaintances, etc.). The FBI does not know for sure which DNA sample goes with which hijacker, although if it has DNA from a car used only by Atta and Alomari and a matching DNA sample from the WTC, then it must think that that DNA sample is for Atta or Alomari.

Assuming that the FBI's collection and identification of the samples is correct, all this really proves is that some people on the planes previously went to places the alleged hijackers did (or their DNA found its way there somehow).

My opinion is the hijackers were on the planes, but the DNA tests do not prove the hijackers were who the FBI says they were.

doubting dna from rental car

Rental cars have many peoples DNA, rentals don't get cleaned that well. There is a cover up going on. there was no matching dna. lies lies and more lies

I agree...

Completely.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

And we can trust anything the FBI says

And we can trust anything the FBI says because they took all the tapes of what happened at the Pentagon. And the FBI also found a passport from one of the hijackers in the streets at ground zero against all odds! and the FBI also found an undamaged bandana from one of the hijackers in Pennsylvania against all odds! and the FBI found luggage with practically all the hijacking plans against all odds and likelihood! Yeah right.

There is no evidence that any of the hijackers were on any of the planes, so why post articles as if hijackers even existed? What is the purpose? I am tired of the LET IT HAPPEN ON PURPOSE posts on 911 Blogger by Jon Gold. This is counter productive. Lots of people are actually out there in the streets every day trying to wake up thousands of people to the fact that nefarious forces pulled off 911 and MADE IT HAPPEN ON PURPOSE, but then here on 911 Blogger a select few seem to have free reign to propagate what the fascists (who are currently taking over our great nation) want the people to believe, that crazy Muslim terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into buildings.

Please stop rehashing (what the government wants you to rehash like a good sheep) and focus on waking people up to the disturbing but true evidence that it was all planned and orchestrated with deception, misdirection, lies, and absolute media control.

Jon Gold, why don't you focus on the solid evidence of the controlled demolition of three world trade center towers instead of crazy Muslim hijackers? What is your purpose?

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

How can you be so certain?

1) Key evidence is still classified.

2) Airphone calls were possible.

3) We have voices of hijackers on ATC radio with no further communication from the pilots/co-pilots (Flight 11 and 93).

4) If the goal was to blame 9/11 on al Qaeda then why not have al Qaeda operatives involved?

5) What were the al Qaeda operatives doing in the US? Were they fooled in some manner?

Good information.


Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Why not have al Qaeda operatives involved?

Why not have al Qaeda operatives involved? You would think, but why have them involved if you don't need them, and the plan is already set in motion? Who wants to have muslim hijackers (hack jobbers) involved in the plan when that would only jeopardize the plan? What if someone called them out in the airport? That would have been a disaster for the plan. This is all conjecture, and that is why folks who claim to only rely on hard evidence for their personal 9-11 Truth outreach, then should not rely on any 'stories' about hijackers because there is no hard evidence that even one single hijacker made it onto any of the planes.

I personally believe, and the evidence seems to support that the sole purpose of the al Qaeda operatives in the U.S. was for a back story. The back story is one of the key ingredients of the grand deception. How many other so-called Muslim terrorist attacks have had an elaborate back story with zero evidence that the blamed 'terrorists' actually were involved at the scene? A False Flag Operation involves pretending to be the enemy, or pretending there is an enemy.

I have a $20 bill that can be folded to show the twin towers smoking on one side of the bill (NORTH TOWER with smoke coming out the top, SOUTH TOWER with smoke coming out lower than the north tower), and on the other side of the bill we have the PENTAGON with smoke billowing out the face. To top it off, the fold also forms a PYRAMID with a capstone, and we know how the power elite love to use Egyptian motifs. Did you know that September 11th is NEW YEAR'S DAY on the Egyptian calendar? And 9-11-01 is the first Egyptian New Year's Day in the new American century? (PNAC Project for a New American Century). All coincidence? No way. Well to top it all off, this $20 bill was printed in 1996 <-----------------

Let's stop pretending that there was the least bit of chance in what happened on September 11, 2001. Having actual al Qaeda operatives on any of the planes would create a random chance for failure. It was all planned down to the last detail, well in advance. 1996?!

The people that pulled off September 11th are the same people who print our money, control our finances, and our media. Please, no more wishy washy stances, just get out there and wake people up, as many as you can, as fast as you can.

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

What explains Flight 93?

If the plotters had it all planned out and decided that a LIHOP scenario was too risky, then what explains Flight 93?

I agree there are reasons to doubt LIHOP. The degree of government secrecy makes it very difficult to determine what happened.

Flight 93

Honestly, I liked the theory presented in Loose Change 2nd Edition. I had found more evidence to corroborate the scenario they presented, that Flight 93 was grounded because of a bomb scare, and the passengers were taken off the plane and disposed of.

http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20061128/NEWS/111280040

We know now that no phone calls could have been made from flight 93. It was all slight of hand, and a psyop. The passengers fought back and died anyway. Read into it what you want. I remember that I was deeply affected by this part of the story, and I was ready to fight back, too.

Some folks believe that Flight 93 was shot down, yet there is not one image of human carnage from that flight. I don't believe it, do you? Maybe they shot down something, but it wasn't Flight 93.

With you in the struggle,
Bruno
WeAreChangeLA - http://www.wacla.org

An aspect of the "hijacker"

An aspect of the "hijacker" scenario that I find really non-credible is as follows:

The official 9/11 story contends that the operation had been "meticulously planned". In that case, the "alleged hijackers" would have been highly aware of the NORAD/FAA scramble procedure, which has been used *without failure* for many years, on some 70 occasions annually.

According to the official story, Flight 77 took off from Dulles, flew all the way to the Kentucky border (!!!!), and then back again to almost its start point some 90 minutes later, to hit the Pentagon....

GLARINGLY OBVIOUS QUESTION(S): Why did the (alleged) hijackers make the decision to fly their commandeered plane(s) for such a long way out, for such an extended period of time, when they must have known, before they got on board, that the normal scrambling protocol would have ensured that their mission would have ended in CERTAIN FAILURE within 10-15 minutes of taking over the plane? The only way they must have expected success, unless they knew otherwise, was to have hijacked their planes within minutes of take-off and flown straight to their targets in the most direct way possible, from as close as possible, and as fast as possible. Similarly, Flight 93 went all the way to Ohio, before turning back, as the official story presumes, bound for another high profile target in DC. Even Flights 11 and 175 were airborne for too long for the (alleged) hijackers *to have expected success*, i.e. hitting the WTC before being challenged.

The flight paths of all four planes makes no sense, and does not gel with the official story, unless (a) the (alleged) hijackers possessed highly specific and privileged information that they would be allowed to fly to their targets without being challenged by the military, for up to an hour and a half... (which looks really bad on all counts re. the military)... OR, (b) more speculatively, there were no hijackers and the planes were under the direct control of the same people who ensured that no jets took off to challenge them!

I have not seen this anomaly addressed by those who support the official story. If so, how would they weasel their way out of it?

I'm not sure what the FBI did

If they turned over only 10 DNA samples then I find that hard to understand. If they turned over say 50 samples and said we think the 10 hijackers are going to be in this batch then it makes more sense.

The forensic team has only been able to match four sample thus far. So it would seem the FBI cannot presently know that they have turned over samples of the other six. Unless of course they attained their samples in another manner than they have stated publicly.

It's an open case

but, hey, let's kill a few million more foreigners because of the verdict apparently reached!

Yes, I am as skeptical as

Yes, I am as skeptical as Bruno as to the presence of "Arab hijackers" on the planes: no evidence that would stand up in court has been presented; it is all hearsay, or has no verifiable chain of custody, or has contradictions etc. I was being devil's advocate in my original post, this issue of identification of the hijackers, if brought up in a court case, could present some very awkward/embarassing problems for the government/FBI's case. Logically, we cannot prove there were no hijackers; it is logically impossible to prove a negative (evidence of absence is not absence of evidence). Saddam Hussein was forced to contend with a parallel impossibility .. he was ordered to prove Iraq had no WMDs. He couldn't comply with this demand.

Let us always be aware that the only people who benefit from our disunity and squabbling (LIHOP vs MIHOP, hijackers vs no hijackers, explosives vs. exotic weapons etc etc etc etc) are the perpetrators themselves. In this case, whether they let it, or made it happen (on purpose) all boils down to the same thing: elements of the US Government were involved (to a yet to be determined extent) in causing the deaths of 3000 people and in a court case, to be tried for being accessory before, or after the fact to murder carries similar potential penalties to that given to the actual murderer himself, if found guilty of course.

In parallel, even if it can be conclusively proven that, for example, explosives were deliberately used to destroy the Twin Towers and WTC#7, (which I acknowledge is the most likely scenario), where do we stand then? Unfortunately, there is zero evidence, to date, as to how, when and by whom the thermite/thermate/C4 cutting charges or whatever were placed. I believe it would be far easier to try members of "BushCorp" and heads of various agencies for the crime of accessory to the mass murder of 3000 people (and all the other accompanying stuff), than to get them for the "Big One". Get these people in court and cross examination by any criminal lawyers worth their salt should get someone to fatally trip, since their story is so weak and flawed from the get go. Not only that, but the prospect of a 9/11 related trial could bring a bevy of whistleblowers out of the woodwork: they sure haven't killed them all off yet!

Unfortunately for us all, it is now 7 years since the event, peoples' memories get fuzzy, witnesses die, and evidence gets compromised, or disappears. Let us approach this in the most practical ways possible; whether they let it happen, or made it happen, this is a luxury we don't have the time to address. Whichever is the truth (I believe the latter, but thats irrelevant), the perps could get life in jail (or even capital sentences). Is not that good enough?

Just my 2cents.

And there are some of us who

And there are some of us who are tired of people within this movement who accept theory as fact, like you, and other people i.e. Victoria Ashley.

Justin A. Martell
jamartell.blogspot.com

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach! Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach! My pathway led by confusion boats...mutiny from stern to bow!