The hunt is on for the culprits

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

NEW YORK, SEPT. 12. The hunt is on for those responsible for the horrific acts of terror on Tuesday in New York and Washington which many believe have claimed thousands of lives.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is said to be looking at last minute intercepts and desperate phone calls from air crash victims from their cell phones to put together pieces of the puzzle.

The focus is not just on those directly responsible for the tragedies in the two American cities; rather it is also on those sympathisers and people who may have harboured the terrorists. And if the U.S. has its way, there is also the determination to get to the mastermind, currently believed to be Osama bin Laden.

"Everything is pointing in the direction of Osama bin Laden," says the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Hatch has been quoted as saying that the intelligence agencies have identified a supporter of Osama bin Laden in one of the flight manifests and also by way of a communications intercept.

"They have an intercept of some communication that included people associated with Osama bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit," Mr. Hatch has said. But officials of the Bush administration even if "almost" sure that initial evidence pointed to the Saudi fugitive are acting with caution.

The planning and pattern of execution of the horrendous acts point to an established organisation with a lot of organisation and support, not some group that sits on the fringes of extremism and takes credit. Even if law enforcement agencies will act on every tip and take note of every claim of responsibility, the "doability" of the acts by any particular group will be the focus of attention.

If the intelligence agencies are fanning across the country and overseas, a particular focus is on specific areas within this country where sympathisers of radical groups including Osama bin Laden reside. And one report has it that federal agents have sought search warrants in Florida where suspected sympathisers of Osama bin Laden are believed to be operating.

There is no doubt that if the Bush administration finds out that Osama bin Laden and his organisation have been behind Tuesday's attack in New York and Washington, the retribution will be swift and severe. And for the most part, Afghanistan which is already reeling under war and unrest for the last two decades will face the brunt of the attack in spite of all that the Taliban may have to say about Osama bin Laden's innocence.

That Washington may be on the verge of unleashing its military might and wherewithal on Afghanistan is seen in the fact that the United Nations has already started moving out its 80-odd expatriate workers from the country. The U.N. Envoy to Afghanistan, Mr. Francesc Vandrell, has said that if indeed the U.S. makes the determination that Osama bin Laden is behind the terrorist hits there would be "incalculable consequences" for Afghanistan.

At present, the Bush administration is faced with two alternatives. On the one hand there are people who are saying that Washington must rightaway hit Osama bin Laden and his associates given the preliminary evidence. The rationale is that waiting for all the information to trickle in will take the sting out of the response.

On the other hand, there is the argument that by rushing in to attack Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan, the United States will be no different than what the terrorists have done - killing innocent people. This group makes the point that only after marshalling compelling evidence the United States should pursue the attackers and with such resolute force that would make terrorists think many times before indulging in wanton acts of terror.Lax security at airports

As terrorism and counter-terrorism experts try to put together various pieces of the attacks on New York and Washington, there is a different dimension to Tuesday's events that merits serious attention - security breaches at three airports in the U.S. east coast.

Four planes were hijacked and used for terrorist acts; and three airports were involved. In Boston, the Logan airport saw an American Airlines plane and a United Airlines plane taking off for Los Angeles 15 minutes apart. Both crashed into the World Trade Centre.

All the planes were heading for the west coast. The impression is that flying to the west coast means that the planes will be carrying heavy amounts of fuel; and to a terrorist, this means explosions of great magnitudes as what took place in the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

In the Washington Dulles International Airport, an American Airlines flight took off for Los Angeles and minutes later ploughed into the Pentagon. And from Newark, New Jersey, a United Airlines plane bound for San Francisco went down near Pittsburgh. Speculation is that this hijacked plane also had a specific target - the Capitol or the presidential retreat of Camp David.

Although the FBI sealed the airports, questions remain. The basic one being how it was that ``passengers'' got away carrying knives and metal cardboard cutters. The information about the hijackers' weapons was relayed to the ground by at least one airline stewardess and two other passengers, who managed to use their cellphones to call home. One of them was Ms. Barbara Olson, wife of Mr. Theodore Olson, Solicitor-General of the U.S.

Airport authorities in Boston maintain everything was normal when two of the ill-fated planes left. But senior law makers like Senator John Kerry think otherwise. ``Clearly there were two failures of security at the Logan Airport. It's not just Logan. If you have four hijackings in one day, you have a national problem''.

Security is generally believed to be tight at all U.S. airports; and in recent years, newly-installed scanning machines for hand carry items and the personal walk through metal detectors are said to be sophisticated enough to pick up even metal items inside the body. An argument has been made that terrorists circumvent this by using highly-sophisticated plastic knives and instruments, but the detection mechanism is supposed to be even better.

For the most part, analysts and security experts look at the agencies involved in airport screening; and one of the common observations is the lack of proper personnel manning the equipment and in some instances of employees with dubious records being hired. In fact, one of the nation's largest contractors for airport security recently pleaded guilty to federal charges and paid a hefty fine for falsifying background and training records of some employees.

But one of the bottom line arguments has been that many of the employees are not properly paid. ``When you pay minimum wage, you get minimum wage folks,'' a senior official of the National Transportation Safety Board told The New York Times. But at a time when airlines are under tremendous pressure for prompt departures and arrivals, a thorough check is time-consuming and at times even prompting protests from passengers.

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