DO NOT GO DOWNTOWN ON 9/11
By GREG B. SMITH
Daily News Staff Writer
Federal investigators have received evidence that some Middle Easterners in
the New York area were warned ahead of time to stay out of lower Manhattan
the morning of Sept. 11, the Daily News has learned.
The FBI was able to confirm several such warnings occurred but has been
unable to discover the source of the warnings.
Agents with the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force have interviewed school
officials in Jersey City and Brooklyn and questioned members of a Bronx
mosque about the warnings, sources told The News.
James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI's New York office, confirmed that
agents were looking into several reports of warnings that preceded the
attack against the World Trade Center.
"Among the e-mails and tips we received are a number of reports of people
overhearing people boasting about or warning about coming attacks," he said.
Suspicious Comments
He declined to discuss specifics and would not say whether any of the
600-plus people detained in the terror probe were questioned about
pre-attack warnings.
But officials and sources familiar with the investigation said the incidents
include the following:
Jersey City school administrators confirmed that several days before the
attack, a student of Middle Eastern descent issued a vague warning not to
travel into lower Manhattan the morning of Sept. 11.
Joanne Kenny, associate superintendent of the Jersey City public schools,
said, "Crisis staff determined that comments made or notes written were
serious enough so we called the juvenile bureau of the Jersey City police
and they followed up."
Sources Not Found
Jersey City police did not return calls seeking comment, but a source said
the matter wound up being investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force.
Kenny wouldn't discuss the nature of the warning or reveal the name of the
student who made the comment. But a source said federal authorities
investigated the matter and could not determine the source of the warning.
"They ran into a dead end, and whoever may have given the warning denied
it," the source said.
In the Bronx, federal investigators received reports about a similar warning
at a mosque, sources said. The sources would not reveal the name of the mosque.
Sources with the Joint Terrorist Task Force questioned dozens of members of
the mosque, many of whom told agents they had been given a vague warning to
stay out of lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, sources said.
One source said investigators again hit a dead end when the mosque's
hierarchy denied having prior knowledge of the attack.
The source pointed out that in years past, law enforcement had received tips
about warnings to stay away from specific locales and of planned attacks
that never materialized.
"There's a cry-wolf aspect to this that you need to put this in context,"
the source said.
At Brooklyn's New Utrecht High School, the FBI was notified that a Pakistani
student in a bilingual class "made a comment to a teacher the week prior
about the twin towers," said Karen Finney, spokeswoman for the Board of
Education.
Finney would not reveal the nature of the comment, but the Journal-News of
Westchester reported yesterday that the student pointed at the tower during
a heated political argument and declared, "Look at those two buildings. They
won't be here next week."
School officials would not release the name of the student, but said he was
still attending classes at New Utrecht. They said they notified New York
police and that the matter was turned over to the FBI.
"I don't know what the status of the FBI's investigation is," Finney said.
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