- A paid FBI informant told ABCNEWS that three years before
Sept. 11, he began providing the FBI with information about a young Saudi
who later flew a hijacked passenger plane into the Pentagon.
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- Aukai Collins, the informant, said he worked for the
FBI for four years in Phoenix, monitoring the Arab and Islamic communities
there. Hani Hanjour was the hijacker Collins claimed to have told the FBI
about while Hanjour was in flight training in Phoenix.
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- Twenty hours after ABCNEWS first requested a response,
the FBI issued an "emphatic denial" that Collins had told the
agency anything about Hanjour, though FBI sources acknowledged that Collins
had worked for them.
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- FBI Special Agent Ken Williams wrote a memo last July
10, urging FBI headquarters to investigate Arab students in flight schools
nationwide - and helped set off the furor over whether the attacks could
have been prevented.
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- If Collins' claims are true, he would be another source
who had advised the FBI to take a closer look at Phoenix, and maybe the
first to identify a potential terrorist who later turned out to be one
of the Sept. 11 hijackers
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- Collins said the FBI knew Hanjour lived in Phoenix, knew
his exact address, his phone number and even what car he drove. "They
knew everything about the guy," said Collins.
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- The FBI emphatically denies that Collins provided any
information about Hanjour, but officials acknowledge they paid Collins
for four years to monitor the Islamic and Arab communities of Phoenix because
of his unusual background.
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- A self-styled Islamic holy warrior, Collins was born
in the United States. After getting into trouble with police as a teenager,
he says he found religion - Islam - and eventually went overseas to fight.
In Chechnya, he lost his leg to a land mine.
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- Informant Says He Provided Basic Facts
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- Once in Phoenix, in 1996, the FBI asked Collins to focus
on a group of young Arab men, many of whom were taking flying lessons,
including Hanjour, Collins said.
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- "They drank alcohol, messed around with girls and
stuff like that," Collins told ABCNEWS. "They all lived in an
apartment together, Hani and the others."
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- Collins said he provided the FBI with basic facts and
let the FBI take it from there.
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- "When I said there's this short, skinny Arab guy
who's part of this crowd, drives such-and-such a car, I assumed that they
would then, you know, start tracing him and see who his contacts were,"
he said.
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- FBI Never Saw Hijacker as Threat
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- The FBI in Phoenix either failed to monitor Hanjour's
communications or Hanjour himself practiced extraordinary skill in hiding
his intentions - because the FBI never regarded him as a threat.
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- Much to the dismay of the FBI, Collins has written a
book about his exploits. Soon to be published, it is titled My Jihad.
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- The FBI was not alone in failing to predict Hanjour and
his group were dangerous.
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- "I can't figure it out either," said Collins,
"how they went from their back yard to flying airplanes into buildings."
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- Congress cannot figure it out either, as it continues
to demand answers from the FBI.
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- http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/FBI_informant020523.html
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