- The FBI is conducting a manhunt for six men carrying
Israeli passports who are suspected of plotting terror attacks in the United
States - and who were released by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service after having been under arrest, according to the Knight-Ridder
news service.
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- The six were arrested over the weekend in a state in
the Midwest while traveling in two cars, and were found to have photographs
and information about a Florida nuclear reactor and the Alaska pipeline,
the news agency reported. There are three nuclear reactors in Florida.
They also had "suspicious equipment," including box-cutter knives
similar to those used by the hijackers on September 11, Knight-Ridder said.
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- But the six, who were decribed as having Israeli passports
and a "Middle Eastern look," were released after INS officials
decided that their passports and visas were valid. According to the Miami
Herald, the INS released the men without consulting the FBI - or reporting
the arrests. When FBI director Robert Mueller heard about the incident,
he was "furious."
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- However, the newspaper also quoted the INS as calling
the report that it had allowed the release of the six "unconfirmed."
And a spokesman for the company operating the Alaskan pipeline, which carries
some 17 percent of all the oil in the U.S., said he did not know of any
threat to the pipe.
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- An Israeli embassy spokesman in Washington said he knew
about the affair from the newspaper, but American authorities had made
no formal contact with the embassy about the matter.
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