- Like the posthumous Elvis Presley, Canada's five mysterious
terror suspects seem to have popped up everywhere.
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- They were at Akswesasne, being smuggled into the United
States by natives. They were at Toronto's Pearson Airport, where they slipped
into Canada by claiming refugee status. One was seen on a bus entering
the Lincoln Tunnel. Another was spotted on a West Coast ferry.
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- By the middle of this week, they had starred in hundreds
of newspaper and television reports and had been on the lips of everyone
from U.S. President George W. Bush to Senator Hilary Clinton, who announced
at a press conference that they had entered the United States through Canada.
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- But yesterday, the FBI admitted that the most important
ingredient in the story -- that is, the proof -- is nowhere to be found:
"There is no border-crossing information that would say they're here,"
FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell said. "And to say they came in from Canada
is pure speculation."
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- Mr. Cogswell's comments are the latest wrinkle in an
odd, highly hyped saga that began on Dec. 29, when the FBI announced that
it was launching a national manhunt for the five men. Although details
were sketchy, the five were believed to have come to Canada from the Middle
East before entering the United States on some unstated mission.
- Arriving just three days before New Year's, which provided
an obvious peg for terrorism-related stories -- and right in the middle
of the holiday "silly season" -- the tale of the five mystery
men quickly assumed tremendous energy.
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- "Frankly, we were surprised at all the coverage,"
said Sgt. Paul Marsh, a spokesman with the RCMP. "It was amazing,
really."
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- What Mr. Marsh had expected to be a relatively minor
item soon became a lead story. By Dec. 30, it was the top item on the CNN
newscast, with anchor Paula Zahn introducing it as "the big FBI story."
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- The press rushed to fill the obvious gaps in the story,
such as how the five were supposed to have entered the United States. The
New York Daily News, for example, reported that they had been smuggled
across the border at Akwesasne, southwest of Montreal. Grand Chief Raymond
Mitchell angrily pointed out that there was no evidence to support the
story. Other news reports offered different accounts: Some, for example,
said the five were spirited across at road checkpoints.
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- A shortage of official information, coupled with pressure
to produce scoops on the developing story, resulted in heavy cross-pollination
among the media.
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- By this week, the story had taken on something of a surreal
quality. On Wednesday, a Pakistani jeweller whose picture is among the
five released by the FBI emerged at his shop in Lahore to say he has never
visited the United States. An Associated Press photograph of Mohammed Asghar
taken at his shop was a near-perfect match for the one included on the
FBI list under the name Mustafa Khan Owasi.
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- Mr. Asghar, 30, said he was surprised to open a local
newspaper and see his picture with another man's name beneath it. "I
am a Pakistani and am living in my country, but American authorities have
released my picture among those who are being traced by the FBI for entering
America," he said. "I have no links with any terrorist organization."
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- Mr. Asghar's bit of dissonant information was part of
the story's general unravelling, which was virtually complete yesterday
when the FBI admitted that there was no proof that the five had come from
Canada, that they had crossed the border, or that they were connected with
terrorism.
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- "We don't know if they ever entered the U.S.,"
Mr. Cogswell said. "And in fact we've never linked these guys to terrorists.
Most of what we have here is an unknown, and even with these individuals
we don't know if they are true names with those photographs."
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- "We're chasing rumours," a senior RCMP officer
said. "We don't know if these five men were ever in Canada and we
certainly have no proof whatsoever that they crossed into the United States
either legally or illegally."
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- Asked what might have triggered the initial FBI allegation
about the five Middle Eastern men entering the U.S. from Canada, the Mountie
replied caustically: "It was a slow week at the White House. They
needed something to stir the pot because nothing was happening in Iraq."
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