The Flight 800 Investigation

bin Laden:  The man who declared war on America - Bodansky, 1999 
Excerpt from page 325 :
The Islamist terrorists did not arrive lightly at considerations of using weapons of mass destruction. International terrorism is in the midst of a quest for the super spectacular terrorist strike.  The case of TWA 800 served as a turning point because of Washington's determination and to a great  extent ability to suppress terrorist explanations and float "mechanical failure" theories.  To avoid such suppression after future strikes, terrorism sponsoring states must raise the ante so that the West cannot ignore them.  

Editors Note:  This book was published in 1999 and has been listed on this website since that time.  His description of "raising the ante" has a chilling ring after the World Trade Center attack.  Does anybody really think that Flight 800 was not a terrorist act?

Statement Sent to the London Al Hayat Newspaper Predicting Flight 800 
ARAP has obtained a copy of the London AL Hayat Islamic Newspaper published on July 20, 1996.  This edition contains an analysis of the statement sent to the newspaper by the Islamic Change Movement - the Jihad Wing, on the eve of the Flight 800 disaster.  The article is in the original Arabic language so that there will be no question of its authenticity.  
Acrobat Version , Gif Version - Page 1 , Gif Version - Page 2 , Gif Version - Page 3

The Following articles are courtesy of the Hull Thread

July 19, 1996     CNN Web posted at: 10:50 a.m. EDT
A main investigator in the case on Friday said terrorism had not been ruled out as a cause of Wednesday night's crash of the Paris-bound Boeing 747. "We are looking at mechanical malfunction and at a criminal act," said Robert Francis, vice president of the National Transportation Safety Board. "Certainly the possibility of a criminal act is a distinct one." ... Two parallel investigations -- one looking into accidental causes and the other into possible criminal activity-- are under way. The FBI will continue its probe into the crash until the possibility of criminal activity is ruled out as a cause, said Jim Kallstrom with the agency's Anti-terrorism Task Force. "We will get to the bottom of this, whatever the bottom is," he vowed. The CIA's Counter-terrorism Center also has begun a worldwide search for any clues that terrorism may have been involved in crash. But so far, a CIA official said, "We have nothing that points us in one direction or another." There was some speculation that a surface-to-air missile, perhaps fired from a boat off the coast of Long Island, could have brought the plane down. A top Pentagon intelligence official told CNN such a possibility has been ruled out. The reason: a stinger missile is heat-seeking, and analysts concluded it would have had to make too sharp a turn to hit the TWA flight ..... Counter- terrorism analysts in Washington assigned to the case also looked into several calls claiming responsibility for the crash, but all but one such claim has been ruled out. The source declined to discuss the nature of the possible threat they were still looking at. Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday two calls claiming responsibility for the crash had been received after the plane went down, but she said there are "no indications" yet of terrorism. One of the calls mentioned by Reno was received at Tampa, Florida, television station WTSP from a man who identified himself as a member of a "Jihad," a station official said. Jihad, meaning "holy war," is a word used by Islamic militant groups. The WTSP spokesman said the caller gave no name and offered no motive.

July 19, 1996       Newsday.com     
In the absence of explanations, theories abounded. One focused on a fax sent Wednesday to an Arabic language newspaper in Beirut warning of an attack. State Department and CIA officials confirmed they had received copies of the fax Thursday. The message said "tomorrow morning we will strike the Americans in a way they do not expect and it will be very surprising to them," according to one official.   A counterterrorism source familiar with the fax said that it was sent at 11 a.m. New York time Wednesday, more than nine hours before the bombing.  But a CIA source said that the agency "does not attach too much significance" to the fax.

The fax, written in Arabic, ends with the following threat:  "The Mujahadeen will respond harshly to the threats of the stupid American president. All will be shocked by the magnitude of the response. The determining of the place and time are in the hands of the Mujahadeen. The invaders must get ready to leave alive or dead; and their rendezvous will be morning, and isn't morning near."  U.S. News and World Report magazine, in the July 29, 1996 issue, identified the group who sent the fax as, "The Movement of Islamic Jihad/The Jihad Wing of the Arabian Peninsula."  Editors Note:  8pm Eastern Time in New York is early morning in the Persian Gulf.

July 19, 1996     Reuters
Attorney General Jane Reno said she was unaware of any threats before the crash but there were "some calls'' afterward claiming responsibility. ABC News reported that an Arabic newspaper received a warning of an attack on an American target Wednesday from the same group that claimed responsibility for a bomb attack that killed five Americans in Saudi Arabia in November. But the State Department said it had viewed the warning letter as a political tract and not as a specific threat of an extremist attack. "To us it seemed to be a general political tract. We don't see it as a specific threat,'' State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said of the letter sent to Al Hayat, an Arabic language newspaper published in London.  

July 19, 1996       New York Times.
A specific warning about the flight had been sent by an extremist Saudi organization called the Movement of Islamic Change, the organization that claimed responsibility for blowing up US military personnel in Saudi Arabia last November. "Late this morning we got a copy of a letter in Arabic that we then had translated, and got it to the FBI" said a State Department spokesman ... "It's a ... statement that seems aimed at the Saudi regime or the American presence in Saudi Arabia"......... Officials said they were reviewing a telephone call placed to a Tampa, Florida television station yesterday morning from a man who identified himself as a member of a jihad and claimed responsibility for the crash.

July 23, 1996    The London Times
The Tel Aviv paper Yediot Ahronot disclosed yesterday that Israel had been asked by the CIA to check the Athens-New York passenger list of TWA Flight 800. The involvement of Mossad, Israel's secret service, emerged after it was made known that the Israelis warned US Intelligence before the disaster that an American aircraft would be the target of "sabotage or hijacking" by Islamic extremists. "The American intelligence agency gave Mossad the passenger list of the TWA plane from Athens to New York and asked that it check the passengers' backgrounds to reveal if one of them had connections to a terror group," reported the paper, which has close links to the Israeli security services. .... Earlier this month, a Mossad officer monitoring Middle East terrorist groups passed an unspecific warning to his American counterpart in TelAviv. The officer said: "The threat of sabotage or a hijacking against an American plane was analysed and considered serious enough for us to pass on to the Americans. It was then up to the Americans to assess the dangers and decide whether to pass it on to their airlines."

August 25, 1996      Times of London
U.S. officials are investigating reports that Islamic terrorists have smuggled Stinger ground-to-air missiles into the United States from Pakistan. Senior Iranian sources close to the fundamentalist regime in Tehran claimed this weekend that TWA flight 800 was shot down last month by one of three shoulder-fired Stingers of the type used by Islamic guerrillas during the Afghanistan war. The sources said the missiles arrived in America seven months ago after being shipped from Karachi via Rotterdam and on to the Canadian port of Halifax. They claimed an Egyptian fundamentalist group backed by Iran was responsible for smuggling the weapons across the Canadian border into the United States. The group, the Gama'a al-Islamiya, comprises followers of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric jailed in the United States over the 1993 New York World Trade Center bombing. A senior White House official responsible for counter-terrorism told The Sunday Times this weekend that he had seen a report that a Stinger missile had been smuggled into the United States from Pakistan. The official, who is involved in collating intelligence relating to the TWA inquiry for the White House, said investigators were aware of reports that Stingers may have been smuggled into the country.... If a Stinger was the cause of this, our first theory would be that it came from Afghanistan."   The official was commenting on reports from Tehran that claimed several groups funded by the religious authorities in Iran are active in the United States. The reports claim one previously unknown underground group called Falakh may have as many as 50 highly trained terrorists in the country.

September 22, 1996     The New York Post
Investigators are reviewing an anonymous threat received after the October 1, 1995 conviction of radical sheik Omar Abdel Rahman .... the threat was that a New York airport or jetliner would be attacked in retaliation ........

Other information related to Terrorist activity and warnings:

Aphrodite's Encounter - 7-17-96

WCBS New York - Transcript - 7-18-96

White House Press Briefing - 7-18-96

State Department Briefing - 7-19-96

London Times - Report on Israeli warning about TWA 800 - 7-23-96

Air Forces Monthly - Uncivil Air War - 11-96

Congressional Statement by the FBI - 2-24-98

Wall Street Journal - Who Bombed the Embassies? - 8-11-98

Letter to Boeing CEO from Cmdr. Donaldson - 4-5-99

Cmdr Donaldson's Letter to Judge Sybert in support of Jim Sanders - 6-18-99

Village Voice - The FBI and Flight 800 - A Missile Expert Cries Cover-Up - 7-20-99

Swissair Missile Sightings - 9-19-99

Washington Post - Bin Laden called Top Terrorist Threat -  Global Network Active, Tenant Says - 2-8-01

ABC News -George Stephanopoulos mentions "TWA 800 Bombing" - 9-11-01

World Trade Center - Who Did It? - 9-19-01

Breaking News: September 24, 2001 - 10:30 pm

E-mail from subscriber:  "Sen. John Kerrey was just on (9/24/01 7:15pm E.S.T.) MSNBC w/ Chris Matthews.  He said that this wasn't the first terrorist attack on America and then proceeded to say off the top of his head a number of incidents...the Achille Lauro, Oklahoma City, the embassy bombings, the Olympic park bombing, and TWA800!!!!!!!  I wasn't able to record it, but I heard it plain as day!!!   Senator Kerry said "other terrorist incidents"  then proceeded to say all those events directly after, implying all those were examples of terrorist attacks!  Someone must have this on tape, or there must be a transcript. " 

October 1, 2001 - 8:30 am
NSNBC interview by Brian Williams with Mr. Isaac Yeffet, the former Director of Security for El-Al Airlines, 9/28/2001 at approximately 8:30 pm, ET.

       Brian Williams:  "Do you think the US is still under the threat of terrorist hijackings, of aircraft being used as flying bombs?  With your knowledge of the terrrorism business, do you think they won't just move on to another mode of delivering terror?" 

      Isaac Yeffet (English is not his first language):  "We thought in the past, in the '70's, that what happened with the US aircarriers, this would be the end of the terrorist attack.  Look what happened since Lockerbie, PanAm103?  What happened to TWA 800?  Look now what happened?  Who can guarantee us that the terrorists will decide no more attacks in the US, unless somebody will tell me that we took control over the terrorist organizations and we let them know that here, they cannot come." 

Aviation Week - FAA - A Failure on Aviation Security - 10-8-01

Chicago Tribune - Americans Facing Missiles Made in the USA - 10-21-01

December 29, 2001 - 11:30 am

ARAP E-Mail: I was watching Hannity and Colmes on Fox tonight (12/27). One of their guests was Dick Morris, aid to President Clinton. He was talking about the events of terrorism leading up to 911. He mentioned the "Bombing of TWA 800". I was surprised that neither of the reporters asked him about this. I would of thought that they would of stopped him and asked why he said bombing.  Editor's Note:  ARAP contacted Dick Morris and here is his response:  "I will be referring to the TWA crash in ongoing commentary over the next few weeks and will be sure to mention how the cause of the crash has not been established."

World Net Daily - No Longer An Accident - 11-19-02