NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE:

FBI has new 9/11 hijacking suspect (Toni Locy, 11/04/03, USA TODAY)

"We are fairly confident we know who No. 20 is," said the official, who is involved in the 9/11 probe and asked not to be identified. The official said the unidentified al-Qaeda operative got into the USA but "had to leave" the country shortly before 19 hijackers carried out the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. The official would not say why the operative left, whether he is alive or whether he is in U.S. custody.

A top Justice Department official confirmed that FBI agents believe they have identified the 20th hijacker. Both officials said the FBI does not believe the would-be terrorist was accused al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui or Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, an alleged 9/11 paymaster who tried to get into the USA at least four times before the attacks.

If the FBI's theory is correct, one of the enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks would be solved: why United Flight 93 had four hijackers on board when it crashed in Pennsylvania, and the three other hijacked jets each carried five terrorists. Examinations of immigration records and the
movements of the 19 hijackers have led the FBI to zero in on the man it believes was supposed to have been the fifth hijacker on Flight 93, the law enforcement official said.

It has always seemed implausible that the original al Qaeda plan would have called for 19, rather than 20, hijackers. It further seemed entirely likely that Zaccarias Moussaoui, though not their first choice (Bin al-shibh seems to have been), was to serve as the 20th man until he was arrested. There is no inconsistency in the idea that someone as unreliable as he was not told the mission ahead of time nor in the attempt to infiltrate a more reliable 20th man into the country.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2003 9:27 AM