Hunt Is On, Clue by Clue

Breaking a huge and complicated case like the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will take a combination of tips from the public, high-tech analysis, global investigations and old-fashioned shoe leather.

Police linked a car left in a garage at Boston’s Logan Airport to the alleged hijackers after a passenger on another flight recalled a dispute Tuesday morning with several men over a parking spot in an airport garage. The car, which contained flight manuals written in Arabic, was found after the passenger called in his suspicions. That tip helped authorities to identify several suspects.

More law enforcement leads originated from cell phone calls made during the hijackings. A selfless flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles International Airport called her supervisor and reported, among other important details, the seat assignment for one of the terrorists. That information, and names of passengers from manifests, aided an army of state, local and federal investigators in Boston, where two of the hijacked flights originated, and in Florida, where several of the hijackers may have attended flight schools.

The terrorists and their associates had to stay somewhere while planning their sophisticated attacks. They had to eat someplace. They probably drove rental cars or cars they had purchased. They surely used credit cards. Somebody saw something that could help. The FBI is collecting information at (866) 483-5137 or via a form on the Web site www.ifccfbi.gov.

As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Wednesday regarding the appropriate U.S. response to the attacks, “When you are attacked by a terrorist and you know who the terrorist is and you can fingerprint back to the cause of the terror, you should respond.” Fingerprint by fingerprint, tip by tip, cell phone record by cell phone record, this hunt is on.