Was Israel involved in the WTC and Pentagon blast attacks?

Several days after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC, reports emerged that some 4,000 Israelis working at the World Trade Center did not show up for work on the day of the aircraft blasts.

A Muslim sheikh living in England commenting during a BBC news broadcast added that 40 Jewish Pentagon staff members did not show up for work on 11 September. The sheikh said it would not surprise him if it was discovered that the Mossad (the Israeli secret service) was behind the attacks.

Last Saturday’s news broadcast on several local television networks - including the National Broadcasting Network (NBN), state-owned Tele-Liban, Hizbullah’s Manar TV and Qatar’s al Jazeera satellite station - reported the same figures during their evening newscasts.

No official source of information was mentioned in any of the news briefs, although the networks reported the Israeli secret service warned Israelis to stay away from several sites in the US.

Meanwhile, Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post reported that Mossad officials traveled to Washington last month to warn the CIA and FBI that there would be a major operation taking place in the US’ major cities.

The Israeli secret service allegedly offered no specific information about the targets but linked the attacks to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement, the paper reported.

According to media reports, many Israelis worked in the high tech companies and trade agencies in the twin towers. Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported that some Israeli companies had offices in the WTC, but Israeli Channel Two television discredited this claim.

Thus far, no Israelis have been located among the injured or deceased in any of the New York City hospitals.

Meanwhile, Arab diplomatic sources revealed to the Jordanian Al Watan newspaper that Israelis remained absent from work that fateful day based on information from the Shabak, the Israeli general security apparatus.

According to the newspaper, American officials are requesting an explanation of how the Israeli government learned of the attacks before they occurred and why it refrained from informing the US authorities of the information.

Manar TV reported that suspicions increased further after Yediot Ahronot reported the Shabak prevented Premier Ariel Sharon from traveling to New York to participate in a festival organized by Zionist organizations in support of "Israel."

Meanwhile, five Israelis who had worked for a moving company based in New Jersey, are being held in US prisons for what the FBI described as "puzzling behavior" following last Tuesday’s attacks.

The five are expected to be deported soon, reported the Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper.
The families of the five, the paper reported, said their sons had been questioned by the FBI for hours on end, kept in solitary confinement for three days, humiliated, stripped of their clothes and blindfolded.

“When they finally let my son make a phone call to a friend, he told him he had been tortured by the FBI in a basement," the mother of one of the young men told Ha'aretz. "He was stripped to his underwear, blindfolded and questioned for 14 hours [on suspicion of] working for the Mossad."

Seven FBI agents later stormed the apartment of one of the Israelis, searched it and questioned his roommate. The Israeli owner of the moving company, who is a US citizen, was also questioned.

It is not yet clear the extent to which the five detained Israelis are implicated in the attacks and the US maintains that bin Laden is their prime suspect.

The US Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, said investigators are following up on 4,700 leads.

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