WASHINGTON (AP) - Law-enforcement authorities made their first arrest Friday in the worldwide investigation of this week's terrorist attacks, apprehending a suspect in New York thought to have relevant information.The suspect was arrested as a material witness in the World Trade Center attack, New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, told a news conference there Friday night.
Jim Margolin, spokesman for the FBI in New York, said the Joint Terrorist Task Force took the man into custody at 3 p.m. on the material witness warrant, which allows authorities to arrest someone considered crucial to an investigation without charging him with any crime.
A law enforcement source said the man arrested was the same person arrested Thursday at Kennedy International Airport after showing a phony pilot's license. In that case, he was detained by Port Authority police and not the FBI.
Officials declined to identify the man or say what information they were seeking.
It was the first break in the investigation, code-named PENTTBOM, into the worst terrorist assault on U.S. soil. Some 5,000 people are believed to have perished in Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The FBI has received over 36,000 leads and has issued hundreds of subpoenas. It released the identities Friday of the 19 hijackers.
Authorities said they were still investigating whether more terrorists might be at large and were searching for 100 people for questioning.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to discuss what he had learned from intelligence briefings but said he feared cities may still remain in danger. ``You've got to assume there was probably more planned, maybe for the aftershock,'' he said.
On that front, the FBI warned two Southeast cities - Richmond, Va., and Atlanta - it had information suggesting terrorists may have had plans for attacks in those cities, law enforcement officials said.
But late Friday, further investigation left officials doubtful of the threat. The information came from an acquaintance of one of the hijackers and was shared with Atlanta and Richmond, officials said. But the witness failed a lie-detector test Friday evening.
A list of more than 100 people has been distributed to thousands of local police departments, the Federal Aviation Administration, border patrols and FBI field offices, said Attorney General John Ashcroft.
``We believe they may have information that could be helpful to the investigation,'' said Ashcroft.
Federal officials wouldn't say whether the 100 names include suspects in the plot to hijack and crash four jetliners Tuesday.
The FBI on Friday released the names of 19 hijackers who commandeered and brought down the planes. Many lived in Florida and several had gone to pilot training school in Venice, Fla.
Some of the 19 have been linked to Osama bin Laden or his organizations, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The officials said four of the dead hijackers had been linked to bin Laden's Al-Qaida network: Waleed Alshehri, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, and Saeed Alghamdi.
Among the 19 was Mohamed Atta, 33, of Hollywood and Coral Springs, Fla., identified by German authorities as being tied to an Islamic fundamentalist group that planned attacks on American targets. The Justice Department said Atta was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 that took off from Boston's Logan Airport and crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
All the hijackers had Middle Eastern names. FBI Director Bob Mueller would not comment on whether any of the hijackers were associated with bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who administration official believe is behind the attacks.
Federal authorities have launched a massive search for people who assisted the hijackers, believing that there may have been a vast network of people who plotted and carried out Tuesday's attacks. FBI Deputy Director Tom Pickard is leading the investigation.
Investigators also recovered voice and data recorders from the plane that smashed into the Pentagon and the data recorder from the flight that crashed near Pittsburgh. Mueller said the data recorders for the Pentagon flight had yielded some information, but the voice recordings for the flight had yielded nothing so far.
The FBI has a transcript of communications between the pilots and air traffic controllers for a portion of the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, officials said.
FBI agents were dispatched to airports, where authorities are supposed to be checking passenger lists against the list of 100 people wanted for questioning.
The search for information spanned the nation, from San Diego to Chicago to North Carolina.
Flights were halted at Midway Airport near Chicago as authorities detained and questioned two men whose names were similar to those on a list of people the FBI wants to interview.
Upon an FBI request, the University of Illinois agreed to turn over all records at its aviation school, university spokesman Bill Murphy said.
In San Antonio, several television stations reported that FBI agents detained and searched the home of a doctor whose name was similar to two of the suspects in Tuesday's hijackings. The FBI in San Antonio would not confirm that any suspects in the attacks were being sought there.
In North Carolina, the FBI sought information about a Saudi Arabian man who paid cash for a plane rental and flight lessons in Roanoake Rapids, airport manager Gwen Martin said.
PHOTO CAPTION:
The entrance to a local Mail Boxes Etc. is shown Friday, Sept. 14, 2001, in Delray Beach, Fla. This location was listed on the drivers license of Mohald Alshehri one of the 19 people the FBI believes hijacked four jetliners in Tuesday's deadly terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Alshehri stayed in Florida and moved frequently, renting motel rooms, apartments and homes in Delray Beach, about 20 miles south of West Palm Beach, according to a list of hijackers the FBI released Friday. He is believed to been aboard United Airlines Flight 175. (AP Photo/Gary I. Rothstein)
- Sep 14 11:01 PM ET