Flight 93: Were the "hijackers" even Middle Eastern?

[stickdog]

http://www.cstl.nist.gov/div831/strbase/pub_pres/Edson2...

The 40 victims aboard the United Airline (UA) Flight 93 that crashed near Shanksville, PA, were also identified by nuclear DNA testing, dental records, and fingerprinting. Four nonmatching nuclear DNA profiles were also obtained from the crash site and again tentatively ascribed to the terrorists.

...

To determine the significance of this mtDNA evidence,
Mitochondrial DNA testing was also performed on
the four putative terrorists from the UA flight 93/
Shanksville, PA crash. None of the terrorist sequences
matched any sequences in either the global forensic
database or the Near Eastern database (Table 5). Lacking
matching sequences in any population database, we sought
to access the phylogenetic information inherent in the
mtDNA sequences to determine if that could suggest
additional information as to their origin.

...

A summary of the phylogenetic data is found in Table
6. Two of the sequences occurred more frequently in Near
Eastern haplogroups, while the remaining two occurred in
haplogroups with near equal frequency in European and
Near Eastern populations. It is important to note that
building a phylogenetic tree such as this does not
definitively tell the researcher where the individual lived.
It merely reflects the past evolutionary origin of the
mtDNA molecule.


Table 6 can be viewed on page 84. One of the supposed terrorists' DNA was 50% more likely to be of Caucasian origin than Middle Eastern origin.

[John Doe II]

1. Very interesting finding!

Thanks a lot for this.

[spooked911]

2. This is a really nice finding!

The article is interesting-- the most striking thing is how the "hijackers" on "flight 77" were clearly of near eastern origin by their analysis, whereas none of the hijackers were clearly of near eastern origin for flight 93.

Ziad Jarrah was Lebanese, and may have had more european genes. But
the other three guys were definitely more Arabic:
Saeed Alghamdi
Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi
Ahmed Alnami

http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/flight93.html

Interestingly, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami have been reported to be alive, so we don't know who the heck was on the plane.

[stickdog]

3. Kick for the debunking crew! (nt)

[mirandapriestly]

4. Good grief! But, how did they determine that

the four DNA profiles were from the terrorists? Because they didn't match any of the passenger records?

[Kevin Fenton]

5. Yes, they didn't get any DNA from Saudi, Lebanon or the UAE

If you ask me, there were passengers on the plane that haven't been publicly identified because their relatives do not wish it, so the DNA samples could be from them.

I'd also point out that the author thinks two of the presumed terrorist DNA samples from the Pentagon are for brothers. Besides, if it's all faked, how come they got any DNA samples at all?

btw, I just saw this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assem_Omar_Jarrah
Weird, huh? Work permit from where? Germany? What was he doing with that?

[mirandapriestly]

6. excuse me while my head explodes...

But wait! Here's the solution, how convenient...
...Assem Omar Jarrah has admitted to give his German work permit to his distant cousin Ziad Samir Jarrah, one of the 19 suspected hijackers who demolished the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon's West Wing.
Assem, who works as the Middle East manager of the German company Frizenios, also said in a Beirut TV interview that he would be leaving for Germany on Tuesday to sue the German weekly Der Spiegel for libel...
http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory...

How nice of him to lend his work permit to his distant "hijacker" cousin...

[Kevin Fenton]

7. Good find

What did he lend it to him for? So Jarrah could work in Germany (pretending he was his relative)? But Jarrah was legally there as a student, so couldn't he have worked anyway?

And why would Jarrah want to take it with him on his last flight? Or to the States at all?

btw, Moqed allegedly took a Kingdom of Saudi Arabia student card with him to the Pentagon. According to Terrorist Travel "forensic examination indicated that it may have been fraudulent."

[JackRiddler]

9. Students can't work...

Foreigners in Germany on student visas don't have work permits. Two separate items, must be acquired separately. Also, under a different name he might be avoiding taxes, or whatever.

(I actually know whereof I speak, I lived there 15 years.)

[Kevin Fenton]

11. 15 years! You don't look that old

Do you mean that students can acquire work visas and then work there or that foreign students are barred from working?

Jarrah, Atta and Al Shehhi all worked in Germany; at the same place at one time. Jarrah is even supposed to be in the documentation for one place of employment.

I suppose he could be avoiding taxes. Do they have photos on them? I'd love to see a photo of this Aseem Omar Jarrah, but I haven't found one yet.

[Taxloss]

8. Ah, right, I forgot that only Arabs could be terrorists.

Silly me.

Let's ignore all the "tentatives", "not definitives", "suggests", "putatives" and strongly qualifying language and lurch towards an entirely unjustified conclusion. One the the DNA samples that might have been a terrorist suggests, despite difficulty in establishing any real answers, that the DNA broadly might come from a Caucasian source.

Case closed. MIHOP. You've convinced me.

[stickdog]

10. Why do I have to prove ANYTHING???

The point is that our GOVERNMENT HAS NO FUCKING CLUE who the hijackers really were to the point that one of the four remains that they assume was a hijacker has DNA that's equally consistent with a European as a Middle Easterner and one of the four remains that they assume was a hijacker has DNA that's FAR MORE consistent with a European than a Middle Easterner.

My question is, why didn't they try to match this DNA with that of the supposed hijackers' families? It's the biggest domestic crime in the last 25 years, but they couldn't even manage what CSI does about 10 times a week on TV?

[Ferry Fey]

12. Gatekeeping relatives?

Kevin, you said: "If you ask me, there were passengers on the plane that haven't been publicly identified because their relatives do not wish it, so the DNA samples could be from them."

What do you base that speculation on?

I know that there were supposedly passengers who were not being identified in the beginning, allegedly because their relatives did not wish it. But for what reason would they get a permanent pass from ever having their relative named, especially since that would throw the discrepancies of the passenger names and numbers even further out of whack?

[Kevin Fenton]

13. Nobody really cares whether the numbers add up nicely or not

So I don't think that the passenger numbers being thrown out of whack is a big deal.

Clearly, some passengers were not identified at the start because their relatives didn't want them to be. Waleed Iskandar is one and the reason seems to be that he had a Muslim-sounding name (although the family were actually Lebanese Catholics). I would not be at all surprised if a Muslim family decided to keep their relative's name off the official list - just imagine the trouble and harassment they would get.

Judging by the discussion in the author's note on page xv of Among the Heroes by Jere Longman there were 38 passengers on United 93 (the figure originally reported and the one given by a flight attendant), but one of their families didn't want to be named, so he left that passenger out. It was later claimed that Marion Britton (in coach) had bought two tickets.

Picture of Marion Britton:


Longman says that he uses the figure of 37 passengers "in the interest of a coherent narrative", not because it was right.

Also, there was a report in Time of two muslim brothers checking in for American 77. Time thought these were the Al Hazmis, although the match between the description in Time and that in the 9/11 CR is really not very good. You can find a discussion of this from a different point of view here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
If you ask me, these could just be a couple of unfortunate muslims who were victims that day.

I don't think it's a big deal. The DNA work done so far proves nothing either way.

[stickdog]

18. Yes, just like all the NIST studies prove nothing either way.

But you are still conflating two issues. Just because a victim's family doesn't want the victim named doesn't mean that they don't want the victim positively identified nor the victim's remains.

[Ghost in the Machine]

28. Is it possible that the airline required Marion Burton to purchase 2 tickets?

I remember a while back hearing about airlines charging obese passengers for an extra seat. Could the attendant just had the number down as 38 tickets sold, while in all actuality, there were only 37 passengers?

[RedSock]

30. burton's 2 tickets

if i recall correctly, she bought two tickets herself for her own comfort.

[file83]

14. This is curious. I wonder what this means in how it compares to

the normal distribution amongst "Middle Eastern" people. I wonder if this 50/50 haplogroup finding is common in this modern age? I guess we could assume that it means that 2 of the 4 "unknown" mtDNA samples could possibly have heritage from Europe. But doesn't that just mean that the mothers/fathers of the unknowns were from Europe? That still leaves the possiblity that they were born and raised in the M.E.

On the other hand, it also leaves the possibility that 2 of the "unknowns" were straight up European with NO M.E. heritage. That would prove that the official claim is wrong. But it sounds inconclusive.

Wouldn't they be able to check via DNA tests with their known family members???

[Kevin Fenton]

15. It's very inconclusive

Of the alleged United 93 hijackers, Jarrah was from a secular muslim family in the Lebanon. So intermarriage with another group is possible there.

As far as concerns the others, they were all allegedly from SW Saudi Arabia (Asir and Baha provinces), so the possibility of intermarriage with another group is less. However, some of the families (at least Al Nami's) were rich, so perhaps we could be looking at an "imported" wife.

They would definitely be able to check via DNA tests with known family members and this is one of the first things that should be done if and when the investigation starts up again.

[file83]

16. Why do you think the identities of these DNA samples are being protected?

I think the reason is obvious - they don't want to PROVE the official story wrong. What do you think about this?

We're talking about 9/11 and our government doesn't get to the bottom of it?

Jebus, more forensic investigation is put into a simple murder case. 9/11 had almost 3000 people die, yet...

[Kevin Fenton]

17. I wouldn't say they were being protected

And just because the official story is wrong in places, doesn't mean Al Qaeda didn't actually hijack the planes.

I would say the reason is that the investigation was curtailed - many agents working on it were re-assigned, for example to the anthrax thing. There are always a few loose ends in any investigation, but there are too many here. For example, who's the guy on the right?

[stickdog]

19. That's so full of shit. If the government wanted to use DNA to

try to prove that Flight 93 hijacker's were who they said they were, then they would have contacted the alleged hijackers' family members and made a deal: We'll give you their remains to bury if you give us some familial DNA so we can confirm the identification.

Why wasn't this even attempted? And don't tell us that it's because all of our DNA identification specialists were too busy not solving the anthrax case. Please.

[Kevin Fenton]

20. They could have contacted the relatives

In my opinion they should have contacted the relatives, some, perhaps many, of whom would have been happy to help and provide DNA. I think it would probably strengthen the case against Al Qaeda if they identified the hijackers properly.

However, this is not an isolated failing by the FBI, who, for example, managed to mis-identify Jarrah's passport in the wreckage. I don't see any gain for them in claiming that Jarrah's passport is actually Jarrah's visa - it's just the sort of cock-up that is typical of the FBI's investigation of 9/11. Non-identification of the DNA is just a product of the same thing - the resources were shifted elsewhere, the investigation was shut down before it ever really got anywhere.

You can tell when the 9/11 Commission is trying to cover something up because they work really hard at it - remember their laugh-a-minute accounts of United 93 and Cheney's movements and their bizzare insistence on 10:03. They and the FBI may well be wrong about (some of) the hijackers' identities, but it looks like a genuine mistake to me. If they were trying to cover up the problems with the hijackers, why would they say, for example, that there was a problem with the computer record of Hani's check-in?

Come on, who's the guy on the right?

[stickdog]

21. Remember right after 9/11 when Ashcroft moved literally THOUSANDS

of FBI, DOJ and various other agents onto the 9/11 investigation and rounded up hundreds of Muslims across the nation?

Remember how the FBI named all 19 hijackers just TWO DAYS after 9/11 after finding all sorts of ridiculous evidence all neatly tied up with a bow?

is the possible explanation for moving these agents off perhaps the single biggest domestic crime case in federal law enforcement history?

[mhatrw]

24. I can't help but laugh. They couldn't match the DNA of the four

suspected hijackers because they were reassigned to do nothing about the anthrax case? Oh my, that's a good one!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4191256.html

WASHINGTON — Five years after anthrax killed five people and introduced America to high-tech bioterrorism, one of the biggest crime mysteries of our times remains unsolved.

FBI agents and U.S. postal inspectors have pursued hundreds of leads and interviewed scores of scientists who work with the deadly anthrax bacteria, but the investigation now appears to be languishing.

"No matter what anybody says, if it is five years out, and we are not even seeing any smoke from the investigation, then I would say definitely that this case is cold right now," said Christopher Hamilton, a former FBI counter-terrorism official who worked on the anthrax investigation and is now a counter-terrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a non-partisan think tank. "This thing is just sitting out there with nothing happening."

[Andre II]

22. Very interesting!

Thanks for this finding!

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. More likely

they were rapture ready bushbots.

[Andre II]

25. Kick

[vincent_vega_lives]

26. Thats not unusual

Many Africans have European DNA for obvious reasons. Eupopeans have been traveling to the Middle east since before Christ. You don't think any Roman Soldiers had offspring?

[mhatrw]

27. How about trying to match this DNA to the alleged hijackers?

I'll bet the FBI could easily get DNA from the families of the supposed hijackers in exchange for the hijackers' remains and/or a promise of public exoneration of the DNA did not match. How about it?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

29. If there was no Flight 93 what was the DNA from?

I think there are a lot of unanswered questions.