Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, May 29, 2002

While on vacation in Cairo last August, Connecticut banker Richard Dennison says a shopkeeper in the bazaar told him in detail about planes that would be flown like bombs into the World Trade Center by Arabs in September or October. Furthermore, according to the shopkeeper, the coming attack was a prime topic of conversation at his mosque.

Dennison, an executive with American Savings Bank, told NewsMax, "I called the FBI about a week after the attack and was transferred to another FBI agent who listened to my story and indicated that I might hear back from another agent in the future. I did not.

"I still have a certain amount of guilt about not reporting the incident to the authorities immediately when I returned. I guess I didn’t really know what to make of it, and I have said over and over, if I knew, the CIA must also have known. I am convinced some agents did.

"I still doubt my voice would have made any difference.”

Dennison had his experience while touring with a bodyguard and a guide in the sprawl of downtown Cairo. At one point, the tourist was escorted to a leather shop where he was told they stocked certain specialty belts he hoped to purchase.

When they entered the shop, the shopkeeper was talking to a friend, perhaps another shopkeeper, in English. The shopkeeper’s friend excused himself, saying that he was going home to play video games. After the friend left, Dennison selected and purchased some belts, then gratuitously asked what video games they played in Cairo.

The Dialogue

The reply was "Flight Simulator,” a popular American-made game that allows the player to practice flight maneuvers using a computer equipped with a joystick.

Thinking that this was a curious game for people in Cairo to be playing, Dennison asked why "Flight Simulator” was popular. The enigmatic response reply was, "You will see.”

Dennison: "What will we see?”

Shopkeeper: "Planes used as bombs.”

Dennison: "That will cost a lot of money to buy the planes.”

Shopkeeper: "It will not cost a thing.”

Dennison: "Who will be flying the planes?”

Shopkeeper: " Arabs.”

Dennison: "What will they bomb with these planes?”

Shopkeeper: "They will bomb the symbol of capitalism in New York City.”

Dennison: "You mean the Stock Exchange?”

Shpkeeper: "No, the World Trade Center.”

Dennison: "When will all this happen?”

Shopkeeper: "Just do not travel in September or October; also stay away from Boston Logan; their security is no good.”

FBI Memo References Plots

This week, Coleen Rowley, the FBI’s chief lawyer in the Minneapolis field office and author of the now-infamous scathing memo to the Bureau’s director about thwarting the nation’s last clear chance to intercept the 19 Arab hijackers of 9-11, hinted between the lines that there were perhaps reports similar to Dennison’s floating about in Bureau circles -- before 9-11:

"It’s quite conceivable that many of the HQ personnel who so vigorously disputed [so-called 20th hijacker Zacarias] Moussaoui’s ability/predisposition to fly a plane into a building were simply unaware of all the various incidents and reports worldwide of Al Qaeda terrorists attempting or plotting to do so.”

Agent Rowley’s reference to disputing Moussaoui’s predisposition to fly a plane into a building was the salient issue at the time she and agents of the Minneapolis field office were unsuccessfully badgering a recalcitrant FBI headquarters to approve a search warrant to explore the contents of Moussaoui’s laptop computer.

The arrest of Moussaoui on INS charges, as well as the fruitless drill to get a warrant came before the tragedy of 9-11. Giving the sentence its clear meaning, the "various incidents and reports worldwide of Al Qaeda terrorist attempting or plotting to do so” also came before 9-11.

Official Charges Pre-knowledge

Furthermore, Dennison’s unsettling revelations come on the heels of assistant U.S. attorney Kenneth Breen accusing Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, an Egyptian-born stockbroker on trial in San Diego last week, of knowing in advance about 9-11 and capitalizing on insider information by attempting to unload $300,000 worth of shares on Sept. 10, 2001.

In court Breen charged that on the afternoon of Sept. 10, Elgindy contacted his broker at Salomon Smith Barney and asked him to sell the stock, confiding in the broker that the Dow Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon dive to below 3,000.

After the federal prosecutor’s sensational charge, the media pressed the FBI on the issue, and senior law enforcement officials said that investigators had no hard evidence that Elgindy had advance information about the Sept. 11 attacks.

Additionally, the officials maintained that they had not found anyone who had prior knowledge of the attacks, conceding only that Elgindy’s attempt to sell the shares in his children’s trust accounts before Sept. 11 had raised questions that had not been fully answered.

Elgindy, his father and brother have been active supporters of Muslim causes. Ibrahim Elgindy, the father, founded a consortium of Muslim organizations in Chicago and spearheaded a 1998 protest on behalf of Muhammad A. Salah, whose assets were seized after U.S. investigators linked Salah to Palestine’s radical Hamas.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Al-Qaeda

War on Terrorism

A product that might interest you:
FBI whistle-blower tells how the Clintons helped cause 9-11

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