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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI said Sunday it wants the public's help in finding five men who may have entered the United States illegally within the past week.
The FBI said the names were gathered in ongoing investigations, but said it had no specific information the men were connected to terrorist activities. A caption accompanying photos of the men on the FBI's Web site reads: "War on Terrorism."
The FBI identified the five men as Abid Noraiz Ali, 25; Iftikhar Khozmai Ali, 21; Mustafa Khan Owasi, 33; Adil Pervez, 19; Akbar Jamal, 28.
Sources said that if the men are in the United States, authorities want to know why and to question them for additional leads in the investigation of the al Qaeda terrorist network.
Although the names appear to be Pakistani, officials said they do not know for sure where the men are from, and the FBI said the names and ages may be fictitious.
"The FBI is after these guys because they know something or they are trying to scare them," said Paul Bremer, a member of President Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council and ambassador at large for counterterrorism in the Reagan administration.
"They [might have] lost track. [They] can be trying to disrupt an operation. [They] could have a number of purposes at once," said Bremer, who heads Marsh Crisis Consulting, a global firm specializing in risk management.
The men may have entered the United States from Canada on or around December 24, the FBI said. Sources said a good chance exists the men had already entered the country by the time the information on them was developed in the past week.
The men were not being tracked, the sources said, and authorities do not know whether they might have crossed the 4,000-mile-long border together or separately.
The FBI said it has been working with homeland security agencies -- including the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Transportation Security Administration -- to locate the men.
The FBI has also given information about the men, including their pictures, to 18,000 local and state law enforcement agencies.
Anyone with any information about the group is asked to contact their nearest FBI office. Photographs of the individuals can be found on the FBI's Web site at www.fbi.gov.
CNN correspondents Jeanne Meserve and Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/12/29/fbi.wanted.men/index.html
The FBI said the names were gathered in ongoing investigations, but said it had no specific information the men were connected to terrorist activities. A caption accompanying photos of the men on the FBI's Web site reads: "War on Terrorism."
The FBI identified the five men as Abid Noraiz Ali, 25; Iftikhar Khozmai Ali, 21; Mustafa Khan Owasi, 33; Adil Pervez, 19; Akbar Jamal, 28.
Sources said that if the men are in the United States, authorities want to know why and to question them for additional leads in the investigation of the al Qaeda terrorist network.
Although the names appear to be Pakistani, officials said they do not know for sure where the men are from, and the FBI said the names and ages may be fictitious.
"The FBI is after these guys because they know something or they are trying to scare them," said Paul Bremer, a member of President Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council and ambassador at large for counterterrorism in the Reagan administration.
"They [might have] lost track. [They] can be trying to disrupt an operation. [They] could have a number of purposes at once," said Bremer, who heads Marsh Crisis Consulting, a global firm specializing in risk management.
The men may have entered the United States from Canada on or around December 24, the FBI said. Sources said a good chance exists the men had already entered the country by the time the information on them was developed in the past week.
The men were not being tracked, the sources said, and authorities do not know whether they might have crossed the 4,000-mile-long border together or separately.
The FBI said it has been working with homeland security agencies -- including the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Transportation Security Administration -- to locate the men.
The FBI has also given information about the men, including their pictures, to 18,000 local and state law enforcement agencies.
Anyone with any information about the group is asked to contact their nearest FBI office. Photographs of the individuals can be found on the FBI's Web site at www.fbi.gov.
CNN correspondents Jeanne Meserve and Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/12/29/fbi.wanted.men/index.html
