Friday, Oct. 5, 2001 | 10:52 a.m.
FBI agents are trying to determine whether the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brought his own software to a Las Vegas web-surfing hub to communicate secretly with other possible conspirators.
Agents believe that Mohamed Atta, reported to have mapped out the strategy for the deadly attacks, visited the Cyber Zone, 4440 S. Maryland Parkway, during his visits here this past summer.
American intelligence sources have reported that bin Laden's terrorist organization had been communicating over the Internet in the months before the attacks with special software that can hide messages inside digital photos.
"This is of interest," one local investigator close to the criminal investigation said this morning. "It's one of the areas we're looking at, as well as other encryption or encoding methods."
There were reports the bin Laden network of terrorists was transmitting its hidden communications through a pornographic web site.
"We know that they were very masterful at blending into our society," said Forrest Barbee, a UNLV computer expert. "They obviously learned to do the same thing over the Internet community.
"With an operation this complex, that's the best way to stay under the radar."
Barbee, UNLV's student computing technical manager, said he's convinced that Atta was using the Cyber Zone computers to get in touch with others in his organization without being detected by the FBI or this country's intelligence agencies.
FBI agents have asked Cyber Zone employees whether they saw Atta using his own software.
One employee, Jae Woo, said Thursday agents wanted to know whether anyone saw Atta using flight simulator software. Woo said he never saw Atta use such software.
Atta, reported to have flown one of the jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York, was seen practicing on the software in other parts of the country.
Local flight instructors said the software can be used to help someone get familiar with the cockpit and instrument panel of an airliner, but it is of no value in teaching someone how to fly.
"To learn how to fly a 757 or 767 you're going to have to use a full-blown simulator," said Dot Stewart, who owns the Aviator's flight school in North Las Vegas.
Agents have copied the hard drives of 10 of Cyber Zone's computers and sent the data back to the FBI lab in Washington for analysis. The use of external software might not show up on the hard drives, but the web sites visited and images sent would be recorded experts said.
Barbee said Atta and others associated with bin Laden's network also probably were using the likes of Hotmail, a company that specializes in setting up anonymous e-mail accounts, to communicate with each other.
"It's extremely easy to find these kinds of accounts," Barbee said. "You can send and receive e-mail without anybody knowing who you are. There's no way to trace it."
In other developments Thursday, Olympic Garden owner Pete Eliades confirmed that FBI agents obtained videotapes from his adult nightclub in an attempt to identify an associate of the hijackers in Las Vegas just days after the attacks.
The Olympic Garden, one of the more well-attended topless clubs in the city, is a few blocks from the Econo Lodge, 1150 Las Vegas Blvd. South, where Atta stayed this summer.
Dolores Eliades, the club's manager, said agents received a tip that the associate was there on Sept. 16 or Sept. 17 from 2-5 a.m.
She said she was told the associate had spent time at the Olympic Garden this summer with some of the hijackers.
"I'm really not too surprised to hear that they were here," she said. "It seems they integrated themselves pretty well into our society for at least 18 months. Las Vegas probably is a very natural spot to visit. Everybody seems to come here."
An Olympic Garden dancer told the Sun Thursday she recalled performing for one of the suspected hijackers, Marwan Al-Shehhi, after seeing his picture on television.
"He looked familiar," the dancer said. "He just stood out."
Agents this week also obtained records from the Thrifty car rental agency involving dealings with one of the hijackers and an associate this past summer.
Thrifty's manager declined to publicly identify the names of the two men.
The developments at Olympic Garden and Thrifty are examples of how the FBI has stepped up its efforts to track the movements of those tied to the terrorist plot who still are alive.
Agents this week actively were looking for information about at least two of the suspected associates, Anand Shah, who's on the FBI's watch list, and Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot jailed in London who reportedly helped trained the hijackers.
British prosecutors have said Raissi spent some time in Las Vegas this past summer.
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