New Evidence Regarding the WTC Collapses on 9/11

On Friday, August 12, 2005, the city of New York released thousands of fire department files from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These files included about 15 hours of radio communications, and over 12,000 pages of oral histories compiled in the months after the attacks. [BBC News, August 13, 2005]

This is a huge volume of new evidence to be sifted through. I have already been able to find though several accounts that support the theory that the Twin Towers were deliberately demolished using explosives, plus evidence of the bizarre circumstances around the collapse of WTC 7 -- the 47-storey skyscraper that collapsed at around 5:20 p.m. on 9/11, despite not being hit by an airplane.

Below are a selection of key quotes, with important points I have selected shown in bold. The full selection of oral histories released on 8/12/05 can be viewed here.

1) Explosions & Other Evidence of Controlled Demolition

The following quotes are from eyewitnesses who describe hearing explosions at the time of the WTC collapses, or whose accounts in some other way support the theory that the Twin Towers were brought down on 9/11 in controlled demolitions:

i) File No. 9110198
Battalion Chief John Sudnik
Interview Date: November 7, 2001

The best I can remember, we were just operating there, trying to help out and do the best we could. Then we heard a loud explosion or what sounded like a loud explosion and looked up and I saw tower two start coming down. (p. 4)

ii) File No. 9110386
Firefighter Timothy Julian
Interview Date: December 26, 2001

I don't know what happened, again, to 216 and 122. We came out from 90 West, made a left, headed east, and right when we got to the corner of Washington and Albany, that's when I heard the building collapse.

First I thought it was an explosion. I thought maybe there was bomb on the plane, but delayed type of thing, you know, secondary device.

Q. I was convinced for week it was secondary devices.

A. You know, and I just heard like an explosion and a then a cracking type of noise, and then it sounded like a freight train, rumbling and picking up speed, and I remember I looked up, and I saw it coming down, and I was able to make it across Washington to the very corner of Washington and Albany. I think it's the south side of Bankers Trust building. (p. 10)

iii) File No. 9110285
Lieutenant William Wall
Interview Date: December 10, 2001

So we were gonna make our way back into the collapse site and we met somebody at West and Vesey, right in the middle by the median, in the middle of West and Vesey, and it was a chief and he said, "We're gonna fall back and regroup."

At that time, we heard an explosion. We looked up and the building was coming down right on top of us, so we ran up West Street. We ran a little bit and then we were overtaken by the cloud and we hid behind a white suburban. (p. 9)

iv) File No. 9110008
Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory
Interview Date: October 3, 2001

No. I know I was with an officer from Ladder 146, a Lieutenant Evangelista, who ultimately called me up a couple of days later just to find out how I was. We both for whatever reason -- again, I don't know how valid this is with everything that was going on at that particular point in time, but for some reason I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought -- at that time I didn't know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down.

Q. Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was?

A. No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me. He said did you see anything by the building? And I said what do you mean by see anything? He said did you see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too.

I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building coming down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever. But it's just strange that two people sort of say the same thing and neither one of us talked to each other about it. I mean, I don't know this guy from a hole in the wall. I was just standing next to him. I never met the man before in my life. He knew who I was I guess by my name on my coat and he called me up, you know, how are you doing? How's everything? And, oh, by the way did you ... It was just a little strange.

Q. On the television pictures it appeared as well, before the first collapse, that there was an explosion up on the upper floors.

A. I know about the explosion on the upper floors. This was like eye level. I didn't have to go like this. Because I was looking this way. I'm not going to say it was on the first floor or the second floor, but somewhere in that area I saw to me what appeared to be flashes. I don't know how far down this was already. I mean, we had heard the noise but, you know, I don't know. (pp. 14-16)

v) File No. 9110459
Lieutenant James Walsh
Interview Date: January 16, 2002

The building didn't fall the way you would think tall buildings would fall. Pretty much it looked like it imploded on itself. (p. 10)

When the north tower fell down, we were on Vesey heading towards North End Avenue, and it was like, when that building fell, watching it fall, from where we were, it looked like -- I can't tell you how the south tower fell, only from seeing it on replays. That one looked like it really came down pretty straight like it really imploded on itself. The north tower looked like, when it started to fall, it looked like the top fell more towards the north and didn't implode as straight down as the south tower is basically all I'm saying. (p. 15)

vi) File No. 9110035
Paramedic Daniel Rivera
Interview Date: October 10, 2001

Then that's when -- I kept on walking close to the south tower, and that's when that building collapsed.

Q. How did you know that it was coming down?

A. That noise. It was a noise.

Q. What did you hear? What did you see?

A. It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was -- do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'? That's exactly what -- because I thought it was that. When I heard that frigging noise, that's when I saw the building coming down. (p. 9)

vii) File No. 9110253
Firefighter Richard Banaciski
Interview Date: December 6, 2001

We were there. They were getting the command structure going. I just remember we were -- initially we were out by the street and they started having jumpers, so they all kind of moved back towards the parking garage, towards the building, so nothing would come down on us.

We were there I don't know, maybe 10, 15 minutes and then I just remember there was just an explosion. It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions. Everybody just said run and we all turned around and we ran into the parking garage because that's basically where we were. Running forward would be running towards it. Not thinking that this building is coming down. We just thought there was going to be a big explosion, stuff was going to come down. (pp. 3-4)

2) Foreknowledge of Twin Tower Collapses

The following remarkable quote shows how one witness was told beforehand, at the New York City Office of Emergency Management based in WTC Building 7, that the Twin Towers were going to collapse. Apparently, then, someone knew beforehand that this was going to happen, or else had incredible foresight:

File No. 9110161
EMT Richard Zarrillo
Interview Date: October 25, 2001

Debris was falling. It looked like birds. There were people falling from the towers or jumping, whatever it was they were doing. Abdo and I went into No. 7, activated OEM, placed calls to EMS Citywide, RCC, to tell them we were there and we were activated.

Maybe five, ten minutes, not even ten minutes later, a rep from OEM came into the main room and said we need to evacuate the building; there's a third plane inbound. That was the only thing I really heard because I said, Abdo, we've got to go, and we made it down to the lobby of the building, street level, met up with Chief Peruggia in the lobby of the building. He said that there was no third plane but we needed to re-establish OEM right there so we can coordinate what was going on. He had already been to the command post, so he told us, and he was trying to release people back to be operational. He was looking for the Fire guy to go back in. He was there with Captain Yakimovich. In OEM with Captain Nahmod and I was Chief Maggio, who is now retired, and another firefighter from the 1st Division. We were really trying to establish OEM and a treatment sector in the lobby of the building because there were people coming around us.

Again, times are a little fuzzy initially for me. A few minutes later, John came to me and said you need to go find Chief Ganci and relay the following message: that the buildings have been compromised, we need to evacuate, they're going to collapse. I said okay. I went down Vesey Street towards West.

Q. You were by yourself?

A. I was by myself, me and my helmet and my radio. I got to the corner of Vesey and West. I found some EMS vehicles. I think I saw Chief Gombo there. I'm not really sure. I mentioned to the EMS people there, again, not knowing who they were, I said you need to get away from here, the building might collapse, we need to leave this spot.

As I was walking towards the Fire command post, I found Steve Mosiello. I said, Steve, where's the boss? I have to give him a message. He said, well, what's the message? I said the buildings are going to collapse; we need to evac everybody out. With a very confused look he said who told you that? I said I was just with John at OEM. OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.

He escorted me over to Chief Ganci. He said, hey, Pete, we got a message that the buildings are going to collapse. His reply was who the fuck told you that? Then Steve brought me in and with Chief Ganci, Commissioner Feehan, Steve, I believe Chief Turi was initially there, I said, listen, I as just at OEM. The message I was given was that the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get our people out. At that moment, this thunderous, rolling roar came down and that's when the building came down, the first tower came down. (pp. 4-6)

3) Building 7

Finally, these three quotes deal with Building 7 of the World Trade Center. This was a 47-storey skyscraper that collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11. Yet no plane had hit this building. And photos show it having apparently experienced only a few small fires and relatively minor structural damage. Its collapse, which took place within about six seconds, looked just like a typical controlled demolition.

i) File No. 9110246
Firefighter Thomas Smith
Interview Date: December 6, 2001

They backed me off the rig because seven was in dead jeopardy, so they backed everybody off and moved us to the rear end of Vesey Street. We just stood there for a half hour, 40 minutes, because seven was in imminent collapse and finally did come down. Then we proceeded to pump another six hours. (p. 14)

ii) File No. 9110222
Firefighter Vincent Massa
Interview Date: December 4, 2001

But they weren't letting guys too close. At this point Seven World Trade Center was going heavy, and they weren't letting anybody get too close. Everybody was expecting that to come down.

We hung out for hours. We went into the American Express building. We looked around there. We searched around for a while, but you could see guys were already in there. We pretty much did that on our own because we were right there and the door was there and we just walked in.

I remember later on in the day it was getting close that they were more concerned about seven coming down. We had no idea what was going on on the east side. We were all on our side. On the west side it was pretty clear. The wind was blowing from west to east, I believe.

I remember later on in the day as we were waiting for seven to come down, they kept backing us up Vesey, almost like full block. They were concerned about seven coming down, and they kept changing us, establishing a collapse zone and backing us up. (pp. 17-18)

iii) File No.9110413
Firefighter Tiernach Cassidy
Interview Date: December 30, 2001

Then, like I said, building seven was in eminent collapse. They blew the horns. They said everyone clear the area until we got that last civilian out. We tried to give another quick search while we could, but then they wouldn't let us stay anymore.

So we cleared the area. Our staging area at that point was on Vesey. It was down on Vesey, Vesey off West. We were probably a block up West on North End and Vesey, because I remember Marine 1 was docked right up here, and they were pumping water. They were pumping lines of water. (p. 17)


So yeah, then we just stayed on Vesey until building seven came down. There was nothing we could do. The flames were coming out of every window of that building from the explosion of the south tower. So then building seven down. When that started coming down, you heard that pancaking sound again. (p. 19)


Not to say we weren't waiting, but we weren't. We had other things on our minds.

Q. Why was building seven on fire? Was that flaming debris from tower two --

A. From tower two.

Q. -- that fell onto that building and lit it on fire?

A. Correct.

Q. Because it really got going, that building seven. I saw it late in the day, and like the first seven floors were on fire. It looked like heavy fire on seven floors.

A. It was fully engulfed. That whole building -- there were pieces of tower two in building seven and the corners of the building missing and whatnot. But just looking up at it from ground level, however many stories it was, 40-some-odd, you could see the flames going straight through from one side of the building to the other. That's an entire block.

Q. I wonder what was burning in there. What do you think was burning? It's an office building. There's not a lot of wood in there.

A. You figure, that jet fuel, that explosion that hit, everything just came out. Remember that explosion? It was massive, that fireball. That jet fuel just –

Q. It was jet fuel, yeah. That must have been where it landed. That's probably where a lot of the jet fuel went.

A. A 25,000 gallon tank think it had?

Q. It had to go somewhere. All right. Is that about it?

A. Yeah.

Q. That's good. (pp. 21-23)

What is remarkable about this final account is that it is so obviously false. Photos clearly show that there was no "heavy fire," like Cassidy describes. How then could he claim this? Was he mistaking another building--one that really did suffer major fires--for WTC 7? Or could he possibly have been ordered to lie?

Is the "Mastermind" of the London Bombings an MI6 Agent?

The Observer, on Sunday July 31, 2005, reported that Haroon Rashid Aswat--a man originally named as the mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings--had been arrested in Zambia about ten days previously. The 30-year-old, who is of Indian origin, grew up in Dewsbury, Yorkshire--the hometown of alleged Edgware Road bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan.

According to the Times (July 21, 2005), Haroon Rashid Aswat "arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity. He spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people." Aswat "is thought to have stayed in the madrassa [Pakistani religious school] with two of the British suicide bombers." Furthermore, according to intelligence sources, "during his stay [in Britain, prior to 7/7] Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London." The Times said that intelligence sources claim there were "up to twenty calls between Aswat and two of the bombers" in the days leading up to the bombings, with one of the alleged 7/7 bombers--Mohammad Sidique Khan--allegedly having telephoned Aswat on the morning of the attacks. According to other reports, Aswat left the UK on a flight from Heathrow just hours before the 7/7 bombings.

As well as his possible involvement with the London bombings, according to the Los Angeles Times, Aswat was close to Abu Hamza al Masri--the Egypt-born imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in northeast London, which is a well-known focal point for extremists. What is more, Zambian security officials have said that Aswat has revealed during questioning that he was once a personal guard for Osama bin Laden. (Daily Mail, July 29, 2005)

Yet, according to terrorism expert and former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus, Haroon Rashid Aswat is not the man he appears to be. When interviewed by Mike Jerrick on Fox News on July 29, 2005, Loftus made some startling claims about Aswat:

LOFTUS: This is the guy, and what's really embarrassing is that the entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him. And this has been a real source of contention between the CIA, the Justice Department, and Britain.

JERRICK: MI6 has been hiding him. Are you saying that he has been working for them?

LOFTUS: Oh I'm not saying it. This is what the Muslim sheik said in an interview in a British newspaper back in 2001.

JERRICK: So he's a double agent, or was?

LOFTUS: He's a double agent.

Loftus elaborated on this claim later on in the interview:

LOFTUS: Now we knew about this guy Aswat. Back in 1999 he came to America. The Justice Department wanted to indict him in Seattle because him and his buddy were trying to set up a terrorist training school in Oregon.

JERRICK: So they indicted his buddy, right? But why didn't they indict him?

LOFTUS: Well it comes out, we've just learned that the headquarters of the U.S. Justice Department ordered the Seattle prosecutors not to touch Aswat.

JERRICK: Hello? Now hold on, why?

LOFTUS: Well, apparently Aswat was working for British intelligence. Now Aswat's boss, the one-armed Captain Hook, he gets indicted two years later. So the guy above him and below him get indicted, but not Aswat. Now there's a split of opinion within U.S. intelligence. Some people say that the British intelligence fibbed to us. They told us that Aswat was dead, and that's why the New York group dropped the case. That's not what most of the Justice Department thinks. They think that it was just again covering up for this very publicly affiliated guy with Al-Muhajiroun. He was a British intelligence plant. So all of a sudden he disappears. He's in South Africa. We think he's dead; we don't know he's down there. Last month the South African Secret Service come across the guy. He's alive.

JERRICK: Yeah, now the CIA says, oh he's alive. Our CIA says OK let's arrest him. But the Brits say no again?

LOFTUS: The Brits say no. Now at this point, two weeks ago, the Brits know that the CIA wants to get a hold of Haroon. So what happens? He takes off again, goes right to London. He isn't arrested when he lands, he isn't arrested when he leaves.

JERRICK: Even though he's on a watch list.

LOFTUS: He's on the watch list. The only reason he could get away with that was if he was working for British intelligence. He was a wanted man.

You can watch the video clip of this interview here.

If Loftus is correct then the man who was thought to be the mastermind of the London bombings was a British agent!

As Loftus mentioned, British authorities were unwilling for Aswat to be apprehended by U.S. authorities just weeks before the London bombings. CNN described (July 28, 2005) that about a month before 7/7:

U.S. authorities wanted to capture Aswat, who was then in South Africa, and question him about a 1999 plot to establish a "jihad training camp" in Bly, Oregon.

According to the sources, U.S. officials had located Aswat in South Africa weeks before the July 7 attacks that killed 52 bus and subway travelers and the four bombers.

U.S. authorities had asked South Africa if they could take Aswat into custody. South Africa relayed the request to Britain, but authorities there balked because he was a British citizen, the sources said. While the debate was ongoing, Aswat slipped away.

Could this again be because he is an MI6 agent?

This appears scandalous. British authorities, however, are now trying to play down the significance of Aswat in relation to the London bombings. As The Guardian reported (August 1, 2005), "Counter-terrorism officials said Mr Aswat was 'of interest' to them, but there was no evidence linking him either to the July 7 or July 21 attacks. They are irritated by repeated suggestions in the US that he was connected to the bombings. They described Mr Aswat as 'a separate individual of interest in his own right'."

I guess the reports of him being the possible "mastermind" of the London bombings, and speaking by phone to two of the alleged bombers as many as twenty times in the days leading up to July 7, must simply be mistaken. Right?