Cybercast News Service (cnsnews.com), part of the conservative watchdog Media Research Center, reports that Mehrzad Arbane, an Iranian convicted of drug smuggling and suspected of money laundering and smuggling people from the Middle East into the U.S., told an associate who had become a government informant in October 2001 that he "may have smuggled two of the hijackers who flew planes into the towers in New York on September 11, 2001." Arbane was convicted May 13 in a Florida federal court of importing cocaine. He is expected to stand trial in New York for harboring illegal aliens, including two from Iran.

Jairo Velez, "well-known" for smuggling cocaine from Mexico and Colombia into the U.S., met Arbane in 1999, and the two went into business smuggling cocaine, according to court documents obtained by cnsnews.com. But two years later, Velez, spooked because Arbane had told him of having possibly transported the hijackers, became a government informant, providing the information used by prosecutors in their case against Arbane, according to cnsnews.com.

Sen. Charles Grassley is upset that Ms. Edmonds, whom he calls a whistle-blower, is gagged.

We have, for instance, an e-mail sent out by the chairman's office last week saying that the FBI is classifying two-year-old information that the committee got in two previous briefings. Ms. Edmonds worked for the FBI as a translator and was fired after she reported problems. As part of the committee's legitimate oversight, we looked into that. The e-mail I have is right here. And so I'm very alarmed with the after-the-fact classification. On the one hand, I think it's ludicrous, because I understand that almost all of this information's in the public domain, and has been very widely available. On the other hand, this classification is very serious, because it seems like the FBI would be attempting to put a gag order on Congress."