LAS Provides Critical Information To Assist Law Enforcement with Search For FBI Suspects.

Business Editors

HERNDON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 5, 2003

In the interest of public safety, Herndon, Va.-based Language Analysis Systems (LAS), the world's leading provider of name recognition software, posted to its Web site the most common name variations for four individuals sought by the FBI in a worldwide alert the FBI released today.

The most common name variations for Adnan El Shukrijumah, Karim El Mejjati, Zubayr Al-Rimi, and Abderraouf Jdey and possible aliases they may be using can be found at www.las-inc.com/fbialert.

On Friday, the FBI (www.FBI.gov) announced that these four men are being sought after recent intelligence indicated they could be involved in an unspecified plot against U.S. interests. The FBI has sought El Shukrijumah in the past for his suspected involvement with al-Qaeda terrorist activities, and because it feels he may pose a serious threat to U.S. citizens and interests worldwide. Officials have previously described El Shukrijumah as a possible al-Qaeda operational planner similar to Mohamed Atta, a key organizer of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Jdey was one of five men who left suicide messages on videotapes recovered in Afghanistan at the home of Mohammed Atef, Osama bin Laden's military chief who was killed in a U.S. air strike. Jdey also left a suicide note promising to die in battle against non-Muslim infidels. The FBI is not releasing additional details about the other two men at this time.

The FBI has said that it is concerned that terrorists might try to poison food or water supplies. Senior officials believe al-Qaeda may attack Americans at home even though the organization appears to have a relatively small U.S. presence. The FBI requested help from law enforcement and the public to locate El Shukrijumah and the three other men.

In response to this request, LAS is making public the most common linguistic name variations that may be in use by El Shukrijumah, El Mejjati, Al-Rimi and Jdey, including variations of the aliases identified by the FBI. It is widely known that individuals attempting to escape detection may use linguistic variations of their name to confuse the Anglo-centric name search algorithms used by most law enforcement and commercial organizations.

Providing the variations and aliases will allow police departments, banks, and other financial and business institutions to more effectively check their databases, making apprehension that much more likely. Financial institutions may want to amplify their searches of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) Watch List with some or all of these variations. The OFAC list consists of individuals, organizations, and companies - some of whom are terrorists - that U.S. concerns may not do business with. Failure to comply with the OFAC Watch List requirements puts financial institutions at risk of non-compliance and can result in large fines.

In addition, police departments may want to check their databases to see if they have had recent contact with individuals using any of these names or their variant forms.

The full list of approximately 300 variations - in frequency of occurrence order - generated from LAS's repository of almost one billion names will be provided at no charge, upon request, to organizations with a demonstrated need.

It is quite common for names that originate in another script, such as Arabic, to have multiple valid spellings in the Roman character set. LAS advanced technology, based on twenty years of research and development, can automatically generate multiple valid spellings for a single name, along with the relative frequency of occurrence for the name. This unique LAS capability, proven essential in tracking the 9/11 terrorists to their Florida connections, allows government and commercial investigators to quickly expand their search for suspects. LAS also provides technology that integrates with applications to automatically search for linguistic variations, phonetic variations, and garbled names so that users executing database searches do not need to manually identify variations of names of interest.

If you would like to speak with Dr. John C. Hermansen, CEO and Co-founder of LAS, to learn more about how the government and business communities are using its multi-cultural name recognition tools, please contact Tim Boivin at 847-632-0040, ext. 229, or by email at [e-mail].

About Language Analysis Systems

LAS has two decades of experience in making products that solve the complex problem of understanding unfamiliar names by combining computational linguistics with advanced software engineering. LAS software is used by Law Enforcement, U.S. Intelligence and Border Inspection agencies as well as commercial corporations. The government contracts that LAS has been awarded over the years have been "sole-source justified," meaning that no other company has the expertise needed to fulfill these advanced technology contracts.