-Caveat Lector-
<http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20010929/ts/
german_data_led_u_s_to_search_for_more_hijackers_after_attack_1.html>
Saturday September 29 08:52 AM EDT
German Data Led U.S. to Search for More Hijackers After Attack
By JOHN TAGLIABUE and RAYMOND BONNER
The New York Times
HAMBURG, Germany, Sept. 28 In the hours following the Sept. 11 terror
attacks, German intelligence agents intercepted a phone conversation
between jubilant followers of Osama bin Laden that led the F.B.I. to search
frantically for two more teams of suicide hijackers, according to officials
in both countries.
The Germans overheard the terrorists refer to "the 30 people traveling for
the operation." The Federal Bureau of Investigation already knew that 19
suspected hijackers had died on four planes, and started scouring flight
manifests and any other clues for 11 more people still at large, who might
have been part of the plot.
One of those may have been Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot brought to court
in London today, accused of having acted as the "lead instructor" to 4 of
the 19 hijackers while they were all in Arizona. Mr. Raissi, 27, denied any
complicity in the terror onslaught.
According to a British prosecutor at an extradition hearing, Mr. Raissi
played a crucial background role in the attacks, ensuring that the
hijackers had access to pilot training in the United States and monitoring
their progress so they were "capable and were trained" for their mission.
The British authorities are investigating whether anyone in their country
played a part in the plot to attack America. Scotland Yard has reported
that 11 of the 19 accused hijackers passed through Britain earlier this
year.
As the authorities across the world try to piece together the conspiracy,
the German intercept remains a key clue, a senior American official said,
adding that the inquiry is focusing more than ever on Germany and that more
F.B.I. agents are being sent here. A top German intelligence official said
his investigators were working on the assumption that there were, in fact,
30 people directly involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, some outside Germany.
In a 90-minute interview, the German official said the assault had been
carried out by a cell of operatives here aided by similar cells in at least
three other European countries.
According to other German investigators, another intercepted phone call
also offered vital information of a link here. It was between Zacarias
Moussaoui, a French-Moroccan arrested in August in Minnesota after strange
behavior at a flight school, and a operative in Hamburg who shared an
apartment with Mohamed Atta, considered one of the leading hijackers.
That call, dated to Mr. Moussaoui's time in a flight school in Oklahoma
earlier this year, is the first substantial evidence linking him to the
group that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
German investigators have pieced together a diagram of the relationships
between the members of what they call the Hamburg cell of Mr. bin Laden's
organization, Al Qaeda.
The roughly 20 people in the diagram include Mr. Atta, believed to have
been the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center
and perhaps the mastermind of the group; Marwan al-Shehhi, who is thought
to have piloted the second plane to hit the Trade Center; and Ziad
al-Jarrah, suspected of piloting the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
In a central spot on the diagram is Ramzi Muhammad Abdullah Bin al- Shibh,
who shared an apartment with Mr. Atta, sent money to a Florida flight
school seeking to sign up for lessons, and spoke with Mr. Moussaoui some
months ago while he was studying flying in Norman, Okla.
German officials have issued an international arrest warrant for Mr. Bin
al-Shibh, whose whereabouts are unknown.
The American official explained the decision to increase the F.B.I.'s
presence here, saying, "It looks like it was organized in Germany," adding
that there is clear evidence of meetings between Mr. Atta, Mr. al- Shehhi
and Mr. Jarrah, three of the four suspected pilots.
Mr. Atta has emerged as the central figure partly because of cellphone
records obtained by investigators showing him making hundreds of phone
calls, including some to other hijackers who then made calls to other
people.
The American official said it appeared that some of the hijackers held
planning sessions in Hamburg and enrolled in flight training elsewhere in
Europe.
The senior German intelligence official said investigators were looking for
individuals who had moved in and out of the United States in the weeks and
months before the attacks, acting as scouts and logistical coordinators.
Based on a study of previous terrorist operations, particularly the
bombings of two American Embassies in Africa in 1998, the official said the
scouts would not have been the same individuals as the commandos who
carried out the attacks.
"This wasn't done by attackers themselves," the official said of the
planning. "It must have been done by certain people who fall through the
profiling procedures used by the United States."
The investigators do not yet have concrete evidence that Mr. bin Laden was
the author of the attack, the official said. But he said he had no doubt
that it was the work of Al Qaeda, because it "has exclusively chosen the
United States as a target."
"It has a certain handwriting we can see," he said.
Teams of F.B.I. investigators have been sent to this city and to a German
police unit near Bonn, and their number is now being increased.
Today's announcement in England comes a week after Mr. Raissi was arrested
under Britain's Terrorism Act. Mr. Raissi was re-arrested under an American
warrant today.
When he was seized last Friday, Mr. Raissi was living in Colnbrook, close
to London's Heathrow Airport. His wife, Sonia, 25, and brother Mohamed, 29,
were also detained but later released. Prosecutors said today that he had
been charged in the United States with giving false information when he
applied for a pilot's license.
Mr. Raissi qualified as a pilot in 1997 and attended a number of flight
schools that were also attended by some of the hijackers in the Sept. 11
attacks, the prosecutor, Arvinda Sambir, said in court today.
"We have sufficient evidence to show not just association with the pilots
it goes further than that," Ms. Sambir said. "We have evidence of active
conspiracy proving correspondence and telecommunications with them as well
as video footage of them together. We also have proof they traveled
together."
Ms. Sambir said Mr. Raissi visited the United States on several occasions
between June and July of this year and on June 23 flew to Las Vegas with
his French-born wife Sonia, 25, who works for Air France at Heathrow. From
there, he flew to Arizona with a man described as the pilot of the plane
that crashed into the Pentagon, identified by American investigators as
Hani Hanjour.
"We say he was there to ensure that pilots were capable and trained for
this purpose," Ms. Sambir said.
In Arizona, an arrest warrant has been issued for Mr. Raissi, accusing him
of making false statements to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Here in Hamburg, investigators are focusing more attention on Mr. Bin
al-Shibh, who lived with Mr. Atta and other members of the Hamburg cell at
54 Marienstrasse. The police diagram shows that Mr. Bin al-Shibh
transferred 2,000 Deutschmarks, or about $4,200, through Citibank to the
West Coast Bank in Florida as a down payment at the same flight school
attended by Mr. Jarrah.
Another person whose name is on the diagram is Mamoun Darkazanli, 43, a
Syrian businessman with a German wife who worked as a wholesale dealer in
office equipment.
Mr. Darkazanli was on the list of 27 individuals and organizations that the
Bush administration released last week alleging that they had channeled
money to Al Qaeda. American officials said Mr. Darkazanli was an associate
of Mr. Bin Laden and took part in a 1996 attack on government troops in
Saudi Arabia.
He came to the attention of the German and American authorities in late
1998 as part of the investigation into the African embassy bombings.
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a Sudanese, whom American officials describe as a
right-hand man to Mr. bin Laden, named Mr. Darkazanli during his
interrogation by the German police after he was arrested near Munich in
1998. Mr. Salim is currently in jail in New York, awaiting trial on
terrorism charges.
When Mr. Salim opened a bank account at the Deutsche Bank in Hamburg, he
named Mr. Darkazanli as a co-signer.
According to German investigators, Mr. Darkazanli attended the wedding
several years ago of Said Bahaji, a German of Moroccan origin. Mr. Bahaji
was in charge of logistics for the Hamburg cell, and last week, the German
authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Eight days before the
bombings, he left Germany for Pakistan, German officials have said.
Others at the wedding were Mr. Atta, Mr. Shehhi and Mohamed Heidar Zammar,
whose name also appears on the police diagram.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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