KUWAIT - A key figure in the September 11 attacks was allowed to enter the United States this year although his name was on a US security blacklist circulated to other countries.
The man, Egyptian Mohamed Atta, told immigration authorities that he was coming to the US "on a march to spread the word of God", Gulf Arab sources said yesterday.
After being questioned, he was allowed entry, despite being on the US blacklist.
US investigators say they believe Atta, acting as a ringleader among suicide hijackers, piloted one of the two airliners that struck the World Trade Center during attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 5400 people.
The sources said the US security watch list was circulated to foreign countries well before the attacks and included the names of some of the other 18 men later identified by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation as likely suicide-hijackers.
A major investigation is under way in the US Congress as to how the hijackers entered the country.
The security sources said Atta was stopped by United Arab Emirates security authorities on a visit to the Gulf country in January because his name was on the US list. Authorities in the UAE allowed him to leave because the US had not charged him with any crime.
Atta told UAE authorities he was headed for the US - a fact that UAE authorities transmitted to the US security organisations, the security sources said.
The sources, who are close to the probe into the attacks, added that some of the hijackers used their own names to enter the US and to travel around the country. "They bought tickets in their own names ... Why were they not stopped after they made reservations?" asked one source.
Some Gulf Arab states, close watchers of extremist Islamist groups, are providing the US with data on the handling by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network of money and travel by the Saudi-born militant's operatives.
It includes information about trips by the attackers between Western cities and destinations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The sources say investigators have produced fresh evidence of links between financial transactions involving entities in Gulf Arab states to earlier attacks which have also been blamed by US authorities on bin Laden and his network.
One such is the October 2000 suicide bombing of the warship USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17 US sailors, they said. Bin Laden denied a role in that attack.
Some regional officials who have examined the information have concluded that bin Laden had a role in the Cole attacks as well as the September 11 attacks, the sources say.
Meanwhile, the Michigan state police believe the US city of Detroit and surrounding areas have become a financial support centre for many Middle East terrorist groups, Newsweek magazine reported.
According to a police study, it is conceivable that terrorist "sleeper cells" may be located in that area of the state.
The state police submitted its report to the US Justice Department to help support a request for federal funds to fight terrorism in Michigan.
Almost every major Middle Eastern organisation on the State Department's terrorist list has operatives in Michigan.
They include people affiliated with Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Gama'at Al-Islamiyya, and al Qaeda network.
- REUTERS
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Links: Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Atta entered US despite blacklist
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