CIA hits back over missed hijack clues

4 Jun, 2002 09:35 AM4 mins to read

WASHINGTON - The CIA says it notified the FBI in January 2000 about Khalid Almihdhar, one of the suspected September 11 hijackers, in the latest revelation of possible missed clues before the devastating attacks on America last year.

Congressional hearings have been called to investigate the failure of intelligence agencies to uncover the plot in which four planes were hijacked. One of the main criticisms of the United States security agencies is that they do not share intelligence among themselves.

The proceedings will be opened to the public from the end of this month.

The recent focus had been on the FBI's failure to connect a July memo by an agent in Phoenix concerned about Middle Eastern men possibly connected to Osama bin Laden taking flying lessons in the US to the August arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota, who authorities now suspect had intended to be a hijacker.

The focus shifted this week to the CIA after Newsweek magazine reported that months before September 11 the agency knew two of the hijackers were in the US - Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi - and was aware that they were connected to bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Newsweek said the CIA never told the FBI.

But a CIA official said the FBI had been informed about Almihdhar long before the attacks.

It was not known what was done with the information on Alhazmi. The two men were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

A CIA official said a cable sent in January 2000 to field offices overseas discussed Almidhar, including that his travel documents showed he had a multiple entry visa for the US.

"We have passed these documents to the FBI for further investigation," the cable said, according to the CIA.

An FBI spokeswoman said: "We don't have a comment at this point."

If the CIA - or the FBI or the State Department - had put the two suspected hijackers on a watch list, they could have been stopped from entering the US.

"We know that other people who are believed to have been involved in the planning for 9/11 who were turned away, and all they did was send other people behind them," the CIA official said.

The CIA told the FBI about Almihdhar in January 2000 while trying to find out about a gathering in Malaysia of suspected al Qaeda members, the official said.

On January 6, 2000, an internal email from an FBI agent usually assigned to the CIA's counter-terrorist centre, but who was at FBI headquarters that day, asked the CIA about Almihdhar.

The CIA replied that two other FBI agents had been briefed and they should be the FBI's point of contact for the information, the CIA official said. "That tells us that they were aware of that piece of the pie."

In March 2000 an Asian intelligence service told the CIA Alhazmi had passed through its country and was believed to be headed to Los Angeles, the CIA official said. "I don't know what happened with that information."

The CIA never learned what happened inside that January meeting in Malaysia, but had surveillance photos of attendees.

"We never learned the contents of the meeting, we never learned what they were talking about ... , because this came up so quickly," the CIA official said.

In other developments yesterday:

* The CIA has created a paramilitary unit to deal specifically with terrorists overseas, US officials said.

The unit "is taking the fight to terrorists in sanctuaries such as Afghanistan," one official said, though he declined to identify what other countries it is operating in. The size of the new unit is classified.

* The FBI is canvassing dive shops across Florida in response to a general threat that terrorists are seeking "an offensive scuba diver capability" within the US.

More than 1300 US dive shops are being asked to be on the lookout for suspicious students of Middle Eastern descent who are seeking instruction or making large purchases of oxygen tanks or other equipment.

- AGENCIES

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