WASHINGTON - A Yemeni citizen who is the focus of a worldwide manhunt was supposed to have been the 20th hijacker on September 11 but failed to get into the United States.
The suspected ringleader of the 19 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, tried unsuccessfully to get Ramzi Omar, also known as Ramsi Binalshibh, into the US three times, Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Robert Mueller said yesterday. .
"We believe he was the 20th hijacker," he said, noting that all the hijacking teams had five members except United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field.
The US Government had said that a man arrested in Minnesota, Zacarias Moussaoui, may have been the 20th hijacker.
But Mueller said yesterday that there was no information on the computer seized from Moussaoui that linked him to the September 11 attacks. That prompted officials to consider other suspects.
At a security conference in Germany, FBI official Michael Rolince said: "I'm convinced there were supposed to be five people on this plane ... Whoever that fifth person was is probably still alive."
US officials said information obtained from Osama bin Laden operatives in custody had helped provide a clearer picture of the hijacking plot and plans for follow-up attacks.
German authorities have issued international arrest warrants for three suspected accomplices of the hijackers: Binalshibh; Said Bahaji, a German national; and Zakariya Essabar of Morocco. All three left Hamburg shortly before the September 11 attacks.
Attorney-General John Ashcroft has said the three had extensive connections to Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, the suspected pilots of the hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and Ziad Jarrah, suspected of flying the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
In a closed-door meeting with prosecutors, Mueller offered details about Moussaoui, saying that when the FBI searched his computer, it contained information about "dispersal of chemicals" as well as about crop-duster planes.
The discovery led to the US Government temporarily grounding crop-dusters as a precaution against a biochemical attack.
Moussaoui was detained on August 17 on immigration charges after officials at a flight school where he sought training grew suspicious and called authorities. He is being held as a material witness in the probe of the terrorist attacks.
A British man was arrested yesterday on terrorism charges in connection with the September 11 attacks, police sources said.
The arrest followed a probe carried out by London's Anti-Terrorist Branch after a request by the FBI.
"We received a letter of request from the FBI and it is safe to say that the man is linked in some way to the September 11 attacks," a police source said.
Britain, criticised abroad as a haven for asylum seekers and dissidents, is thought to have been a transit point for 11 of the 19 hijackers in the attacks on US landmarks that killed about 4600 people.
Police sources said authorities had tightened the net around Islamic extremists and others suspected of inciting racial hatred or committing or supporting acts of terrorism.
Nine men are in British jails awaiting extradition on suspicion of planning or carrying out terrorist activities overseas.
The man arrested yesterday is the first British national to have been held on terrorism charges related to September 11.
- REUTERS
Story archives:
Links: Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
FBI names suspect believed to be missing 20th hijacker
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