Attacks Said Planned in Germany, US
German investigators believe the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon involved planning both in Germany and the United States, a senior law enforcement official said Monday.
Three of the suspected hijackers lived in Hamburg, Germany along with others linked to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"We don't want to play this down. The Hamburg group surely played an important role," said Manfred Klink, head of a special German investigating commission looking into the attacks.
"But I would not go so far as to say that everything was planned and put together," in Germany, Klink said.
Based on U.S. evidence, Germany authorities are certain that Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and his network were behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It's clear that the planning in the United States was of exceptional importance," Klink said. "You can't shift the whole thing to Germany. We don't have enough evidence for that."
U.S. investigators have said they believe the masterminds behind the attack worked from the Middle East and Europe, never entering U.S. soil to prevent heightening law enforcement suspicions.
Klink said the three suspected hijackers who studied in Hamburg, and two fugitive suspects sought by German prosecutors, were part of a larger network that planned the attacks over some time, he said.
German prosecutors believe the fugitives, Said Bahaji, a German-Moroccan, and Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni, provided the logistics for the Hamburg cell. Officials say both left Germany before the attacks and that their whereabouts are unknown.
Klink said 26,000 posters of the two fugitives were being distributed, including some in English, French, Arabic and Turkish.
Last week, a list of 370 people suspected of links to the terror attacks was posted on the Internet by Finland's central bank. Checks of about a dozen Hamburg addresses on the list suggested most of the people had disappeared.
In most cases, neighbors told an Associated Press reporter that police had searched apartments. Several times, neighbors said they hadn't seen the person in question since before the attacks.
Others denied involvement in the plot when contacted by telephone. Mounir El Motassadeq, a Hamburg student, who reportedly signed hijacker Mohamed Atta's will, reacted angrily when asked about his ties to Atta.
"All of this is false. I have nothing to do with this thing," he said before hanging up.
Klink said more than 600 German federal agents are pursuing some 7,000 leads, aided by about 15 FBI agents working in Germany.
|