Suspected Accomplices in Terror Cell Named

by Philip Shenon and Don Van Natta
The New York Times
October 25, 2001
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/2001/10/25/FFXMAL116TC.html

 

WASHINGTON - The US Justice Department has identified three fugitives believed by American investigators to have been part of a terrorist cell that carried out the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Attorney-General John Ashcroft said the fugitives - a German, a Moroccan and a Yemeni, all previously identified as accomplices by German authorities - were part of a Hamburg-based cell that had existed since at least 1999 in Germany and the United States.

It was the first time a US official had joined German authorities in identifying accomplices in the attacks, and it was the most definitive statement by either government that Hamburg served as a base for the plot. US and German officials agree that the attackers took their orders from the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.

At a joint news conference with German Interior Minister Otto Schily, Mr Ashcroft said all three men fled Germany in early September, and he suggested that they might now be plotting other attacks from outside Germany.

"If we knew where they were, I think we'd go get them," Mr Ashcroft said. "As we've observed the al Qaeda network, we found that individuals involved in one set of terrorist acts frequently move on to develop and to work on the perpetration of others."

German arrest warrants issued on September 21 identified the fugitives as Said Bahaji of Germany, Zakariya Essabar of Morocco and Ramzi bin al-Shibh of Yemen.

"Their connections to the hijackers are extensive," Mr Ashcroft. They operated from a cell that included Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the suspected pilots of the two hijacked jets that crashed into the World Trade Centre, and Ziad Jarrah, the suspected pilot of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.

Mr Schily travelled to Washington this week to coordinate the US and German investigations.

"It is clear that Hamburg served as a central base of operations for these six individuals and their part in the planning of the September 11 attacks," Mr Ashcroft said.

He suggested that other members of the Hamburg cell were also on the loose. "I think it would be very misleading for us to indicate that we thought there were only three."

According to Mr Ashcroft's account, the three fugitives lived in Hamburg with Atta, who has been identified as a ringleader of the hijackers, and had other ties to the hijackers, including:

Shibh tried to enrol in a flight school in Venice, Florida, with the help of Jarrah.

Bahaji, a German of Moroccan descent, attended the same technical university in Hamburg as Atta, and together they petitioned the university to open a Muslim prayer room.

Essabar made arrangements to travel to Florida in February, when Atta and Shehhi were living there, and he appeared in Bahaji's wedding video with Jarrah and Shehhi.

Mr Ashcroft said all three fled Germany or disappeared between September 3 and September 6.

Mr Schily, who has warned recently that members of al Qaeda might still be in Germany, vowed to help the US in the investigation.

"We know very well what we owe the United States people," he said. "We know that there were young American soldiers who sacrificed their lives for freeing us from Nazi terror."

He said "it is quite natural" that "in front of these threats, the dangers of worldwide terrorism, we are at the side of the United States".

 

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

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