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Pakistan Finds Passport of Alleged 9/11 Operative
OCTOBER 30, 2009
By ZAHID HUSSAIN
SHAWANGAI, Pakistan -- An alleged member of the Hamburg, Germany, terror cell linked to the Sept. 11 attacks is believed to be among al Qaeda leaders helping the Taliban fight Pakistani forces in South Waziristan, Pakistani authorities said Thursday.
A German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, a close associate of Sept. 11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in the 2001 attacks, was among documents recovered this week by Pakistani troops from an abandoned militant compound in Shawangai.
The mountain village in South Waziristan was used as an al Qaeda and Taliban command base until as recently as this week, a military official said. Pakistani forces recovered other documents, including a Spanish passport, that indicated the possible presence of other European nationals in the area.
Pakistani forces captured Shawangai after days of fighting, in which some militants were killed and many others escaped. Army officials said they didn't know whether Mr. Bahaji was killed or fled -- or whether he was ever in the South Waziristan region.
Mr. Bahaji, who was born in Germany in 1975 to a Moroccan father and a German mother, was a member of the Hamburg cell, a group of extremist young Muslims founded in the German city in the late 1990s. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, police identified members of the Hamburg cell by tracing cellphone calls made by the hijackers before the attacks to a network of men who allegedly supported the attacks.
In a series of indictments, German prosecutors describe the Hamburg cell as a group of men in their 20s and early 30s who were allegedly eager to fight for Islam. Members joined al Qaeda in the late 1990s and, according to German court records, the group's leader, Mr. Atta, and several of his friends, traveled to Afghanistan in 1999 and 2000 for military training at camps run by al Qaeda.
Prosecutors say three members were recruited for the Sept. 11 attacks and assigned to take flying lessons and steer hijacked aircraft into buildings in the U.S. Mr. Atta and two other members died in the attacks. Prosecutors allege other members, including Mr. Bahaji, helped with preparations for the attacks, including laundering money and renting safe houses.
Mr. Bahaji couldn't be reached to comment, but he has denied any knowledge or participation in the attack in conversations with members of his family that were monitored by police.
German police have been searching for Mr. Bahaji since September 2001. German prosecutors consider him to be one of the most important members of the Hamburg cell to survive the Sept. 11 attacks. The German investigation of the Hamburg cell, one of the broadest inquiries in German history, names Mr. Bahaji as the lead suspect.
Several days before the 2001 attacks, Mr. Bahaji flew to Pakistan from Germany, along with two other alleged members of the Hamburg cell. The passport shows that Mr. Bahaji arrived in Karachi from Istanbul on Sept. 4, 2001. There was no indication that he had left Pakistan since.
Over the years German police have monitored several phone calls between Mr. Bahaji in Pakistan and his wife in Berlin, but didn't secure the intelligence needed to apprehend him.
In Pakistan on Thursday, officials said they had no new information about Mr. Bahaji beyond the passport, which was discovered after a fierce struggle for Shawangai....