The FBI on Thursday announced the arrest of a Middle Eastern man suspected of helping the hijackers who perpetrated last week's US terror attacks, but fresh doubts emerged over the identities of some of the terrorists.
Investigators seeking suspects in the strikes picked up a man near Chicago who is suspected of having aided the men who hijacked four jetliners and of flying three of them into New York's World trade Center and Washington's Pentagon, the FBI said.
The New York Times said Nabil Marabh, arrested late Wednesday, was believed to be a "close associate" of Washington's prime suspect for masterminding the terror blitz, Saudi-born extremist Osama bin Laden, and could formally link him to the attack.
Marabh "was arrested Wednesday night near Chicago at 10:45 pm [0245 GMT Thursday]," FBI spokeswoman Mary Muha said. "He was on the FBI watch list," one of more than 100 people wanted for questioning in conjunction with the attacks on Washington and New York.
Muha said authorities also had issued a previous arrest warrant for Marabh, 34, for an alleged knife assault outside Boston in March 2000.
The agents, searching for Marabh, had 48 hours earlier arrested at his home in Detroit, Michigan, three men of Arab descent with false documents, maps of the city's international airport and documents on a US base in Turkey.
They were Ahmed Hannan, 33, Karim Kubriti, 23, and Faruk Ali-Halmud, 21, the FBI said.
According to the spokeswoman, investigators found a notebook with notes in Arabic about "a US base in Turkey," about the "US Secretary of State," about Jordan's Alia airport, its runways and air corridors above it.
A false visa and other identification were also found in the Detroit home.
But just as the worldwide probe into the atrocity, which has left more than 5,800 people feared dead, appeared to get a boost, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief Robert Mueller conceded that doubts had emerged over the true identities of the hijackers who attacked New York and Washington.
Mueller, speaking Thursday at the Pennsylvania site where one of four passenger jets hijacked in the terror blitz crashed, admitted that the identities of some of the 19 hijackers who investigators believe carried out the attacks were in doubt.
"We have several hijackers whose identities were those on the manifests, we have several others [who] are still in question," Mueller said in Shankville, Pennsylvania.
Doubts over the identities of at least some of the 19 men began to emerge when at least four people with names matching those on an FBI list of the hijackers turned up alive in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, according to newspaper reports.
Abdulaziz Alomari, identified by investigators as one of the suicide hijackers on the first plane to slam into the World Trade Center on September 11 is alive and in Saudi Arabia, but his passport had been stolen several years ago, they said.
The reports prompted US officials to begin investigating whether some or all of the 19 suspects had used stolen identities, possibly complicating efforts to link them to Osama bin Laden.
Washington is extremely keen to prove a direct link between Afghan-based bin Laden and the September 11 attacks here in order to shore up international support for its war against terrorism, the main focus of which appears to be the capture of bin Laden.
Marabh's origins also remain unclear, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police saying it had put out a arrest warrant for him after he failed to turn up in court on September 13 to answer charges of possessing a false passport.
There was also confusion over the true origins of the three men who were picked up in his Detroit home who investigators said claimed to be Moroccan but had also said under questioning that they were from Albania and Iran.
Another four people have been arrested as material suspects -- individuals believed to have information vital to the case -- and the Immigration and Naturalization Service is holding between 75 and 115 people on immigration concerns who may also be able to help the investigation.
In addition, investigators are continuing to sift through more than 96,000 leads and searching for nearly 200 people wanted for questioning about the United States' worst terrorist attack.
Tentacles of the probe were meanwhile spreading across the globe as Washington prepared to launch its tough war against terror.
In Yemen, dozens of suspected followers of Osama bin Laden were arrested while Lebanese police have opened at Interpol's request an investigation into Ziad Samir Jarrah, a suspect in the terror attacks on the United States.
In Europe, the principality of Liechtenstein said it had had opened an inquiry into whether terrorists who attacked New York and Washington used its financial institutions -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
