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9/11 See other 9/11 Articles Title: After 2 Years, a Sign of a 9/11 Suspect ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suspect in the 9/11 plot whose German passport was found in a mud hut in western Pakistan this week has not been in touch with his family for two years, his mother said in a telephone interview on Friday. Skip to next paragraph Associated Press The suspect, Said Bahaji, a German citizen whose father is Moroccan, was the main logistics supporter of the 9/11 attackers, paying their rent and telephone bills, according to the authorities. The Pakistani military said it found his German passport five days ago in the village of Sherwangai in South Waziristan, during a search operation. Mr. Bahaji was part of the Hamburg cell of Al Qaeda, a tightly knit group of young Arab men who met in Germany in the mid- to late 1990s under the leadership of Mohamed Atta, who eventually became the central planner of the 9/11 attacks. A Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that Mr. Bahaji was not in custody, and that the military did not know whether he was dead or alive. He said the passport stamp for Mr. Bahaji’s entry into Pakistan — Sept. 4, 2001 — was too old to shed any light on his current whereabouts. The Pakistani military is in the second week of a major military operation against militants in their South Waziristan stronghold, and General Abbas said one aim was to flush out foreigners. German intelligence officials have said they believe that Mr. Bahaji, who is still on the German authorities’ wanted list, has been in Pakistan’s tribal areas since Sept. 11, 2001. The discovery of the passport this week was the first concrete evidence. Many top Qaeda members are believed to have taken refuge in the area. A Pakistani intelligence official interviewed on Friday said the discovery “proves that our militants have had close associations with Al Qaeda.” American drone attacks have killed a number of senior Qaeda members in the tribal areas, including Usama al-Kini, a Kenyan, who was the group’s operations chief in Pakistan, as well as Baitullah Mehsud, who led the Pakistani Taliban. German officials reached by telephone on Friday did not give details about Mr. Bahaji’s last known contact, but said they did not dispute the time frame given by his mother, Anneliese Bahaji. Mrs. Bahaji, 76, a German citizen, said her son also had a Moroccan passport, so it was possible that he was traveling with that. Mr. Bahaji, who was born in June 1975, had never been to Pakistan before setting off in September 2001, his mother said. She said he had told her and his wife, Nese Kul, a German citizen of Turkish descent, from whom he is now divorced, that he was going to Pakistan for an internship at a computer company there. Mrs. Bahaji last heard from him in 2007, when he telephoned her. “He said he just wanted to call and say he’s still alive,” she said by telephone from northern Germany, where she lives. In many ways, the passport raised more questions than it answered. “I don’t know what to think that they’ve found his passport now,” Mrs. Bahaji said, sounding sad. “I don’t know what it means.” The Hamburg cell seemed to be the one place where Mr. Bahaji felt truly accepted. He tried to enter a military academy in Morocco, his mother said, but was turned down because he had asthma. When he moved to Germany, she added, he was required to attend additional classes before his Moroccan high school degree would be accepted, deepening his sense that he was a stranger there. In late 1998, according to evidence introduced in a German court in the trial of another Hamburg cell member, Mounir el-Motassadeq, Mr. Bahaji and Mr. Atta moved into an apartment near the university where they had been studying in Hamburg. The young men grew increasingly radical, with the help of a German of Syrian origin, Mohamed Heidar Zammar, who had fought in Bosnia and was believed to be a Qaeda operative. Mr. Bahaji grew close to Mr. Atta and the other members of the cell. They attended Mr. Bahaji’s wedding in October 1999, at Al Quds mosque in Hamburg, feasting on Moroccan tagine stew with plums and sweets, his wife, Ms. Kul, said in an interview in 2002. A video of the event was introduced as evidence in the German court. Men sat separately from the women, Ms. Kul said, and Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted the second plane that struck the World Trade Center, sang songs about jihad. Relatives were reportedly shocked at the change in Mr. Bahaji, who had grown a long beard, much to his mother’s chagrin. “The beard has to go,” Mrs. Bahaji told him, and he replied, “No, the beard stays,” she said in an interview two years ago. The last time Ms. Kul saw Mr. Bahaji was on Sept. 3, 2001. Before departing he went to the mosque where they had gotten married. When he returned, his hair was cut short, she said. Ismail Khan and Pir Zubair Shah contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
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#1. To: Ada (#0)
Bosnia where the CIA and al-Qaeda were allies against pro Russian Serbs? 9/11 is linked to the powers that be in the USA be it by chance or by design.
"We have oil. We have Putin - all that Russians think they need." - Vladimir Dubin, senior researcher at the Moscow-based Levada Centre.
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