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CNN Sunday Morning

More Links Found Between Hijackers and Al Qaeda

Aired September 30, 2001 - 10:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I want to talk about the investigation now and the latest that we have learned here at CNN on the possible links between Osama Bin Laden and those who carried out the attacks back on 9/11. Susan Candiotti now with an update now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More links established between the 19 suspected hijackers and Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. An intelligence source tells CNN, four of the hijackers received training at Al Qaeda run camps in Afghanistan. Authorities also now believe most of the hijackers have connections to Al Qaeda.

FBI director, Robert Mueller, Friday, stressed the Afghan ties are only one aspect of the investigation.

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: Part of our investigation, quite obviously, is to try to determine the past histories of each of the hijackers, trace their time in the United States but also attempt to identify where they were prior to their coming to the United States and track their movements through any number of countries overseas.

CANDIOTTI: One of those countries, Germany -- the FBI building a strong presence there. Investigators working on evidence Hamburg may have been home base for attack planning. Suspects Mohammad Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi shared an apartment in Hamburg. Since the attacks, German investigators and the FBI, trying to find a possible co- conspirator, Ramzi Binal-Shibh, who also lived with Atta in Germany. Binal-Shibh signed up for flying lessons at the same time as Atta and Al-Shehhi in Venice, Florida but did take the lessons. Binal-Shibh's fees were refunded.

And in Great Britain, the United States asking for the extradition of Lotfi Raissi. British prosecutors say he may have trained some of the suspected hijackers. Raissi's attorney denies any link to the 19 men named by the FBI or the attacks. Raissi faces U.S. charges of lying on a FAA's pilot license application and stealing a social security number. Stolen identities continue to haunt investigators, but now a break -- this man, Youssef Hmimssa, taken into custody by the Secret Service in Iowa.

DAWN CLENNEY, FBI: It's very significant. It's someone that we have been looking for. CANDIOTTI: Investigators have been looking for him since last week, when his picture was found on a fake passport in a Michigan apartment. Also, recovered in a search there, notes in Arabic referring to a U.S. air base in Turkey and a diagram of aircraft and runways.

But of those in U.S. custody, sources say, there are three who interest them the most -- the first, this French Moroccan student pilot arrested in Minnesota on immigration charges but now held as a material witness. Sources say Zacarias Moussaoui is not cooperating with investigators and these two men, arrested on a train in Texas, with box cutters and a large amount of cash the day of the attacks.

CANDIOTTI (on-camera): None of those held so far has been publicly linked directly to the attacks. But sources say, these three may prove to be some of the most significant arrests of the more than 480 taken into custody since September 11.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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