German Fugitives Sought in Attack Investigation

Three men wanted as fugitives by German authorities were part of a terrorist cell in Hamburg with three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and helped plan the terror attacks on New York and Washington, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said today.

Ashcroft said the fugitives – Said Bahaji, Ramzi Binalshibh and Zakariya Essabar – lived at various times in the same Hamburg apartment where three of the hijacking pilots also lived. The six were part of a terrorist cell that operated in that city since at least 1999, he said.

"It is clear that Hamburg served as a central base of operations for these six individuals and their part in the planning of the Sept. 11 attack," said Ashcroft, appearing at a news conference with German Interior Minister Otto Schily. "Their connections to the hijackers are extensive."

U.S. and European investigators have for weeks viewed Germany as the birthplace of the plot to hijack jetliners and crash them into U.S. targets. U.S. officials said last week that the focus of the terror probe had moved overseas, and the FBI has sent at least a dozen agents to Germany to help track leads.

But Ashcroft's statements today provide the most clear description yet of the central role played by a terrorist cell centered on quiet Marien Street in Hamburg, where hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah lived while attending school in the 1990s.

They also underscore the importance of the three fugitives, whom investigators believe have vital information about how the plot was financed and planned. U.S. law enforcement officials have said that fewer than 10 of those in custody in the United States are suspected of being associated with the plot, and none may be as central as the German fugitives.

"This takes us back to people who have a central role in this," one FBI official said. "They could be the key to this case."

Ashcroft said Essabar went to Florida in February at a time when both Atta and al-Shehhi were known to be there; German authorities had said previously that Essabar failed in two attempts to get a U.S. visa in December 2000 and January 2001.

Binalshibh was turned down for a U.S. visa, German officials said, although he had put down a deposit at a Florida flight school.

Atta and Binalshibh, whose last name is listed on some documents as Omar, also started a Muslim prayer group together in Hamburg, Ashcroft said. Essabar, Jarrah and al-Shehhi all appeared in a video of Bahaji's wedding, he said.

Essabar studied at the same University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg as Jarrah, and the two worked at the same car dealership in Hamburg in the summer of 1998. At one point in 1998, German intelligence locked onto Bahaji, whose father is Moroccan, as part of a complicated trail that seemed to link him with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.

An alleged bin Laden financier, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, visited Germany and was arrested, and police discovered that one of his contacts, Syrian businessman Mamoun Darkazanli, opened a German bank account for him.

Darkazanli attended a mosque in Hamburg known for its radical members, and he seemed to spend a lot of time there with Bahaji. The contact was noted at the time, German officials have said.

That same year, Bahaji rented the Marien Street apartment with Atta, who also worshiped at the al-Quds mosque. But police could make nothing of Darkazanli's contacts with Bahaji, and the surveillance was dropped.

Bahaji, who served briefly in the German military and was skilled with computers, is now believed to have been in charge of logistics for the Hamburg cell, including working with the hijackers so they could secure U.S. visas.

After Sept. 11, police raided the apartment Bahaji had set up with his wife after leaving Marien Street and seized, among other items, bin Laden texts and Bahaji's wedding photo album. There, standing together in one photo, are Bahaji, Jarrah, al-Shehhi, Omar and Essabar. Darkazanli also reportedly attended the wedding.

Bahaji, a student of electrical engineering at the Technical University in Hamburg, left his wife and a six-month-old baby behind when he fled. Polices say his wife, who is in protective custody, knew nothing about the attacks.

German officials believe Essabar, like Bahaji and Binalshibh, has fled Germany, and they suspect the three are in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Pakistani officials said they have no record of Bahaji or Binalshibh entering the country.

Atta has emerged as the ringleader of the hijacking teams, traveling extensively in advance of the attacks and receiving at least $110,000 of $500,000 in funding that investigators have traced to the operation.

Atta and Al-Shehhi are believed to have piloted the two airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Jarrah was the pilot of the United Airlines flight that crashed in rural Pennsylvania, apparently foiled in its attempt to strike another target.

Washington Post staff writer Peter Finn in Berlin contributed to this report.