Investigators have identified the al-Qaida operative who recruited Mohammed Atta and other Hamburg-based hijackers who took part in the September 11 terrorist attacks, The Washington Post said on Wednesday.
Mohammed Haydar Zammar (41) a German citizen of Syrian origin, disappeared after leaving Hamburg for Morocco in October, but a US counterterrorism official suggested that he is in US custody or is being held in another country.
”Zammar is not walking the streets,” said the official who requested anonymity.
According to German and US officials, Zammar also played a key role in linking Atta with al-Qaida leadership in Afghanistan. The suspect, the officials said, was a charismatic advocate at a Hamburg mosque of waging holy war against the west. Atta and others in the Hamburg-based group fell under his influence around 1997.
One or two years later, the US counterterrorism official said, Atta and company decided to ”offer themselves” to al-Qaida, adding that Zammar ”played a very significant role,” in the recruitment.
After the September 11 attacks, Zammar was questioned and released by German police. He left Germany on October 27 to get a divorce from a Moroccan woman, a senior German official said, adding that US officials ”certainly knew he was leaving.”
Before September 11, Zammar was on a German watch list of suspected Muslim extremists.
Intelligence officials hope that by investigating Zammar’s movements and tactics they can gain insight into how other al-Qaida cells plan their attacks.
The New York Times said that after nearly 100 interrogation sessions, captured al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Zubaydah has provided crucial information to US efforts to pre-empt a new wave of terrorist attacks against the United States.
US officials said Zubaydah remains defiant since his capture in northern Pakistan in March and that much of the information he has provided was intended to lead investigators astray.
However, the suspect has unwittingly provided valuable information, dropping clues while boasting about al-Qaida and its plan to topple the US government.
One such case, the officials said, was Zubaydah’s confirmation that there was a plot to set off a radioactive-laced ”dirty bomb” in the United States.
Although Zubaydah did not provide a name, investigators checked his clues with information from interrogation with other suspects leading them to Abdullah al-Muhajir, the former New York-born gang member and Muslim convert who was arrested May 8 at Chicago’s international airport after travelling from Pakistan. – Sapa-AFP