Mexican authorities investigate large collection of Arab hotel guests

By The Associated Press

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Authorities said Friday that they are combing through hotel registration documents and tracing the activities of an "unusually high" number of Arab guests who stayed at Pacific coast resorts between July and five days before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

The presence of 16 visitors from Arabic countries in hotels in the region of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Acapulco, was considered suspicious given that the number of visitors from those countries in this area of the coast is usually much lower, said Humberto Uribe, an official of the National Migration Institute in Acapulco. He did not elaborate.

Uribe said registration records at Zihuatanejo international airport showed that the group included 11 Iranians, 4 Iraqis and one Lebanese national, but that all of the visitors also showed authorities U.S. passports that were issued in California, Texas and Louisiana.

Uribe said the group all arrived within a few days of each other in July, staying together in a variety of luxury hotels, including a Club Med resort. Registration records show the group checking out of an area hotel en masse for the last time Sept. 5. Uribe said authorities were investigating whether the visitors were still in Mexico or had left the country.

The visitors have not been charged with wrongdoing, but local authorities are working with the FBI to see if any in the group could have had something to do with the terrorist attacks in the United States, Uribe said.

AP-WS-09-21-01 1752EDT