Bin Laden associates in contact with Muslims in Germany before U.S. attacks, investigator says

By HAMZA HENDAWI
and TONY CZUCZKA

Associated Press Writers

HAMBURG, Germany – German intelligence intercepted phone calls by celebrating followers of Osama bin Laden, providing a crucial link in the international investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But German authorities acknowledged Monday that they were unable to pin down earlier contacts by bin Laden operatives to Muslims in Germany, underscoring concern that laws here have hindered efforts to track Islamic extremists.

Whether German authorities were vigilant enough on their own soil before the attacks has been a persistent question since the embarrassing disclosure that at least five of the terrorist suspects had lived in Hamburg, raising speculation that Germany was a base for the plot.

Germany's anti-terrorism effort has been hamstrung by laws that prevent authorities from pursuing foreign suspects unless there is evidence they have formed a terror cell in Germany. Police also are reluctant to detain suspects without firm evidence, a result of the legacy of the Nazi police state.

Following the suicide jet attacks on New York and Washington, the German parliament is considering changes that would give greater freedom to crime fighters to pursue suspects.

The first indications of Germany's role in the plot came shortly after the attacks, when Germany's intelligence agency eavesdropped on two suspected bin Laden supporters celebrating on the phone, a senior intelligence official said Monday. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, refused to say exactly when or where the calls were intercepted.

In Hamburg, more than 10 FBI agents have joined local German investigators in trying to pin down a conclusive link to bin Laden, the Saudi-born exile accused by the United States of masterminding the attacks.

Prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, German authorities knew that people living in Hamburg had contacts with followers of bin Laden, "but that's it," said another intelligence official, who is close to the joint U.S.-German investigation. "We didn't have any idea about a cell and we didn't know that somebody was preparing a crime."

The intelligence official would not say exactly when the contacts were made between Muslims in Hamburg and the supporters of bin Laden abroad. But the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Muslims contacted in Hamburg did not include the three Arab students aboard the hijacked planes, identified by the FBI as Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

Asked whether the contacts involved two members of the Hamburg group suspected of helping with the logistics, the official refused to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. The two are Said Bahaji, a German-Moroccan, and Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni. German authorities have issued international warrants for both, saying their whereabouts are unknown.

Already, the hunt for the network behind the attacks has unleashed Germany's biggest nationwide security sweep since authorities went after urban terrorists of the Red Army Faction in the 1970s.

Police in most German states began coordinated profiling of potential suspects on Monday, a method that allows investigators to scan for ethnicity and religious background, as well as other evidence in a wide range of records normally off-limits under privacy laws. All but three of Germany's 16 states have adopted the measures so far.

The intelligence official close to the joint U.S.-German investigation suggested Monday that better intelligence and human resources might have yielded some results from pursuing the contacts in Hamburg.

"It's easier to find clues to prove something if the crime has already been committed, but if you have no idea of the crime that's to be committed then you are feeling your way in the fog," the official said.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has also called for routine background checks of people who apply for German citizenship by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, an agency that tracks extremists. Currently, each German state can decide to carry out routine checks or not.

As German investigators pursued some 7,200 leads in their still-growing inquiry, another hint of a bin Laden connection in Germany emerged Monday.

Members of an Islamic fundamentalist group in Germany traveled to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden supporters in 1996 or 1997, said Frauke Scheuten, spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor's Office. The group is led by Metin Kaplan, a Turk, and German authorities say it calls for the overthrow of secular governments and their replacement with Islamic ones.

In addition, German officials acknowledged Monday that the Taliban's health minister, Mullah Abbas Akhund, was granted a visa for Germany in January – despite a U.N. travel embargo on the group – and that while in Hamburg he openly praised bin Laden in a speech as German agents took notes.

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