Growing evidence links Moussaoui to second wave attack

WASHINGTON -- U.S. authorities have gathered evidence and testimony suggesting accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was being groomed for a second wave of attacks as part of a broad plot that included the suicide hijackers, according to officials and documents.

The evidence, according to those familiar with it, reinforces U.S. authorities' assessment that al-Qaida began shifting some operational planning and fund raising to southeast Asia well before the 2001 attacks and that Moussaoui was part of a terrorist plot that was broader than the suicide hijackings in New York and Washington.

One key link, the officials say, is captured Malaysian chemist Yazid Sufaat who authorities believe hosted both the hijackers and Moussaoui in Malaysia at different times in 2000 and provided Moussaoui with fake papers to make his way to the United States.

Moussaoui initially went to Malaysia to seek flight training at the Malaysian Flying Academy but then asked Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, to switch his training to the United States, according to the documents and interviews. Around the time Moussaoui was in Malaysia, Sufaat is believed to have purchased explosives that were to be used in an attack in Singapore that was to follow the Sept. 11 hijackings, according to a Philippines intelligence report.

Network suspected

The evidence and timelines have led authorities overseas and here to suspect that Moussaoui and Sufaat were to set up a network to prepare for a second wave of attacks, one senior foreign intelligence official in southeast Asia said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, Mohammed has also told U.S interrogators since his capture a month ago in Pakistan that Moussaoui was supposed to prepare for such a second wave.

Moussaoui, a French citizen and self-described lieutenant of al-Qaida, is the lone man charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, but the government has not specifically alleged he was supposed to be part of the hijacking team.

In fact, FBI Director Robert Mueller has said public descriptions of Moussaoui as the intended 20th hijacker are wrong. Instead, the indictment alleges that Moussaoui had contact with one of the hijackers' key coordinators, Ramzi Binalshibh, and mirrored some of their actions and training.

Moussaoui's court proceedings have been put on hold in a dispute over his demand to question Binalshibh and Mohammed. U.S. intelligence strongly objects to giving Moussaoui access to the two key detainees, and the debate has renewed discussion of whether Moussaoui's case should be sent from civilian court to a military tribunal.

Outside the courtroom, U.S. investigators have developed several links -- generally not mentioned in the indictment -- between Moussaoui, the hijackers, Sufaat, Mohammed and a man named Hambali who is still at large and believed to be Osama bin Laden's point man in southeast Asia. The evidence, according to documents and officials, includes:

--A letter signed by Sufaat that Moussaoui used to pose as a consultant for a Malaysian computer company when he entered the United States.

--Evidence that 10 months before Moussaoui's visit to Malaysia an apartment owned by Sufaat was used by two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and other al-Qaida operatives for a meeting where officials believe several attacks may have been discussed.

--Evidence Moussaoui originally went to Malaysia to seek pilot training, then contacted Mohammed to press to go instead to the United States. Moussaoui "had traveled to Malaysia for flying lessons" but he "opted not to take the lessons in Malaysia," according to an intelligence summary prepared by a former intelligence chief for the Philippine National Police.

--$35,000 that Moussaoui is believed to have received before heading to the United States. Authorities initially suspected Sufaat provided the money but have now identified a different source. Officials declined to identify that source.

The evidence from southeast Asia is consistent with comments Moussaoui has made in court appearances and motions that he was indeed a member of al-Qaida, familiar with the hijacking plot, took pilot lessons but "you can't put me on that plane."

"I know exactly who done it," he has said. "I know which group, who participated, when it was decided." He also has referred to Abu Zubayda, the now-captured al-Qaida operations leader, as "my commander."

Some evidence, gathered during raids and arrests in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, also has led authorities to suspect al-Qaida's financing and operational planning has been shifting from Afghanistan and the Middle East to southeast Asia.

The FBI's chief of terrorism financing investigations told a meeting of Indonesian authorities this week that the FBI suspects al-Qaida operatives in southeast Asia are setting up charities and nongovernmental organizations to raise money for terrorists as their bases in Afghanistan and the Middle East have been disrupted by the war on terrorism.

"I wouldn't be surprised if more terrorist funds are flowing into southeast Asia," FBI agent Dennis Lormel said.

The Philippine police intelligence summary suggests several recent al-Qaida terror attacks have been planned in the region, including a foiled plot to blow up four Western embassies in Singapore that was set in motion right after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan after Sept. 11.

"After the United States began its military campaign in Afghanistan, authorities in Singapore said Hambali (al-Qaida's chief in the region) approved plans for another al-Qaida attack," the report said.

The plan called for operatives "to drive trucks packed with powerful fertilizer bombs into the embassies of the United States, Britain, Israel and Australia," the report said.

The plan was foiled when cell members were arrested, but by that time the embassies had been staked out by terrorists and three of the four tons of explosives assembled by the cell had disappeared, the report states.

About the time Moussaoui was staying with Sufaat, foreign intelligence intercepted information that he had received instructions from another alleged al-Qaida operative, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi in the Philippines, to purchase four tons of ammonium nitrate, the powerful explosive used in fertilizer bombs, for the Singapore embassies attack, the Philippine report said.

Sufaat bought the explosives, using a company he owned called Green Laboratory Medicine, according to the report.

Based on a tip from U.S. authorities, Sufaat was arrested Dec. 9, 2001, as he tried to return to Malaysia after weeks of serving with al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Filipino and Malaysian security authorities believe Sufaat, in his late 30s, is connected to Jemaah Islamiah and the Malaysian Mujahedin Group, two southeast Asian groups that have allied with al-Qaida.

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Associated Press reporters Jimmy Gomez and Paul Alexander in the Philippines contributed to this story.