Terrorists were aided by 'foreign states', say authorities

Terror in America: Funding

The United States accused a number of unnamed foreign governments yesterday of providing crucial support for the hijackers who attacked New York and Washington last week ­ the first time it has clearly voiced its suspicion that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida network received sponsorship from states as well as like-minded groups bent on America's destruction.

"It is pretty clear that the networks that conduct these kinds of events are harboured, supported, sustained and protected by a variety of foreign governments," John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, told reporters after receiving a briefing from the Pentagon. The accusation coincided with countless media reports that one of the presumed hijackers, Mohamed Atta, had met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Europe earlier this year. The Iraqi government has vigorously denied any role in last week's attacks.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, had warned on Tuesday that America would "drain the swamp" inhabited by terrorists, stressing that Afghanistan was not the only country that would face retaliatory strikes. But like Mr Ashcroft, he did not specify any names. Colin Powell, the secretary of state, has held talks with Sudan, which sheltered Mr bin Laden before Afghanistan did, and Cuba. Contacts with the two countries were described by US officials as positive.

Mr Ashcroft's statement came the day after three potentially crucial arrests in Michigan, which led federal investigators to evidence of an attempted attack on a US military base in Turkey as well as false identity documents and sketches of airport buildings, runway and airline flight lines.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation found the three men in a raid on a house in suburban Detroit believed to be the address of one of the most wanted men in the unfolding investigation: a suspected bin Laden operative called Nabil al-Marabh, who had links to at least two of the hijackers who flew from Boston. Mr al-Marabh could not be located ­ his landlord later said he had moved out in July last year. What the FBI found instead were three men named as Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 21, Ahmed Hannan, 33, and Karim Koubriti, 23, with a mass of documents in Arabic, false passports, social security cards and visas. The documents alluded to an attack in Turkey as well as hand-written sketches of what an affidavit filed by the FBI described as "an airport flight line, to include aircraft and runways." The Turkish references may tie into a foiled attempt to attack a US base in Incirlik. A Jordanian man is already in custody in Jordan on suspicion of involvement in that plot.

The FBI also discovered that two of the men had worked for an airline catering company at Detroit airport this summer ­ apparently a substantiation of the suspicion that members of the hijacking network may have had jobs as part of the ground staff at airports where the doomed planes took off last week.

In his briefing, Mr Ashcroft said it was too early to tell whether the arrests in Detroit were a big break in the case. Federal investigators in Michigan said they were still working through the documents to see if there was any link to last week's attacks. The three men are being held without bail on charges relating to fraudulent documents and are due to appear in court tomorrow. Theirs are the first criminal arrests made since the investigation began.

Another four people are being held in New York as material witnesses, and about 75 others are being held on immigration irregularities while investigators continue to check possible links to the attacks.

As the investigation expands, confusion and mistakes appear to be growing alongside possible breakthroughs in the case. The Saudi government now believes at least five of the names attributed to the hijackers in an official US list last week in fact belong to innocent Saudis whose identification papers were stolen. The FBI has also admitted it is linguistically challenged and put out an appeal for Arabic and Farsi translators. Arab and Iranian American groups have responded with mixed feelings, expressing astonishment that the US government did not have enough foreign-language speakers already.

* Germany's intelligence agency believes as many as 30 "terror cells" could be operating in the country while another security source suspects Mr bin Laden has used Germany as a guerrilla base, media reports said yesterday.

The German government declined to comment on the reports, but a minister in charge of domestic security said he believed last week's attacks in America might have been only the opening volley in a campaign of terror.