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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-unanswered26jul26.story Questions Persist Despite 9/11 Investigations
Among them: Who financed the attacks? Were terrorist cells in the U.S. involved?
By Terry McDermott
Times Staff Writer
July 26, 2004
<snip>Who provided the nearly half a million dollars it cost to carry out the attacks? How could the man who is alleged to have recruited several of the hijack pilots have done this while under investigation by at least three intelligence services — those of the United States, Germany and Morocco? Who, if anyone, assisted the hijackers during their time in the United States?<snip>
• How could Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born citizen of Germany, have safely recruited the Hamburg pilots when he was under investigation as a possible Al Qaeda operative?
Zammar was under surveillance that included having his telephones tapped at the very time he was to have been recruiting the pilots. At one point, American attempts to learn more about Zammar became so disruptive that German officials threatened to throw an American spy out of the country. The Germans nonetheless passed a steady stream of intelligence about Zammar to the Americans. The Islamist scene in Germany was so active throughout the 1990s that, in addition to the Germans and the Americans, intelligence operatives from Syria, Morocco and other Arab governments kept watch on it.
The question about Zammar raises a larger issue on the role of a network of Syrian expatriates across Europe, particularly in Germany and Spain, who had frequent contact with the Hamburg hijackers and with Al Qaeda over many years. Many of the Syrians had been members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that has had great influence on the evolution of radical Islamist theory in the last half a century. Were they witting helpers of the hijackers or, as many of them claim, simply Muslims trying to serve the dictates of their religion by assisting their brothers?<snip>
• Why do officials of the United Arab Emirates continue to insist that they questioned hijacker Ziad Samir Jarrah at U.S. request in January 2001, when he was en route from Pakistan to Germany immediately after meeting with Bin Laden? According to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the Americans have acknowledged to other intelligence services that the UAE informed them of the Jarrah interrogation but said that it was a routine check.
UAE officials said the interrogation was hardly routine, that it lasted several hours and Jarrah told them he was about to travel to America to learn to fly. The officials said they passed this information to the U.S., but would not say to whom specifically, and that the Americans told them not to hold Jarrah. <snip>
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