Sept. 11 hijackers met Malaysian suspect
Sept. 11 hijackers met Malaysian suspect
Reuters, Kuala Lumpur
A man detained during a crackdown on militants in Malaysia met
two of the suicide hijackers from the Sept. 11 attacks on the
United States, a source close to the investigation said on
Thursday.
The source told Reuters the man, a Malaysian and one of 13
suspects arrested between Dec. 9 and Jan. 3, met Khalid al-Midhar
and Nawaf al-Hazmi in Malaysia less than a year before the
attack.
The U.S. has identified al-Midhar and al-Hazmi as being among
hijackers who flew American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon
in Washington.
Malaysian police have detained close to 40 suspects in a
crackdown dating back to August and are checking for links
between homegrown militants and suspected Sept. 11 mastermind
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
The man who met the hijack suspects was detained after
returning from neighboring Thailand. He is being held under the
Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial or
access to a lawyer.
Malaysia said all the arrested men were suspected members of
Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM).
Police describe the KMM as a militant group seeking to wage a
jihad or holy war to overthrow Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's
government.
Their aim, they say, is to set up a purist Islamic state in
multicultural Malaysia, a country seen as both a moderate Muslim
state and a bulwark of stability in Southeast Asia.
The source said a suspected ringleader, an Indonesian, was
believed to have been in Afghanistan when the United States
launched its war there against bin Laden and his Taliban
protectors on Oct. 7.
"He hasn't been sighted since, and he could have been killed,"
the source added.
Malaysian police have been holding another Indonesian suspect
since June.
While some of the detained men and some on the wanted list in
Malaysia are believed to hail from neighboring Indonesia, Jakarta
said there has been no coordination with either Malaysia or
Singapore over the latest batch of arrests in those countries.