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.