Author: Zahid Hussain
Publication: The Associated Press
Date: November 1, 2001
Islamabad, Pakistan (AP) - Authorities
have launched a nationwide manhunt for a key suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks after he apparently entered the country from Afghanistan, officials
said Thursday.
Said Bahaji, 26, was believed to
have returned to Pakistan to take a flight Tuesday from Karachi to Istanbul,
Turkey. Bahaji did not show up for the flight but is believed still hiding
in Karachi, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Bahaji, a German citizen of Moroccan
origin, is sought under an international arrest warrant in connection with
the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.
German authorities have said Bahaji
had close contacts with some of the hijackers who flew commercial airliners
into the World Trade Center in the biggest terrorist attacks in American
history.
German investigators say Bahaji
rented an apartment in Hamburg in 1998 and shared it with Mohammed Atta,
a bin Laden lieutenant who was believed to have been the leader of the
hijackers.
Bahaji's arrest would be a major
break in efforts to establish a connection between the Sept. 11 attacks
and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.
President Bush launched air attacks
on Afghanistan after the country's ruling Taliban militia refused to hand
over bin Laden, who has lived there since 1996.
Pakistani authorities believe Bahaji
and three companions traveled to Karachi from Hamburg, Germany, one week
before the U.S. attacks. The four - all of whom carried Western European
passports but were of Arab origin - spent the night at a Karachi hotel
and made calls to Hamburg.
They traveled from Karachi to the
southwestern city of Quetta and were believed to have crossed the border
into Afghanistan.
Bahaji confirmed a reservation on
the Tuesday flight to Istanbul but did not show up to get the ticket, Pakistani
officials said. Nevertheless, security officials said they were confident
they would find him.
In addition, the Pakistani authorities
said four people were arrested Tuesday in Karachi while trying to board
a Pakistan International Airlines flight to Toronto.
They included two Afghans, one Yemeni
and an Egyptian. Officials said the four were believed to have left Afghanistan
a few days ago and had been staying in Karachi with a member of the Islamic
extremist Sipah-e- Sahaba group.
