Police raided the home and businesses of a New Jersey man accused of providing fake identification cards to two of the September 11th hijackers but failed to capture the suspect, who, they said, travelled to Egypt.
Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale said agents had been investigating Mr Mohamad El Atriss of Union Township, New Jersey, for months for allegedly selling false ID cards for as much as $800 each.
Police said ID cards were sold to Khalid Almihdhar, one of five Islamic militants believed to have hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, and Abdulaziz Alomari, one of five men aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which flew into the north tower of the World Trade Centre in New York.
But police failed to find Mr El Atriss in their raid of his home and businesses in Paterson and Elizabeth, New Jersey, and were told he was on a business trip. Mr Speziale said Mr El Atriss had flown from Newark to Cairo.
"This location in Paterson was a location run by Mohamad El Atriss and he basically was providing documents for all kinds of people, whether it be illegal aliens, criminal aliens or even hijackers," Mr Speziale said.
The sheriff said police expected to arrest Mr El Atriss during the raid. "He was scheduled to come back," said Mr Speziale. "A phone call came into the location, prior to our arrival there, that he was en route back from his trip," he said.
Three associates of Mr El Atriss, who is considered a fugitive and wanted on 28 counts of fraud, were arrested on charges of conspiracy and manufacturing false documents, Mr Speziale said.
Officials said they did not know whether Mr El Atriss knew of the hijackers' plans. The FBI said no federal charges had been filed against Mr El Atriss.
Meanwhile, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday approved a $2.5 billion four-year reconstruction package for Afghanistan that also urges President Bush to expand a UN-mandated peacekeeping force to secure areas outside the capital, Kabul. The package "represents only a fraction of the amount necessary to help Afghanistan rebuild, but it goes a long way toward fulfilling the promise made by President Bush to provide assistance modelled on the ideals of the Marshall Plan", said committee chairman Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat.
The committee's Bill authorising spending is more than $1 billion higher than the Afghan aid package that cleared the Republican-led House of Representatives in May.
A Bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee that actually allocates foreign aid dollars would provide $157 million in aid to Afghanistan in fiscal 2003, which starts on October 1st. The full Senate has not yet considered that Bill, and the House Appropriations Committee has not yet produced its version of the Bill.
If the peacekeeping force is expanded outside Kabul, the Bill calls for an additional $1 billion to cover the US share of the costs.
International peacekeepers have been limited to Kabul as the government under President Hamid Karzai struggles to gain control of the country. - (AFP, Reuters)