Hamburg, Aug 20: The United States let in one of the future September 11 hijackers in mid-2000 for flight lessons despite suspicions of his links to al-Qaeda, a German magazine reported today. The weekly stern news magazine, citing from a confidential FBI report, said that Ziad Jarrah was questioned for four hours during a January 2000 stopover in the United Arab Emirates. He was returning from a period at an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan to his then home in Hamburg, northern Germany. Jarrah told the UAE officials of his Afghanistan stint and of his plans to take flight training lessons in Florida, according to stern.

The officials passed the information to the US Central Intelligence Agency. Four months later, Jarrah was allowed into the United States after receiving a visa.


More than 3,000 people were killed when hijackers slammed two planes into the world trade center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington.


The Lebanese national was part of a Hamburg-based al-Qaeda cell led by the hijackers' alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta.


Last week, stern reported that German Intelligence had warned the CIA about another Hamburg cell member, Marwan al-Shehhi, in March 1999.
Al-Shehhi and Atta piloted the two planes that crashed in New York.

Bureau Report