Manhunt In America

By Mitch Frank

The FBI's unprecedented investigation is starting to uncover scattered threads that lead from coast to coast. Agents want to talk to at least 230 witnesses and suspects. The INS has detained more than 100 people on immigration-related charges. As the feds follow a trail the hijackers left behind like a lengthy, disjointed suicide note, they are trying to pinpoint where the terrorists got their money. Were there other hijackers waiting--maybe still planning--to launch more attacks? Who are the masterminds, and are some still alive? Here are some of the FBI's best leads, marked with a [*]

FOLLOWING THE MONEY TRAIL

The entire plot may have cost well over $200,000. Investigators want to know how the money landed in the hijackers' accounts. The feds have detained Dr. Al-Badr Al-Hazmi, a Saudi medical resident at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Two hijackers may have used his credit cards. Was he an accomplice or a victim? The FBI questioned Ahmed Badawi as a witness and released him. Badawi sells plane tickets, wires money and cashes checks at his Orlando office. He may have sold tickets to several hijackers. Investigators are also questioning friends of the hijackers in San Diego.

CONNECTIONS TO OSAMA BIN LADEN

The FBI arrested Nabil Al-Marabh in Chicago. He was wanted for fleeing probation in Boston, where he stabbed a roommate. While in Michigan, he had obtained a license to transport hazardous materials. Agents believe he knew one of the hijackers and may have funneled money to fellow Boston cabby Raed Hijazi, a bin Laden associate on trial in Jordan for his role in the foiled Millennium attacks. The FBI also has questions for Mouldi Sayeh, a Boston hotel owner. Witnesses allege he may be a broker for bin Laden siblings there. A man arrested at New York City's JFK airport Sept. 13 claims to live in a Boston building where a bin Laden brother once resided.

OTHER PILOTS?

Arrested in August on immigration charges while trying to get jet-simulator training in Minneapolis, Zacarias Moussaoui should have been a warning to feds. A suspected terrorist in his native France, he traveled to Afghanistan in the mid-'90s. The feds wonder if he was supposed to be on Flight 93. He has been flown to New York City for questioning. Khalid Al-Draibi was detained not far from Dulles airport the night of the attacks. He reportedly tried to rush training at flight schools in Alabama and Kansas.

ECHOES OF '93

The Al Salam mosque in Jersey City, N.J., was home to Omar Abdel-Rahman when he masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Two weeks ago in Texas, feds arrested two men witnesses say worshiped at the mosque. Ayub Ali-Khan--believed to be a trained pilot whose real name is Gul Mohammed Shah--and Mohammed Azmath were on a flight from Newark to San Antonio when the attacks began. After landing in St. Louis, they hopped a train, only to be arrested in Fort Worth with box cutters and $5,000 in their bag.

THE IMAM AND THE GYM

When investigators realized Flight 77's hijackers were recently in Laurel, staying at a run-down motel and working out at a Gold's Gym, they questioned Laurel resident Moataz Al-Hallak. The imam was accused of having ties to Osama bin Laden in the trial of a conspirator in the 1998 East Africa bombings.