9/11 Suspect's Passport Found in a Mud Hut in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The suspected 9/11 plotter whose German passport was found in a mud hut in western Pakistan this week has not been in touch with his family for two years, his mother, Anneliese Bahaji, said in an telephone interview on Friday.

The suspect, Said Bahaji, a German citizen whose father is Moroccan, is believed to have been the main logistics supporter of the 9/11 attackers, paying their rent and telephone bills. The Pakistani military said it found his German passport five days ago in a mud hut in the village of Sherwangai in South Waziristan, during a search operation.

Mr. Bahaji was part of the Hamburg cell of Al Qaeda, a tightly-knit group of young Arab men who met in Germany in the mid- to late-1990’s under the leadership of Mohamed Atta, who would eventually become the central planner of the 9/11 attacks.

A Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that Mr. Bahaji was not in custody, and that the military did not know whether he was dead or alive. He said the entry stamp — Sept. 4, 2001 — was too old to shed any light on his current whereabouts.

The Pakistani military is into the second week of a major military operation against militants in their South Waziristan stronghold, and Maj. Gen. Abbas said one of the aims was to flush out foreigners.

German intelligence officials have said that they believe Mr. Bahaji, who is still on the German authorities’ wanted list, has been in Pakistan’s tribal areas since 9/11. The discovery of the passport this week was the first concrete proof.

Many top members of Al Qaeda are believed to have taken refuge in the area. A Pakistani intelligence official interviewed on Friday said that the finding “proves that our militants have had close associations with Al Qaeda.”

American drone attacks have killed a number of senior Al Qaeda members in the tribal areas, including Usama al-Kini, a Kenyan, who was the group’s operations chief in Pakistan, and Baitullah Mehsud, the former leader of the Pakistani Taliban.

German officials reached by telephone on Friday, did not give details about Mr. Bahaji’s last known contact but said they did not dispute the date given by his mother. Mrs. Bahaji, a 76-year-old German citizen, said her son also had a Moroccan passport, so it was possible that he was traveling with that.

Mr. Bahaji, who was born in June, 1975, had never been to Pakistan before setting off in September of 2001, his mother said. He told his mother and his wife, Nese Kul, a German citizen of Turkish descent, from whom he is now divorced, that he was going to Pakistan for an internship at a computer company there.

Mrs. Bahaji last heard from her son in 2007, when he called her on the phone.

“He said he just wanted to call and say he’s still alive,” she said by telephone from northern Germany, where she lives.

In many ways, the passport raised more questions than it answered.

“I don’t know what to think that they’ve found his passport now,” she said, her voice sad. “I don’t know what it means.”

The Hamburg cell seemed to be the one place Mr. Bahaji felt truly accepted. He tried to enter a military academy in Morocco, his mother said, but was turned down because he had asthma. When he moved to Germany, she added, he was required to attend additional classes before his Moroccan high school degree would be accepted, deepening his sense that he was a stranger there.

In late 1998, according to evidence introduced in a German court in the trial in of another Hamburg cell member, Munir el-Motassadeq, Mr. Bahaji and Mr. Atta moved into an apartment near the university where they had been studying in Hamburg. The young men grew increasingly radical, with the help of a German of Syrian origin, Muhamed Zamar, who had fought in Bosnia and was believed to be an Al Qaeda operative.

Mr. Bahaji grew extremely close to Mr. Atta and the other members of the cell. They attended his wedding in October, 1999, at the Al Quds mosque in Hamburg, feasting on Moroccan tagine stew with plums and sweets, his wife, Ms. Kul, said in an interview in 2002.

A video of the affair that was introduced as evidence in the German court. Male guests can be seen sitting seperately from the women, Ms. Kul said, and Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted the plane that crashed into the second tower of the World Trade Center, sang songs about jihad.

Relatives were reportedly shocked at the change in Mr. Bahaji, who had grown a long beard, much to his mother’s chagrin. She would say, “Saeed, the beard has to go,” and he would reply, “No, the beard stays,” she said in an interview two years ago.

The last time Ms. Kul saw Mr. Bahaji was Sept. 3, 2001. Before departing he went to the mosque where they had gotten married. When he returned, his hair was cut short, she said.

NYTimes