Newsweek: Czech Officials Say Story That Sept. 11 Hijacker Atta Met with Iraqi Agent in Prague May Be Wrong; 'Nothing has Matched Up,' Says U.S. Official

Newsweek: Czech Officials Say Story That Sept. 11 Hijacker Atta Met with Iraqi Agent in Prague May Be Wrong; 'Nothing has Matched Up,' Says U.S. Official

		NEWSWEEK In the May 6 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, April 29): A four-part essay examining the broad questions and reforms facing the Church today, beyond the priest abuse scandal. Also: a report from Iraq and how the Iraqis while they pretend to not be worried about a U.S. invasion, they're stockpiling goods; an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; a look at South Central 10 years after the riots and a preview of summer movies. (PRNewsFoto).[LH] NEW YORK, NY USA

NEW YORK, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Czechoslovakian government officials have quietly acknowledged that they may have been mistaken about a supposed meeting at the Iraqi Embassy last April in Prague between suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent, Newsweek reports in the current issue. U.S. intelligence officials now believe that Atta, the hijackers' ringleader, wasn't even in Prague at the time the Czechs claimed. "We looked at this real hard because, obviously, if it were true, it would be huge," one senior U.S. law-enforcement official tells Newsweek. "But nothing has matched up." (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020428/NYSA010 ) Still, Pentagon analysts are still aggressively hunting for evidence that might tie Atta or any of the other hijackers to Saddam Hussein's agents, reports Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff in the May 6 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, April 29). The story of the meeting came from the Czech Intelligence Agency, the BIS, when agents looked at surveillance photographs taken from the Radio Free Europe building in Prague. RFE started round-the-clock video surveillance in 1998, after it began broadcasting anti-Saddam programs into Iraq. The security measure was taken because Tom Dine, RFE director, says U.S. officials warned him that "the Iraqis were plotting to blow us up." The cameras caught a heavyset Middle Eastern man hanging around the RFE building taking pictures and he was sometimes accompanied by a thinner, taller man. The Czechs identified the heavier man as Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat widely believed to be a spy. The thinner man was never identified. In late April 2001, al-Ani was again caught casing the building and was expelled from the country. After Sept. 11, a Czech intelligence source inside Prague's Middle Eastern community saw Atta's picture in the media and reported that he had seen the same person meeting al-Ani at the Iraqi Embassy five months earlier, Isikoff reports. On closer scrutiny, the evidence became less convincing. Although Atta had indeed flown from Prague to the U.S. in June 2000, the Czechs had placed the alleged meeting in April 2001. The FBI could find no visa or airline records showing he had left or re-entered the United States that month. "Neither we nor the Czechs nor anybody else has any information he was coming or going [to Prague] at that time," says one U.S. official. (Read Newsweek's news releases at http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com. Click "Pressroom.")