Newsweek: Terrorist Investigation

		NEWSWEEK In the October 15 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, October 8): Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria writes about the roots of Islamic rage and hatred toward the Western world and what the U.S. can do about it in the cover story "Why They Hate Us." Also: Bush's Battle Plan; the latest in the investigation into the Sept. 11 hijackers and their network; and interviews with students from Stuyvesant High School, located next to Ground Zero about the day of the attacks and going back to school. (PRNewsFoto)[TK] NEW YORK, NY USA

Hijacker Leader Mohamed Atta Met With Iraq's Ambassador to Turkey in Prague Two Plotters Arrived in San Diego in 1999; Flight Instructor Says Pair Were Impatient; Wanted to Bypass Primary Training and 'Go Right to Flying Boeings' NEW YORK, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- The ringleader of the 19 hijackers from the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Mohamed Atta, met twice with Iraq intelligence operatives in Prague, in June 2000 and then again last April, Newsweek reports in the current issue. The second meeting was with Farouk Hijazi, Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, who was called back to Baghdad before Sept. 11. One intelligence source called the two meetings interesting, but still far from proof of Iraqi involvement in the plot, Newsweek reports. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20011006/HSSA004 ) Newsweek has also learned that U.S. intelligence is especially interested in terrorist leader Osama bin Laden's possible dealings with a company known as Al Taqwa Management company. But the Swiss authorities have cleared Al Taqwa, which recently changed its name to Nada Management. Already privacy-minded European governments and banks are grousing about a "fishing expedition" and balking at checking bank records against a list of more than 350 names supplied by U.S. investigators, Newsweek reports in the October 15 issue (on newsstands Monday, October 8). The top plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks met last August in Las Vegas. The FBI is sure that six of the hijackers were present: the four presumed pilots and two others: Nawaf Alhazmi, 25, and Khalid Almihdhar, 26, both of whom arrived in San Diego in 1999. "They were nice," recalled the duo's landlord, Abdussattar Shaikh, though he did observe that his tenants "went out to make their phone calls." Shaikh remembers that Alhazmi was "very caring" and even confiding: "He told me once that his father had tried to kill him when he was a child. He never told me why, but he had a long knife scar on his forearm," he tells Newsweek. A flight instructor, Rick Garza, who described Alhazmi and Almihdhar as "Dumb and Dumber," said the two were impatient students. "They wanted to bypass primary training and go right to flying Boeings," he said. (Article attached. Read Newsweek's news releases at http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com. Click "Pressroom.")