BBC News | Investigating Al-Qaeda

Some of the 19 hijackers were students here, including the men believed to have been at the controls of aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pennsylvania countryside on 11 September.

Suspected hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah lived in the same Hamburg apartment at various times while attending university in the 1990s. They were allegedly members of a terrorist cell that was part of Osama Bin Laden's network, al-Qaeda, that operated in that city since at least 1999, according to US and German officials. It is believed that the attacks may have been planned from their flat on Marien Street.

Security services have been searching for three men believed to have been accomplices - Said Bahaji, Ramzi Binalshibh and Zakariya Essaabar. The FBI thinks Binalshibh may have been intending to take part in the attacks � the so-called 20th hijacker � but was denied a visa.

In a major breakthrough for the investigation, Binalshibh was captured in the Pakistan city of Karachi in September 2002 and is being questioned but the others are still at large. They are all thought to have left Germany shortly before the 11 September attacks.

Another man, 28-year-old Moroccan Mounir al-Motassadek, is currently on trial in Hamburg in connection with the attacks on America. He is charged with membership of a terrorist cell and of being an accessory to the murder of more than 3,000 people.

He admits that he was a close friend of Mohammed Atta but denies any knowledge of launching terror attacks on the United States.

Mr Motassadek is also accused of managing the bank account of Marwan al-Shehhi � the suspect who is thought to have piloted the second aircraft into the World Trade Center.

Questions have being raised about how German authorities failed to see signs of the terrorist cell. Funding for Germany's intelligence system has been trimmed back since the fall of the Berlin Wall.


	Hamburg Some of the 19 hijackers were students here, including the men believed to have been at the controls of aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pennsylvania countryside on 11 September. Suspected hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah lived in the same Hamburg apartment at various times while attending university in the 1990s. They were allegedly members of a terrorist cell that was part of Osama Bin Laden's network, al-Qaeda, that operated in that city since at least 1999, according to US and German officials. It is believed that the attacks may have been planned from their flat on Marien Street. Security services have been searching for three men believed to have been accomplices - Said Bahaji, Ramzi Binalshibh and Zakariya Essaabar. The FBI thinks Binalshibh may have been intending to take part in the attacks � the so-called 20th hijacker � but was denied a visa. In a major breakthrough for the investigation, Binalshibh was captured in the Pakistan city of Karachi in September 2002 and is being questioned but the others are still at large. They are all thought to have left Germany shortly before the 11 September attacks. Another man, 28-year-old Moroccan Mounir al-Motassadek, is currently on trial in Hamburg in connection with the attacks on America. He is charged with membership of a terrorist cell and of being an accessory to the murder of more than 3,000 people. He admits that he was a close friend of Mohammed Atta but denies any knowledge of launching terror attacks on the United States. Mr Motassadek is also accused of managing the bank account of Marwan al-Shehhi � the suspect who is thought to have piloted the second aircraft into the World Trade Center. Questions have being raised about how German authorities failed to see signs of the terrorist cell. Funding for Germany's intelligence system has been trimmed back since the fall of the Berlin Wall.