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Posted on 09/15/2001 12:35:57 PM PDT by OKCSubmariner

A man who trained briefly at an Eagan flight school this summer is believed to have been a high-ranking operative for Osama bin Laden.

Law enforcement authorities confirmed reports that the student pilot is being investigated in connection with the terrorist organization that officials suspect is responsible for the attacks Tuesday on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Just days after Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in mid-August for carrying a false passport, the FBI was told by French intelligence officials that he was a high-ranking operative in Bin Laden's organization, according to media reports and a law enforcement official.

Zacharias Moussauoi

On Friday, authorities transferred Moussaoui from a Minnesota jail, but wouldn't say where he was taken.

A reporter for Europe 1 Radio in Paris and the Boston Herald have reported that Moussaoui was carrying Algerian and French passports, but that one had been forged.

When the FBI learned about the passport they contacted French intelligence officials, who said he had strong ties in the terrorist organization, according to the news media reports and a law enforcement official. The FBI was also told Moussaoui had recently travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the group has been known to be active.

Agents for at least three local and federal law enforcement agencies have been working out of the Minneapolis office of the FBI around the clock on local leads, authorities said.

At least three local defense attorneys say they have been contacted by people of Arabic descent, including one from New Jersey, seeking advice or representation. Those people, described as "ancillary" to the investigation, say they have been approached or interviewed by federal authorities and fear cooperating further without an attorney present.

One attorney described the Twin Cities investigation as "very aggressive."

Minneapolis FBI Agent Jay Brunn and Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman Tim Counts said they were instructed not to comment on any aspect of the investigation. Federal prosecutors also have declined to comment.

It's unclear which FBI bureau was making inquires with French authorities about Moussaoui. He had been arrested Aug. 17 on suspicion of illegally entering the United States.

After his arrest, an FBI search of his home turned up technical literature on airline and flight manuals, said Frederic Helbert, a reporter with Europe 1 Radio.

Several days after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., the FBI again contacted French intelligence officials for information about Moussaoui, Helbert said.

Moussaoui, who Helbert said is half-French and half-Algerian, wanted to rent time on a flight simulator at the Eagan pilot training school but never completed his training, law enforcement sources have said. The chief flight instructor at Airman Flight School in Norman, Okla., said Moussaoui studied last spring for a private pilot's license but never obtained it at the school.

The school was told by Moussaoui that he was a French national of Moroccan descent and had last lived in London. After his arrest, the FBI visited the school to ask about Moussaoui.

It is unknown how long Moussaoui was in Minnesota before he was arrested. The Pan Am Training Center is located in buildings in Eagan owned by Northwest Airlines. Pan Am buys blocks of time to use the flight simulators for its own training and also rents time to other airlines and individuals.

Moussaoui completed 57 hours of study in Oklahoma but never flew solo. He contracted for his private pilot certificate but didn't complete it. Typically, a private pilot's license can be earned with 40 hours of instruction, including five to 10 hours of solo time.

But an instructor at the Pan Am training center became suspicious because Moussaoui was asking so many questions, Helbert said. And officials said suspicion would be aroused if a student pilot who hadn't yet received his private pilot's license wanted time on a simulator for a commercial jet.

Simulators, which resemble space shuttles in theater-like rooms, imitate takeoff and landing. The pilot can select flight patterns to various U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C.

The FBI's investigation into the terrorist attacks on the East Coast have also lead to the activities of a Saudi man with Minnesota connections who attended a Florida flight school and who reportedly died in one of the suicide assaults.

Abdulrahman Saeed Alomari, 38, rented a house for more than a year in Vero Beach, Fla., while attending that flight school. While Alomari was living in Florida, he had a Minnesota ID that showed an address on Berkeley Avenue in St. Paul. The house listed on the card is owned by a 73-year-old woman who rent rooms to foreigners who take English language courses from a program that leases space at the University of St. Thomas campus.

She said she believed Alomari is the brother of Ali Alamri, 27, a Saudi student to whom she rented a room last year. Alamri told her that his brother was a pilot with a Saudi airline and was going to get more training in Florida.

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