US intelligence given personal details of 9/11 hijacker in 1999

THE federal commission reviewing the September 11 attacks is examining whether the US failed to aggressively track one of the hijackers after obtaining his first name and phone number more than two years before the attacks.

The tip, received in March 1999, appears to be one of the earliest leads US officials had about the 2001 hijackers. It also may have represented a missed chance for US intelligence to uncover a terror cell in Germany that played a key role in the hijacking plot.

"The commission has been actively investigating the issue for some time," said Philip Zelikow, executive director of the Sept 11 commission.

"I'm not going to comment on the progress, but the Hamburg cell and what was known about the plotters is an important part of the review," he said.

The New York Times yesterday quoted German intelligence officials who said they had given the CIA the first name and telephone number of Marwan al-Shehhi, and asked US officials to track him. The Germans said they never heard back from US officials until after September 11.

Al-Shehhi was a member of the al-Qaida cell in Hamburg, Germany, and a roommate of suspected September 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. Al-Shehhi was the hijacker at the controls of United Airlines Flight 175, which flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center, while Atta took over American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower.

A US official said thousands of full names of suspected terrorists come across the intelligence community's screens on a regular basis, making them hard to always track.

"A first name and a common one at that is a scrap of information and doesn't take you anywhere without the benefit of hindsight," the US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The September 11 panel, formally the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was established by Congress to study the nation's preparedness before the attacks and its response.