US compiles new most wanted list

President George Bush is to announce a new "most wanted" list of suspected terrorists.

Law enforcement and government officials familiar with the list say the final drafts include 19 to 22 names.

Included is that of Osama bin Laden and two deputies, Ayman al Zawahri and Mohamed Atef.

Officials have said evidence gathered since September 11 has connected both deputies to the suicide hijacking plot.

Interpol has also issued an arrest warrant for al Zawahri.

The officials said others expected to make the new list include: Ahmed Khfaklan Ghailani and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, two al Qaida operatives accused of buying a truck used in the US embassy bombings in Africa in 1983.

Saif al Adel, whom Tony Blair last week identified as a senior member of al Qaida, believed to have provided training to tribes in Somalia, where US troops were attacked and killed in 1993.

Ibrahim al Yacoub and Abdel Karim al Nasser, two men named as suspects in the federal grand jury indictment issued in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.

Officials say others named on the list include suspects in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre and a foiled 1995 plot to bomb airliners in the Far East.

Law enforcement officials also said they were beginning to narrow their focus on possible collaborators to a much smaller group among the estimated 600 people arrested or detained in the investigation since September 11.