CIA ‘identified terrorists 20 months before attacks’

A US government probe has been launched into why the FBI and CIA failed to anticipate the September 11 attacks after new details of security lapses emerged today.

Senate and Congress intelligence panels are to meet in private tomorrow to begin an analysis of the agencies’ preparedness for the atrocity and how ready they are to deal with future terrorist threats.

It follows a new report suggesting that the CIA identified two of the suicide hijackers as al Qaida terrorists 20 months before the attacks, but did not tell the FBI.

The CIA tracked Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who were on board the jet that crashed into the Pentagon, from an al Qaida meeting in Malaysia in January 2000 to their re-entry into the US.

But the CIA failed to follow procedure and inform the FBI which could have monitored them while they were in America, according to a report in Newsweek.

The agency also neglected to tell the Immigration and Naturalisation Service which could have stopped them getting into the US.

Senator Richard Shelby, vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to confirm the report, but complained of a pattern of CIA failures.

‘‘I know the director over there is in denial, but I believe he’s totally wrong, and facts will be brought out to prove that,’’ he said, referring to CIA chief George Tenet.

He said the hearings would also highlight more ‘‘big failures of intelligence.’’

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hear from Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI agent who said attempts to investigate alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui after his arrest in August met a ‘‘roadblock’’ from senior FBI officials.

The FBI has come under sharp criticism for not seeing a link between the Minneapolis case and another pre-September 11 warning from an agent in Phoenix that Middle Eastern men were training at US flight schools.

‘‘Some hard questions have to be answered,’’ said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees.

The hearings would probably reveal other missed chances to foresee the attacks, she added.

‘‘I expect there are numbers of bits and pieces that weren’t put together.’’

Meanwhile today, an al Qaida spokesman was reported to have warned of more terror attacks.

‘‘We confirm our continuation in working to attack Americans and Jews, and targeting them, both people and buildings,’’ Sulaiman Abu Gaith told the pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Hayat.

‘‘What will come to the Americans, God willing, won’t be less than what has come. America should be ready and on high alert and fasten the seat belts, as with the will of God, we will come to them from where they didn’t expect.’’

The newspaper did not give Abu Gaith’s whereabouts.