U.S.: Moussaoui Linked to 2nd Attack Plan

U.S. authorities have gathered detailed evidence in southeast Asia that links accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui with the Sept. 11 hijackers and planners as well as a broader al-Qaida plan for a second wave of attacks, according to foreign and American officials and intelligence documents. The evidence, according to those familiar with it, reinforces U.S. authorities assessment that al-Qaida began shifting some operational planning and fund-raising to southeast Asia well before the 2001 attacks and that Moussaoui was part of a terrorist plot that was broader than the suicide hijackings in New York and Washington. A key link, the officials say, is a captured Malaysian chemist named Yazid Sufaat who authorities believe hosted both the hijackers and Moussaoui in Malaysia at different times in 2000 and provided Moussaoui with fake papers to make his way to the United States. The evidence and timelines have led authorities overseas and here to explore whether Moussaoui and Sufaat “were tasked to set up a network to prepare for the second wave of attacks after Sept. 11,” one senior foreign intelligence official in southeast Asia said, speaking only on condition of anonymity. The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has also told U.S interrogators since his capture a month ago in Pakistan that Moussaoui was supposed to prepare for a second wave of attacks that were to follow Sept. 11. Full Story