Acts of Terrorism in US linked to Germany

Germany has become an investigative focal point after findings that three of the suicide hijackers may have belonged to an extremist group based in Hamburg, northern Germany. The group is apparently committed to attacking symbolic US targets.

The FBI says it found the names of the hijackers involved in Tuesday's attacks on the passenger rosters of the hijacked planes.

FBI agents searched homes and businesses in Florida in connection with the attacks. They focused on an aviation school where two of the Hamburg-based suspects may have received flight training. It is understood that the two suspects, Mohamed Atta, 33, and Marwan Al-Shehhi, 23, are United Arab Emirates' nationals.

Following a tip-off from FBI agents, German police swooped another apartment in Hamburg, north Germany. They have detained an airport worker on suspicion of terrorist involvement.

Furthermore, an Iranian, awaiting deportation from a prison in Hanover, central-Germany, tried to warn the CIA last week that world order was under threat. The prisoner insisted on being allowed to telephone the White House to warn of the danger. His warning was not taken seriously by German officials, the US government and CIA.

However, FBI agents and Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office have now interviewed the man and found that he knew nothing of plans to crash hijacked aircraft into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.

"The attackers and the background to the attacks are not and were not known to him," the Federal Prosecutor's Office said in a statement. "His warnings were limited to diffuse statements about a threat to world peace and the world order. He could give no details. The Federal Prosecution Office, Federal Criminal Police and the FBI share this view."