Passport of al Qaeda 9/11 Plotter Said Bahaji Found

UPDATE: It is now being reported that additional passports were discovered that are believed to have belonged to additional 9/11 plotters. Another passport, from Spain, bears the name of Raquel Burgos Garcia. Spanish media have reported that a woman with the same name is married to Amer Azizi, an alleged Al Qaeda member from Morocco suspected in both the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

Her family in Madrid has had no news of her since 2001, according to Spanish media. Her passport included visas to India and Iran, and the army displayed a Moroccan document with Burgos Garcia’s photo and other information.

It was impossible to determine whether the passports are genuine, and German and Spanish officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army’s chief spokesman, said he had not realized the passports matched any prominent names, and declined further comment other than to say European militants were sprinkled throughout the area.

The U.S. has maintained for years that South Waziristan and other parts of the rugged frontier have sheltered Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants.

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Pakistani troops fighting Islamist militants in the mountains of South Waziristan may be closing in on the trail of a leading .al-Qaeda figure, Said Bahaji, wanted in connection with the attacks on 9/11.  The army reports it found the passport and other documents of the alleged terrorist in a mud compound in the village of Shawangai.

Bahaji, 34, lived with 9/11 plot leaders Mohamed Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh and was part of their Hamburg, Germany, cell, helping to plan the 9/11 attacks.

Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker of the United Airlines jet that crashed in Pennsylvania, attended Bahaji’s wedding.

Bahaji is believed to be alive and has rank in Al Qaeda as “a senior propagandist,” a U.S. counterterror official told The News.

He also is involved in operational activity.

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