Dubai identified as 'hub' for hijackers' operations

Dubai is emerging as a hub for investigators searching for links between the 19 dead hijackers and the organisation of Osama bin Laden.

The United Arab Emirates said yesterday that a man with a Saudi passport left the UAE for Karachi, Pakistan, on 11 September, after receiving "surplus" funds from three hijackers.

The UAE Information Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zaid al-Nahayan, said three men – Mohamed Atta, Waleed al-Shehri and Marwan al-Shehhi – each transferred $5,000 from the US to the UAE two days before the attacks.Al-Shehhi, who has been named as a hijacker on one flight, is a UAE citizen.

The FBI on Thursday issued new photographs of the 19 hijackers and said for the first time that some had been linked to Mr bin Laden, even though it was still not known for certain that investigators had established the hijackers' real names.

Meanwhile, US officials have released new information on chemical weapons training believed to take place at Mr bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who plotted to bomb Los Angeles airport in 1999 and admitted training with al-Qa'ida, has offered new information about plans to attack public buildings by painting chemical agents on doorknobs or releasing them through air ducts.

Mr Ressam, who is awaiting sentencing after his conviction in the LA bomb plot, also suggested al-Qa'ida would leave a few months between attacks to wait for security forces to lower their guard, yesterday's Los Angeles Times reported. He was unable to provide information on the suspected hijackers, saying North African and Gulf Arab members of Mr bin Laden's group did not mix.

The UAE, which is an Opec member and a strong US ally, was one of only three countries to recognise the Taliban. It severed relations after 11 September, as did Saudi Arabia, leaving Pakistan as the only country to recognise the Taliban.

French investigators say an Algerian-born French national who was arrested in Dubai in July, Djamel Beghal, has been central to rounding up suspects in Europe, and is said to have tipped off French police to a plot to attack the US embassy in Paris. Also yesterday, a Spanish judge detained six Algerians linked to planned suicide attacks on US targets in Europe.

In Paris, two dozen Islamist militants accused of planning terrorist attacks in France in the mid-1990s, reportedly financed by Mr bin Laden, went on trial yesterday.