FBI inquiry sparks fears that truck bombs are coming

War against terrorism: Investigation

The FBI is investigating a Denver truck school where up to 35 Arab male students paid in cash for truck-driving lessons but did not seek help in getting jobs afterwards, Time magazine reported yesterday.

Agents trying to head off possible future terrorist attacks fear truck bombs may be used in the future, either with traditional explosives or with hazardous chemical cargo.

The magazine said an executive at the truck school tipped off the FBI, telling them the Arab men attended the school in Denver during the past two years. They did not speak English and each group used the same interpreter. Time said the men all received driver's licenses, even though English proficiency is a requirement.

Meanwhile, the CIA has admitted it missed a vital opportunity to prevent the 11 September terrorist attacks when it intercepted a coded message last year from Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida group.

The message said al-Qa'ida planned to carry out a "Hiroshima" against America.

Despite a search for what the message meant, America's intelligence agencies had no idea of the plans being laid, The New York Times reported yesterday.

The CIA apparently did not believe the Islamic organisation had the ability to kill thousands of people in co-ordinated attacks on the American mainland and failed to understand the drastic shift in the ambitions and global reach of al-Qa'ida in the past three years.

In another sign that the authorities were complacent about the threat of Islamic terrorism, a senior administration official under the former president Bill Clinton said the FBI assured the White House last year it had a "handle" on al-Qa'ida's operation in the US.

The New York Times report said American officials were examining the possibility that the 11 September attacks were the initiative of Mohamed Atta, 34, from Egypt, who took his plan to al-Qa'ida, which Mr bin Laden approved and funded.

They are increasingly persuaded the group gained its new operational abilities and ruthlessness in 1998, after it merged with other Islamic radical organisations from Egypt and Algeria.

US officials remain uncertain on many aspects of the plot. "Part of what is so hard is that so many of the key players are dead," the newspaper reported a senior official as saying.