CIA Did Not Share Terror Leads With FBI

W A S H I N G T O N, June 3 -- The CIA knew that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers met with al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia in January 2000 — more than 18 months before the attacks — but apparently did not convince the FBI to track them until less than three weeks before the attacks, FBI officials and intelligence sources told ABCNEWS.

FBI officials say they did not know about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar until last Aug. 23 — just over two weeks before they helped hijack American Airlines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon — when the CIA added their names to a watch list distributed to the bureau, the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Soon after the names were added to the watch list, the INS discovered Alhazmi was already in the country, and FBI officials learned the CIA had tracked him to Los Angeles.

In June 2001, the State Department — unaware Almihdhar was a suspected terrorist — issued him a new multi-entry visa.

The disclosure, reported in this week's Newsweek magazine and confirmed by ABCNEWS, is the latest in a series of missed opportunities United States intelligence officials had to prevent the attacks, and has the CIA and FBI pointing fingers at each other.

CIA sources told ABCNEWS that the agency did in fact inform the FBI of Almidhar and Alhamzi, saying the FBI was informed in January 2000, and that there is e-mail message traffic between the agencies that proves it. FBI officials said they are checking on the assertion.

It was that month that the two first registered on the CIA radar, sources said. Malaysian authorities had monitored a meeting in an apartment complex headed by a senior al Qaeda leader, who, it turned out later, was planning the attack on the USS Cole, sources said.

From there, the two men flew directly to San Diego, a principal U.S. Naval base, and the CIA did not tell the FBI or Naval intelligence. After the Cole bombing in October 2000, the CIA didn't sound the alarm again, sources said.