New Arrests Made in Terrorist Manhunt

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 21 -- A worldwide manhunt for suspected terrorists intensified today amid fears that a second wave of attacks may be planned.

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After raiding 14 apartments, detaining a dozen people, and pursuing nearly a thousand leads, German authorities today issued arrest warrants for two men who lived and studied in the northern port of Hamburg.

Police charged 26-year-old Said Bahaji, a German of Moroccan origin and 29-year-old Ramzi Binalshibh of Yemen with "forming a terrorist organization and with at least 5,000 counts of murder."

"The two were part of preparation for the attack since at least 1999," said Kay Nehm, Germany's federal prosecutor. "We have not established a link with bin Laden but we are headed that way."

Bahaji and Binalshibh lived in a modest Hamburg apartment with three of the alleged highjackers, including suspected ring leader Mohamed Atta, who is believed to have perished after hijacking American Airlines Flight 11 and flying it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Neighbors said up to 20 Arab men would hold meetings in the apartment three times a week.

Hamburg's Interior Minister, Olaf Scholz, said authorities had determined the identities of the men, though some may have already left Germany.

"It's up to the police to find them but I can't tell you anymore because we want a successful investigation," Scholz said.

The alleged hijackers, all of whom are presumed dead, and most of those being sought in connection with last week's four hijacking attacks in the United States, attended two universities in Hamburg.

They studied urban planning and aircraft design. Atta's student adviser told ABCNEWS that he was bright, extremely religious, and angry at the modern world.

"He'd point out the way high-rises were built and say they were against the Muslim way of life," said Chilla Wendt a professor of architecture at Hamburg Technical Institute. Another professor, Dittmar Machule said Atta became radicalized after visiting the Middle East a couple of years ago. "There was a changing in his brain, in his thinking, a changing that offers us a very, very different person."

Hamburg is home to more than 80,000 Muslims, nearly 300 identified by police as Arab extremists. Germany is considered a safe haven because it has some of the strictest privacy laws in Europe. "They have correctly assumed we are naive," said professor Udo Steinback at Germany's Institute for Middle East Studies.

Now with nearly every police officer and a contingent of FBI agents looking for more suspects, that may well change.

— Bill Redeker, Hamburg