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U.S. Nabs Iraqi Key to Atta Mystery

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Times Staff Writer

American forces have captured the Iraqi intelligence agent alleged to have met with Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in the Czech Republic five months before the attacks, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Ani, who was recently taken into custody in Iraq, could solve one of the lingering mysteries surrounding the Sept. 11 plot.

Senior Bush administration figures have at times cited the alleged meeting with Atta as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and perhaps even proof of Saddam Hussein’s complicity in the attacks.

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But the CIA and FBI have expressed deep skepticism about the claim and say there is still no evidence to suggest that Atta was in Prague, the Czech capital, when the alleged meeting took place.

Ani is believed to have worked as an Iraqi spy under diplomatic cover, serving as vice consul at Iraq’s embassy in Prague.

He was expelled from the Czech Republic on April 22, 2001, after surveillance cameras caught him studying the downtown building that houses the United States’ Radio Free Europe, which at the time broadcast anti-Hussein programs.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, an Arab informant told Czech intelligence that he recognized Atta’s photo in the newspaper and claimed that Atta had met with Ani. Czech officials then informed the U.S. government of the tip.

But no photos of the supposed visit have surfaced, and authorities have found no other witnesses to corroborate the informant’s report.

Atta’s travel and financial records indicate he was in Virginia Beach, Va., between April 8 and April 11, 2001, when the Prague meeting was said to have taken place.

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The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, could not say when Ani was taken into custody, or whether he has cooperated with interrogators.

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