WASHINGTON, Oct 11: The probe into the Sept 11 attacks on the United States is focusing on the possibility there were plans for a fifth plane to strike the White House, the New York Times said on Friday.

Based on fresh information on Al Qaeda’s original plan and interviews with Al Qaeda detainees, the plan called for a plane to have been piloted by suspect Ramzi Muhammad Abdulla bin al-Shibh.

He was arrested last month in Pakistan.

Investigators also have new insight on Al Shibh’s movements around Europe in the months before the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a fourth hijacked plane that crashed in Pennslyvania.

In May and June of 2000, Al Shibh was denied an entry visa to the United States where he had signed up for flying lessons at a Florida aviation academy. Instead he remained in Germany where he became paymaster for the hijackers.

The new information have led investigators to theorize that in denying him entry visas, the United States actually thwarted Al Shibh’s original plan to pilot a commercial aircraft until it slammed into the White House.

More information about Al Shibh’s role could come from the arrest on Wednesday in Germany of Moroccan suspect Abdelghani Mzoudi, who the daily said shared an apartment with Al Shibh in Hamburg, where Mohammed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the suicide hijackers, ran an Al Qaeda cell.

Information on a fifth hijacking team was also gleaned from the debriefing of American Taliban John Walker Lindh, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail a week ago for fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, sources told the daily. —AFP