August 21, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-us-Sani 22, 1424

HAMBURG, Aug 20: In its second revelation in as many weeks, the German magazine Stern reports in its latest issue that the Central Intelligence Agency CIA had two of the September 11 terror pilots on its files well ahead of the terror attacks.

In its edition to appear on Thursday, Stern said that in addition to Marwan al Shehhi, the CIA also must have known that Lebanese national Ziad Jarrah was connected to Al Qaeda but that the US let him enter the country anyway for pilot training.

The report comes after Stern last week said that in March 1999 the CIA had been tipped off by German security services about Al Shehhi, who piloted the Boeing plane which struck the south tower of the World Trade Center.

In its latest issue, Stern cited what it called a confidential Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document showing that in January 2000 the CIA first became aware of Jarrah.

It said that Jarrah, returning then to Hamburg from Afghanistan, was detained in Dubai and questioned for four hours.

Jarrah had just finished training at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and had told his Dubai interrogators about his activities.

The Dubai officials then passed this information on to the CIA, Stern magazine said. Yet he was still able to gzet an entry visa and come to the United States four months later to register in Hamburg with a flight school in Florida.—dpa