The search for a connection to Osama bin Laden

The most dangerous men in America found the perfect refuge as they secretly rehearsed plans to carry out the deadliest terror attack in US history. They rented homes in the heart of suburban Florida with their wives and children. No one suspected a thing - until last Tuesday morning. By then, it was too late.

Now, in the wake of the suicide assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, some 4,000 federal investigators are fanning out across the country to track down thousands of leads, while working to preserve and analyze every scrap of potential evidence.

From passenger lists and airport security cameras, to cockpit voice recorders and tiny pieces of cloth and metal in the mountain of debris at the World Trade Center, investigators say they are leaving no potential clue unexamined.

It is being called the most comprehensive criminal investigation ever undertaken. And the stakes are extremely high.

Federal agents must quickly determine whether there might be other secret cells of terrorists in the US, or remnants of the former cells, that are preparing to carry out similar terror attacks.

Moreover, they are working to identify the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror plot and anyone who supplied the hijackers with financial or logistical support. The hope is to establish an investigative trail that implicates terrorist leaders overseas and the foreign governments that support or protect them.

President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have targeted exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect behind the recent attacks. "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken," Mr. Bush says.

But terrorism experts say building a solid legal case against Mr. bin Laden may prove difficult. "Under American law, to trace this to Osama bin Laden, you need a whole bunch of people saying that they got orders from him, and we may not be able to trace that kind of thing," says Richard Hrair Dekmejian, a political science professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and author of "Islam in Revolution."

He says alleged bin Laden associates arrested in the past have refused to cooperate with US investigators. He adds that it may be hard to prove that bin Laden's political and religious activities played a direct and criminal role in a particular terror attack.

"Osama bin Laden has inspired many people and told many people to engage in jihad [holy war], but did he organize and fund all this?" Mr. Dekmejian asks. "It could be difficult to prove unless some of these people point a finger at him."

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