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Some pre-9/11 evidence of possible plots

By The Associated Press

The Sept. 11 panel wants more information about what the FBI was doing to combat terror in the United States before the attacks. Here are examples of evidence of possible terrorist activity the government had before the hijackings:

A July 2001 memo from an FBI agent in Phoenix warned that Islamic extremists might be training at flight schools and urged a nationwide probe.

The arrest in August 2001 of Zacarias Moussaoui on immigration charges in Minneapolis, where his behavior at a flight training school had aroused suspicions. Moussaoui remains the only person charged in the United States in connection with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Information that al-Qaida members had traveled freely to and from the United States for years and maintained a support network in this country.

Signs of surveillance directed against federal buildings in New York and information from Ahmed Ressam, awaiting sentencing in a failed 1999 plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, that at least one senior al-Qaida lieutenant provided encouragement and support for the plan.

Information from the CIA in late August 2001 that two of the soon-to-be hijackers had entered the United States and lived for a time in San Diego.

An FBI conclusion that there were "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," and intelligence indicated al-Qaida's interest in using hijackings to free jailed comrades.