Student Tied to Terror Suspect Gave F.B.I. Disturbing Portrait
Hours after Zacarias Moussaoui was taken into custody last August, nearly a month before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal agents in Minnesota were told that he believed it was "acceptable to kill civilians who harm Muslims" and that he approved of Muslims who died as "martyrs" in such attacks, classified federal documents show.

The information in the documents came from interviews with Hussein al-Attas, who has not been linked to the attacks but is now being held as a material witness in the government's case against Mr. Moussaoui.

Mr. Attas, a student who had driven Mr. Moussaoui from Oklahoma to a flight school in Minnesota, said Mr. Moussaoui held strong anti-American views and had suggested that he might be willing to act on his beliefs.

"He did indicate that Moussaoui does not like anyone who is not a Muslim, and advised that he has stated that he would work in any way possible to make the lives of nonbelievers more difficult," Mr. Attas told investigators, a law enforcement summary of the interviews reviewed by The New York Times shows.

The interviews with Mr. Attas, which have not previously been made public, show that federal agents investigating Mr. Moussaoui were quickly developing a disturbing portrait of the man who officials now believe was meant to be the 20th hijacker. But the interviews also raise new questions about whether top officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were aggressive enough in responding to that information.

The bureau's Minneapolis office, which conducted the interviews, had sought approval in August for a special warrant to further investigate Mr. Moussaoui but was rejected by senior bureau officials in Washington. This week, the general counsel in the Minneapolis F.B.I. office sent a detailed letter to Congress complaining that top officials in Washington had hindered the investigation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/national/24HIJA.html