The FBI on Saturday arrested a second person as a “material witness” in Tuesday's terrorist attacks and is now under arrest and in FBI custody in New York, a Justice Department official said.
The man was one of 25 people questioned by the FBI while in Immigration and Naturalization Service custody on possible immigration violations, the official told CNN.
An arrest warrant had been issued earlier.
Also, in New Jersey, FBI officials were questioning two men.
FBI spokeswoman Sherri Evanina was quoted as saying that agents searched a Jersey City apartment whose address they got from two other people detained Friday in Texas. While searching the apartment, agents came across two other individuals, who are being questioned, she said.
"We did seize some evidence," said Evanina, who added that federal officials are still evaluating it.
The developments followed revelations Saturday that two men suspected of hijacking the airliner that slammed into the Pentagon were under surveillance before the attacks because of their alleged associations with Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden and the USS Cole bombing, according to sources.
One of the suspects, Khalid Al-Midhar, was seen on a surveillance tape from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, meeting with a man who US officials suspect played a hand in the Cole's bombing last October.
Midhar reportedly visited Salem Alhamzi and his brother Nawaq in the brothers' San Diego, California, apartment complex, neighbors said.
Both Al-Midhar and Alhamzi were allegedly on an FBI watch list, intelligence sources told CNN.
But the FBI late Saturday dismissed as "erroneous" reports that it had Midhar on its terrorism "watch list" since late August, AFP said.
"The reports are erroneous," an FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
Midhar, "he was not brought to our attention as a terrorist," the official note.
The official refused to disclose why the FBI was interested in Midhar
In addition to the alleged material witness arrested Saturday, one other man -- first detained Thursday at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport for allegedly possessing a false pilot's license -- has been charged in connection with the investigation, CNN said.
In another related development, authorities said that the passport of a suspected hijacker was discovered near the ruins of the World Trade Center.
FBI Assistant Director Barry Mawn did not disclose the name on the passport or other details, reported The Associated Press.
But the discovery prompted an intensive search Saturday for evidence blocks from the towers that were brought down by two hijacked jets.
Law enforcement officials said Friday they have issued at least 35 search warrants and hundreds of subpoenas, while interviewing hundreds more. A total of 12,000 photos have been taken of all the crimes scenes, officials said, and more than 5,200 calls have been phoned into the FBI's hot line.
The investigation, the largest in US history, involves 4,000 special FBI agents and more than 3,000 support personnel, said the network – Albawaba.com
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