WASHINGTON -- The FBI believes associates of the 19 suspected suicidal hijackers may still remain at large in the United States and authorities are investigating the possibility that additional jetliners were targeted for last week's terrorist strikes, U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said Tuesday.

"We are beginning to learn more about the attack last Tuesday and the plot to make it happen," said Ashcroft, who noted the massive dragnet has produced 96,000 leads but no clear answers. Authorities were holding 75 individuals, including at least five people who are described as material witnesses.

As the investigation into the deadliest attack on American soil entered its second week, a source close to the case confirmed Tuesday that the FBI was "looking at suspicious parties on other flights" scheduled to leave East Coast airports near the same time as the four hijacked planes. One flight didn't take off and another was diverted. The source said the FBI is searching manifest lists for passengers on those and other flights.

Meanwhile, a classified CIA report circulated to top Bush administration officials said one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, met earlier this year in Europe with an Iraqi intelligence official. It is the first link connecting Iraq with the hijackers, but a U.S. official familiar with the report said there is no evidence indicating Iraqi knowledge or involvement in the attack.

The Justice Department also announced sweeping new rules Tuesday to allow people suspected of immigration violations to be held indefinitely in the terrorist case. The government, Ashcroft said, must "use every legal means at our disposal to prevent further terrorist activity by taking people into custody who have violated the law and who may pose a threat to America."

As a federal grand jury was convened in White Plains, N.Y., the Justice Department acknowledged that authorities are investigating the notion that flights besides the ones that crashed could have been targeted.

A federal law-enforcement source confirmed that the FBI was scrutinizing passenger lists from "several" morning flights from Sept. 11.

According to a source close to the investigation, one such flight is American Airlines Flight 195, which was scheduled to leave Boston for San Francisco at 9 a.m. on Sept. 11--one hour and 15 minutes after the departure of American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.

But the flight was still on the taxiway at Boston's Logan International Airport at 9:25 a.m., when the Federal Aviation Administration abruptly halted all commercial air traffic after the New York strike. The jet returned to the gate.

A second flight under scrutiny, sources said, is American Airlines Flight 43, which left Newark International Airport for Los Angeles on time, at 8:10 a.m. The FAA ordered all flights still in the air to land at the nearest available airport. Flight 43 touched down without incident in Cincinnati at 10:23 a.m.

`More than 2 flights involved'

"The FBI is interested in other passengers on 43 and 195, and other flights beyond those," the source said. "It's clear to us from their interest in manifests that more than the two flights are involved."

The Tribune incorrectly reported Tuesday that American Flight 43 had been scheduled to depart from Boston and had been canceled due to mechanical problems, thus foiling any hijacking attempt. In fact, the flight under investigation flew out of Newark.

As the global investigation continues, questions persist about how the hijackers could have traveled so freely in the country.

During the year before last week's terrorist attacks, the Justice Department encountered setbacks as it sought court-authorized anti-terrorism and espionage wiretaps, according to law-enforcement sources.

The problems began last fall when Justice Department lawyers, reviewing their own wiretap applications, discovered procedural and factual errors in materials submitted to gain eavesdropping authority over members of Osama bin Laden's alleged terrorist network, the sources said.

At the time, federal prosecutors in New York were preparing for the trial of four members of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, which plotted the bombing of two U.S. Embassies in Africa.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret body, forced the Justice Department to fix those errors before new applications could be approved, sources said.

More mistakes surfaced last spring in application materials submitted for a wiretap targeting a different terrorist organization, angering the chief judge of the secret court, according to law-enforcement sources.

Justice Department personnel who would normally focus on getting new wiretaps approved, or renewing existing ones, were forced to spend considerable time correcting the errors, the sources said.

A government official, however, said Tuesday that the difficulties with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court did not "have any impact" on law enforcement's ability to anticipate the hijackings. But, citing the classified nature of the court's business, that official declined to say whether there were gaps in surveillance or backlogs in wiretap applications.

The snafus, and additional scrutiny on new applications, did add to an existing backlog of applications for wiretaps targeting terrorism suspects, infuriating some investigators in major field offices, law-enforcement sources said.

That anger also stemmed from the fact that some anti-terrorism wiretaps were allowed to expire, at least briefly, during the months in question, the sources said. It was unclear Tuesday how many wiretaps were affected or for how long.

"Requiring compliance for the law slows nothing down and has zero effect on our ability to get the job done and done quickly," said John Collingwood, the FBI's assistant director of public and congressional affairs. "Those who allege otherwise are wrong, and we have demonstrated that in an appropriate and secure fashion before the courts and Congress."

Earlier this week, Ashcroft asked lawmakers for broader wiretap authority to speed the process for investigating terrorists.

Even as the Justice Department seeks to question 190 people in connection with the attack, the FBI is trying to glean every possible detail about the 19 suicidal hijackers. From flight schools in Florida to a health club in Maryland, agents scoured the country for the eighth straight day.

Iraqi agent's involvement

The disclosure that Atta huddled earlier this year with an Iraqi intelligence official raises questions about the background of the 33-year-old man who is believed to be a key organizer of the group in the United States.

"There is evidence that a few months ago, Mohamed Atta met in a European country with an official in the Iraqi intelligence service," said the U.S. official. The official added that "there is no evidence of Iraqi responsibility or involvement in this."

A Pentagon official confirmed the report that described Atta's meeting with the Iraqi. Officials would not say where the rendezvous took place or describe how intelligence learned of it, but U.S. intelligence agencies keep close tabs on Iraqi operatives working in foreign countries.

Several days ago, Bush administration officials said there was no evidence of a link between Iraq and the terrorist attacks. But they also have said they regard Iraq as a nation that sponsors terrorism and by that definition, Iraq could be liable to U.S. military attack in the war on terrorism that President Bush has declared.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that at least one nation provided support for last week's strike on the United States. Calling it a "sensitive matter," he declined to identify any nations. "I know a lot and what I have said as clearly as I know how is that states are supporting these people."

At the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, officials said they are vigorously investigating claims that some of the hijackers may have stolen identities from Saudi citizens.

"We've been looking at that since Day 1 because some of the people who are listed are alive and well," said an embassy official. "That is now the main issue for us."

Saeed Hussein Al Ghamdi, 26, a pilot with Saudi Arabian Airlines, said in an interview Tuesday that CNN mistakenly flashed his photo as one of the hijackers on Flight 93. Al Ghamdi said he is very much alive and in training in Tunis. He says it is a case of mistaken identities: Saeed Al Ghamdi is a common name.

The Saudi embassy official said it was difficult to know for certain whether the hijackers used bogus names. "You cannot throw a stone in Saudi Arabia without hitting an Al Ghamdi," he said, referring to the alleged last name of three of the hijackers.

Additional details surfaced Tuesday about the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. The five men accused of commandeering the plane spent part of the week before the attack in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. Like other suspected hijackers named by the FBI, the men seemed at ease, at home and anonymous in their American surroundings.

FBI agents visited Gold's Gym in Greenbelt twice last week to check the gym's registration files.

Suspects went to health clubs

All five hijacking suspects bought temporary memberships at gym and visited the club either one at a time or in small groups between Sept. 2 and Sept. 6, said Gene LaMott, president and CEO of Gold's Gym International Inc.

Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, and Hani Hanjour arrived with "a wad of money," LaMott said. They paid cash for three one-week memberships, $30 each, and used the gym that day. One day later, the three men returned with a fourth, Nawaq Alhamzi, who paid a $10 fee for a one-day pass.

The men, of average height and weight who easily could have been mistaken for college students from the nearby University of Maryland campus, aroused no suspicion at the club as they lifted weights, LaMott said.

Hanjour has been linked to a flight training school in Bowie, another Maryland suburb of the capital. He went on training flights with instructors at Freeway Airport three times during the first week of August.

The trail also has taken FBI agents to Texas, where authorities arrested a San Antonio doctor who investigators suspect might have helped finance the hijacking operation, according to a San Antonio police official.

Dr. Albader Alhazmi, 34, was taken to New York for questioning after the Sept. 11 attacks, the official said. He was completing a five-year residency in radiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, where officials described him as an "above average" resident with a mild-mannered personality.

Alhazmi's most notable trait, they said, was his religious devotion.

"He had a small prayer rug and would find a quiet place," said Dr. Gerald Dodd, chairman of the radiology department. "He was very discreet in that regard; he didn't publicize it."

Physician missed work

Alhazmi, who is married and has two children, didn't show up for work on the day of the terrorist attacks. The next day, FBI agents questioned university officials, copied radiology department files and searched Alhazmi's locker, Dodd said.

Agents subsequently seized one computer in the medical library and another in the radiology department.

Alhazmi's application to the university shows that he graduated from the King Abdulaziz University Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences in Jiddah in 1991. He worked as a physician for the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., which sponsored him during his San Antonio residency.

Robert Arndt, a spokesman in Houston for a Saudi Arabian Oil subsidiary, said the FBI detained Alhazmi at his home last Wednesday. The agency has requested information about Alhazmi and the company is cooperating with the federal investigation, Arndt said.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that an unidentified Orlando businessman was taken into custody as a material witness in the case and is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for a closed hearing. Material witness warrants are issued for individuals with important information about an investigation who might evade authorities.

Another material witness, Habib Zacarias Moussaoui, was taken from Minnesota to New York. Moussaoui was arrested on an immigration charge on Aug. 17, when he raised suspicions of flight instructors as he sought jet training he wasn't qualified for.

The FBI, which earlier this week said it was surprised that the suspected hijackers trained in American flight schools, actually visited an Oklahoma aviation school two weeks before the attacks. Brenda Keene, the admission director at the Airman Flight School, said Tuesday that the FBI had come to the school in late August, asking questions about Moussaoui.

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