Bonn: Marwan Al-Shehhi went to school at the University of Bonn across the street from the hotel I am staying at. He was, authorities think, the hijacker that flew the second plane into the World Trade Center. I have been discussing the hunt for the German connection to this story with an American journalist here who works for a well known US daily. He is one of three teams — 30 journalists — working on the puzzle worldwide. He has been tracking some of the German based terrorists, and reports that the police here have been rather lax. He, for example, interviewed the suspects’ neighbors while the cops were staking out the building.

Still he says the German police have more Arabic speaking intelligence officers and are playing a lead role in the international investigation. He told me about how he learned about the girl friend of the alleged terrorist pilot who went down in Pennsylvania, and how the police, when they found her, putlocked her away in protective custody. He says that the police here believe they are up against a big infrastructure, an army. They are part of some 30,000 wannabe holy warriors who are believed believed to have been trained in the camps in Afghanistan, Saudia Arabia and Syria. Some experts think of Osma’s crew as part of an Islamic hiphop generation. Wierd. Police here, he say seem to have a better sense of the scope of the global threat, although they too are puzzled and tightlipped.

The German press reported today that the government will seek to deport a Turkish militant who they are now holding in prison. there may be a problem because the law forbids deporting people to a country with capital punishment like Turkey. Meanwhile the German Chancellor is in India that is said to believe that Pakistan is to blame for the Taliban and the terrorists and cannot be relied on as an ally. In any event, as one would guess, the coverage here is far more international that the news we get in the USA.

In fact, a study introduced here by Media Tenor, the monitoring organization holding the Agenda setting conference I am attending here, shows in graphic detail how the lack of coverage of the world in the US left the American people with little understanding of the country’s foreign policies. It also showed that terrorism was barely covered before the attacks of 9/ll. And, after the attacks two of the three US networks actually decreased overseas coverage. Not a very encouraging sign.

It is hard to file a report daily when the conference goes on from early morning to late at night. Fortunately there is considerable interest here in understanding events in the US and the role of the media.

Finding a few moments on the hotel’s one computer is tough enough. Getting through the haze of cigarette smoke that always amazes me overseas, and after leaving the relatively smoke free environment of the US makes it hard to focus as well.