This, despite the fact that two of them were on the State Department's watch list for terrorists.
As federal investigators piece together the final days of the five suicide terrorists, a picture of their links to Maryland has begun to emerge more clearly.
The men, two of whom bought their plane tickets for the flight at nearby BWI, each signed the guest register at Gold's Gym in the 6200 block of Greenbelt Road with their own names, said Gene LaMott, chief executive officer and president of the international gym chain.
"They were regular patrons of the gym," said LaMott, noting that each of the men paid cash to work out at the facility the week of Sept. 2. "It leaves a sick feeling in your gut. This brings it much closer to home."
The five patrons were Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour, all identified by the FBI as being aboard Flight 77 when it left Washington Dulles International Airport on Sept. 11. All of the men are listed as having worked out at the gym, located in a quiet shopping center, between Sept. 2 and Sept. 6, LaMott said.
Also yesterday, FBI investigators continued to stake out a large apartment complex in Laurel, where they have been showing photographs of Arab men and asking whether they've been seen in the area. The apartment complex is home to Moataz al-Hallak, an Islamic cleric who the FBI has said may have information about the attacks.
Special Agent Peter A. Gulotta Jr., an FBI spokesman, refused to comment on any aspect of the investigation yesterday.
Al-Hallak, a teacher at an Islamic school in Laurel who has faced a horde of reporters since his name surfaced in news reports, left a note on his door yesterday.
"I am deeply saddened by the tragic events of Sept. 11," the note read. "I am adding my voice to the voice of the whole world in condemning these vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism. As much as I would like to talk to you, I regret that I am not available for comment."
But Al-Hallak, 41, has testified before at least two federal grand juries in New York in connection with the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa. He was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against members of bin Laden's organization, including al-Hallak's friend, Wadih El-Hage.
El-Hage, described as bin Laden's personal secretary, was convicted in New York in May of conspiring in the embassy blasts, which claimed 224 lives.
Several of the hijackers' names have surfaced in connection with the Maryland probe, including the five men on Flight 77 and Mohamed Atta, 33, one of the men on American Airlines Flight 11, the first to hit the World Trade Center in New York.
Gulotta said that contrary to some newspaper reports, including one in The Sun, Atta never lived in Maryland. He refused to comment on whether Atta or other hijackers may have visited the Prince George's County area or had meetings there.
Federal agents went to Gold's Gym twice in the days after the attacks to question workers and to make copies of the guest registers containing the men's names, said LaMott, Gold's president.
A worker at the Greenbelt gym who would not give his name recalled the men showing up to lift weights in the first week of this month. They did not stand out at the gym, which gets hundreds of visitors a day.
"They seemed like college students from College Park," said the employee. Since the men were there on a guest membership, they were not required to leave addresses.
The FBI has said at least four of the men were living in New Jersey, around the areas of Fort Lee and Wayne. Two of them - Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi - were identified on the State Department's terrorist watch list before the incidents last week.
Al-Midhar and Moqed are known to have traveled to BWI on Sept. 5 to pick up their plane tickets, which they booked through the American Airlines Web site. Both paid cash for the tickets.
Hanjour, who was in his mid-20s, wanted permission to rent a plane from Freeway Airport, said Marcel Bernard, chief flight instructor, and others connected with the Bowie flight school.
Hanjour took the training flights there as a way to demonstrate his competence in the cockpit, as a condition of renting a plane.
Hanjour was accompanied by flight instructors on the trips, which took the school's usual flight path - in half-hour to hour-long segments in oblong loops over the airport - and did not enter restricted airspace over the Pentagon, Bernard said.
Freeway Airport didn't rent planes to Hanjour, in part because instructors at Bowie had doubts about his flying skills. Also, Hanjour refused to provide an address and phone number.
Al-Hallak, the cleric now residing in Laurel, moved to Maryland about a year ago after being ousted from the Islamic Association of Arlington, Texas, mosque. The board of directors there said it did not renew his contract because his teachings of Islam were in conflict with their membership.
Prosecutors at the embassy bombing trial had alleged El-Hage used al-Hallak's home address when he purchased an airplane in Sudan. The plane, according to court testimony, was to be used to carry Stinger missiles to American targets abroad.
Al-Hallak's lawyer, Stanley L. Cohen, met with his client in Laurel last night and said al-Hallak was holding up under the news media pressure and presence of FBI agents in his neighborhood. "He's a strong man," Cohen said. "He has his faith."
Cohen said al-Hallak would talk to federal prosecutors but not the FBI because his client does not trust the agency.
"I made an offer to walk in with him," Cohen said. "They don't seem to want to do it."
Imam Moujahed Bakhach, leader of the Islamic Association of Tarrant County in San Antonio, said he has known al-Hallak for several years and has never suspected any ties to terrorism. The people found involved in the overseas bombings, he said, were merely members of al-Hallak's mosque.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday that some of the hijackers' colleagues likely remain in the United States and could pose additional threats.
"Very frankly, the magnitude and nature of these attacks, the coordination, the sophistication of these attacks, indicates that they are not sort of random acts by people who are just angry," Ashcroft said in an interview last night on Larry King Live.
"These are long, prolonged, planned activities," Ashcroft said. "It's very likely there was significant ground support and reinforcement assistance from collaborators."
Across the country, some 4,000 FBI agents are involved in the investigation, with 500 agents working on it directly from the bureau's headquarters in Washington. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said yesterday that agents have tracked more than 50,000 tips from telephone and Internet hot lines.
To help manage the investigation, Ashcroft asked the U.S. Marshals Service yesterday to detail 300 deputy marshals to FBI field offices across the country. At the same time, more federal law enforcement officers were expected to be patrolling the skies in coming days.
Ashcroft said the Justice Department would detail a number of officers to the Federal Aviation Administration to serve as "air marshals." Justice officials declined to say how many federal agents would be assigned to planes or whether they would be undercover.
Language experts must be U.S. citizens, and they are required to pass a fluency exam and a background check. More information is available on the FBI's Web site: www.fbi.gov.
Sun staff writers Gail Gibson and Todd Richissin and the Associated Press contributed to this article.