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The FBI is to question a number of figures held in the US, including James Ujaama, an American convert to Islam who met Aswat, and a second al-Qaeda emissary in Seattle.

Ujaama has pleaded guilty to assisting the Taleban and is now a “co-operating witness” who has given details of Aswat’s activities in the US.

Aswat flew into New York on November 26, 1999, on an Air India flight with Oussama Abdullah Kassir, who has Swedish nationality.

Kassir, 38, described himself as “a hitman for Osama bin Laden” and claimed to have fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Ujaama drove the pair to the ranch but they complained that it did not have the facilities — especially barracks for otential recruits — that they had been led to believe existed.

During November and December 1999, Aswat and Kassir met potential candidates for jihad training.

The FBI document details how they secured the Bly property with guard patrols and passwords and they and others received training in firearms and “improvised poisons”.

Aswat and Kassir were still in the United States in February 2000. They were living in Seattle where they “expounded the writings and teachings” of their London-based mentor in lectures to young Muslims at a city mosque.

Kassir also provided what the FBI described as “urban tactical training”.

In 2002, an associate of Kassir was arrested in Stockholm, the Swedish capital, attempting to board a flight to London carrying a revolver.

Kassir, a Lebanese-born Swede, was jailed for ten months in November 2003 for possessing illegal weapons at his home in Stockholm.

Charges that he was planning a terrorist attack were dropped.

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