French antiterrorism officials have been warning for several years that female converts represent a small but increasingly important part of the terrorist threat in Europe.

After the airport attack, Mr. Kadar appeared to have been promoted within the Abu Nidal organization, according to antiterrorism officials.

Indonesian antiterrorism officials have criticized the United States for not helping enough to prosecute Mr. Bashir.

British and European antiterrorism officials said that they were investigating the claims but had reached no conclusions about who was responsible.

This month, as state inspectors conducted a spot check along Interstate 84 in Promised Land, Pa., the parade of hissing giants spoke of the challenge facing antiterrorism officials.

Some Spanish antiterrorism officials said, however, that they questioned the government's seeming insistence on implicating the Basque group despite information that suggested the possible involvement of Islamic militants.

Two Spanish antiterrorism officials said they expected it would take another day or two to begin to draw firmer conclusions from the forensic analysis of samples taken from the bomb sites.

Yet in the chaotic aftermath of the bombings, antiterrorism officials cautioned that other evidence seemed to implicate ETA.

"If this was ETA, it is the crazies, the cubs, who have grown more and more radical," a senior Spanish antiterrorism official said.

Another Spanish antiterrorism official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified, said the country's security services had been following "several" of the five arrested men long before the train attacks.