New York: Federal agents raided a Boston-area computer software firm looking for evidence that the company, which does business with key government agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), might have links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, a media report said on December 6.

ABC television network quoted the investigators as saying that there are fears al- Qaida may have had access to some of the government's most closely held secrets through the company, Ptech Inc, which provided computer software for the FBI, the Navy, the Air Force and the agency that handles nuclear weapons security.

Just before midnight, ABC said, in a driving snowstorm that blanketed the East Coast, a team of US Customs agents raided the firm's offices.

The raid was the result of a six-month-long, top-secret investigation by the Customs service, co-ordinated by the National Security Council at the White House amid concerns that the company was secretly owned and controlled by al-Qaida activists or sympathisers.

The agents intend to be at the company's offices all day, and they brought their own computers with them to download files from the firm's computers.

Agents, ABC said, could be seen inside the Ptech headquarters, searching the offices and going through the company's computers There had been no arrests of anyone associated with Ptech.

The company's Website reveals a list of customers that is a who is who of sensitive government agencies, including the Naval Air Systems Command, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the House of Representatives and the Department of Energy, which handles security for nuclear weapons and material.

Officials, the network said, believe Ptech is linked to one of bin Laden's alleged money men, a Saudi multi-millionaire named Qassin al-Kadi.

Al-Kadi has repeatedly denied any connection to bin Laden, but he is on the US government's so-called "dirty dozen" list of leading terror financiers, who are being investigated by the CIA, and his accounts have been frozen by the United States, ABC reported.

PTI