USA Today's lead reports that "Bush administration and law enforcement officials" were "annoyed" with Attorney General John Ashcroft because they believe he "overstated" the "dirty bomb" plans of suspect José  Padilla (aka Abdullah Al-Muhajir). According to the officials, Padilla was tossing around various ideas, and a dirty bomb was only one of them. The Washington Post   leads with word that investigators believe they've identified the al-Qaida operative who originally recruited Mohammed Atta and other Sept. 11 plotters. The New York Times leads with, and the Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide newsbox with, the start of congressional hearings yesterday on the White House's proposed homeland security reorganization, during which legislators from both parties said the plan may not go far enough and worried that the CIA and FBI have been left out. "We may have to pull those agencies more fully into the structure than was proposed," said Republican Rep. Dick Armey. The Los Angeles Times  leads with word that Pakistan has handed a second, unnamed, suspect in the latest alleged al-Qaida plot over to U.S. officials, who are interrogating him at an undisclosed location.

Yesterday's USAT lead had the skinny on the fact that Pakistan had been holding another suspect.

The Post says that the alleged 9/11-recruiter is Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a German citizen born in Syria. U.S. authorities wouldn't explicitly say whether Zammar is already in custody, but one official said, "Zammar is not walking the streets." The WP points out, "During the past nine months, the U.S. government has secretly transported dozens of terrorism suspects to countries other than the United States, bypassing extradition procedures."

The LAT's lead notes that some senators were given a closed-door briefing on the case against Padilla and were not impressed. "Not many people were satisfied that we had a whole hell of a lot" on Padilla in terms of hard evidence, one congressional source told the paper. "We're all for sticking bad guys in the hole, but you've got to have evidence."

Everybody mentions that Padilla's lawyer has already filed a motion challenging the government's detention of him. "My client is a citizen," she told reporters. "He still has constitutional rights."

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told reporters yesterday, "We are not interested in trying [Padilla] at the moment or punishing him at the moment. We are interested in finding out what he knows."

(Tangent: Some of the papers are referring to the suspect as Padilla, while others as calling him Al-Muhajir. Today's Papers would love an itsy-bitsy sidebar from one of the papers explaining its choice. And if you must know, TP is simply playing follow-the-leader: Absent evidence that Padilla legally changed his name to Al-Muhajir, TP is sticking with what the majority ofother folks are going with.)

A front-page NYT piece on the captured al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah—who led authorities to Padilla—notes officials' assertions that they're cross-checking Zubaydah's tips. Said one official, "If something Zubaydah says matches up with something we hear from one of the lieutenants—bingo, we move on it."

Everybody notes that a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday in Herzliya, a town north of Tel Aviv, killing a 15-year-old girl and wounding eight others. The papers say no group has claimed responsibility yet. Meanwhile, the Israeli army said it killed one Palestinian gunman, while Palestinians said that a9-year-old boy was also killed by Israeli army gunfire.

Everybody notes that Israeli troops continued to surround Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah and arrest militants in the town.