Washington ? U.S. authorities have gathered evidence and testimony suggesting Sept. 11 conspiracy suspect Zacarias Moussaoui was being groomed for a second wave of attacks as part of a broad plot that included the suicide hijackers, according to officials and documents.

The evidence, according to those familiar with it, reinforces U.S. authorities’ assessment that al-Qaida began shifting some operational planning and fund raising to southeast Asia well before the 2001 attacks and that Moussaoui was part of a terrorist plot that was broader than the suicide hijackings in New York and Washington.

One key link, the officials say, is captured Malaysian chemist Yazid Sufaat who authorities believe sponsored both the hijackers and Moussaoui in Malaysia at different times in 2000 and provided Moussaoui with fake papers to make his way to the United States.

Moussaoui initially went to Malaysia to seek flight training at the Malaysian Flying Academy but then asked Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, to switch his training to the United States, according to the documents and interviews.

Around the time Moussaoui was in Malaysia, Sufaat is believed to have purchased explosives that were to be used in an attack in Singapore that was to follow the Sept. 11 hijackings, according to a Philippines intelligence report.

The evidence and timelines have led authorities overseas and here to suspect that Moussaoui and Sufaat were to set up a network to prepare for a second wave of attacks, one senior foreign intelligence official in southeast Asia said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.

Moussaoui, a French citizen, is the lone man charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, but the government has not specifically alleged he was supposed to be part of the hijacking team.