AMMAN, Jordan -- Arab governments have begun investigating what links their countries may have to this week's terror strikes on the United States, realizing that many Islamic militants are also a threat to their power.

In Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, security officials are looking into whether their own nationals were involved, poring over intelligence files for clues and questioning people involved with militant Islamic groups who could have helped plan and carry out the attack.

In another sign that the investigation is going global, the FBI on Friday identified 19 people as the hijackers who commandeered four airplanes from Boston, Washington and Newark, N.J., and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

All the names were of Middle Eastern origin.

The United States has pinpointed exiled Saudi multimillionaire Osama bin Laden or terror cells aligned with his al Qaeda group as the main suspects. Several militant groups that may have been involved, such as Egypt's Jihad, have actively worked to destabilize Arab governments.

``Most of them see bin Laden as a threat to their regimes,'' said Mustafa Hamarneh, director of the Center for Strategic Studies in the capital, Amman.

It remains to be seen how effective any Arab coalition that supports the United States will be, given growing anti-American sentiment in many Arab capitals.

MIXED FEELINGS

Many people are ambivalent about cooperating with the United States because of its Middle East policies, especially its support for Israel and the U.N. economic embargo on Iraq. And while Afghanistan's Taliban regime is not popular, a military strike on another Islamic nation, such as Iraq, could provoke outrage on the streets.

``There will be a backlash if one of the Arab states is pointed as a target,'' said Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst.

``There are many Arab secularists who would like to see bin Laden out of the picture because of his fundamentalism, but they cannot side with the Americans publicly against bin Laden because of American policy,'' Hamarneh added. ``We have to remove the ever-present Israeli factor when we talk.''

QUESTIONING BEGINS

In the United Arab Emirates, security police are questioning people who may know Marwan Alshehhi, 23, whom the FBI identified as one of the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 175, which nose-dived into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Satam al Suqami, another hijacker the FBI identified Friday, was listed as having his last known address in the United Arab Emirates.

Egypt spent most of the 1990s fighting militants from Jihad and al Gamaa al Islamiyah, which had succeeded in assassinating President Anwar Sadat less than a decade earlier.

Several of the identified hijackers are thought to be from Saudi Arabia, which also has extensive experience in monitoring extremist groups and has pledged to help the United States.

A senior Jordanian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Jordanian officials also are running the names through their intelligence files.

WELL REGARDED

Jordan is widely regarded for its intelligence-gathering to keep tabs on large, restive refugee populations of Palestinians and Iraqis. In December 1999, Jordanian operatives uncovered what they suspect was a bin Laden plot to attack U.S. sites during the New Year's millennium celebrations.

``We're not going to spare any efforts to finding those who committed these attacks,'' said Samir Rifai, general secretary of the royal court of Jordan's King Abdullah. ``No stone will be left unturned.''

Elsewhere, Philippine authorities searched a Manila hotel and questioned a Saudi Airlines pilot in connection with the investigation.