Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar was a Saudi Arabian terrorist hijacker. He was one of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon as part of the 11 September attacks.
The following timeline is a chronological list of all the major events leading up to, during, and immediately following the September 11 attacks against the United States in 2001, through the first anniversary of the attacks in 2002.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, often known by his initials KSM, is a Pakistani terrorist and the former Head of Propaganda for al-Qaeda. He is currently held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-related charges. He was named as "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" in the 2004 9/11 Commission Report.
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef is a Kuwait-born Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434; he was also a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. In 1995, he was arrested by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service at a guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan, while trying to set a bomb in a doll, then extradited to the United States.
The Bojinka plot was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States, with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world; and crash a plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Philippine Airlines Flight 434, sometimes referred to as PAL434 or PR434, was a flight on December 11, 1994, from Cebu to Tokyo on a Boeing 747-283B that was seriously damaged by a bomb, killing one passenger and damaging vital control systems, although the plane was in a repairable state. The bombing was a test run of the unsuccessful Bojinka terrorist attacks. The Boeing 747 was flying the second leg of a route from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Pasay in the Philippines, to Narita International Airport, in Tokyo, Japan, with a stop at Mactan–Cebu International Airport, Cebu, in the Philippines. After the bomb detonated, 58-year-old veteran pilot Captain Eduardo "Ed" Reyes was able to land the aircraft, saving it and the remaining passengers and crew.
Riduan Isamuddin also transliterated as Riduan Isamudin, Riduan Isomuddin, and Riduan Isomudin, also known by the nom de guerreHambali, is the former military leader of the Indonesian terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). He is now in American custody at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. He is currently awaiting trial in a military commission.
Abdul Hakim Ali Hashim Murad is a Pakistani Islamist terrorist, who was a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot—the forerunner to the September 11 attacks. In 1996, he was convicted in the United States of trying to blow up a dozen airliners and was sentenced to life in prison.
The Konsojaya Trading Company was a shell company cofounded by Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as "Hambali", and his Malaysian Chinese wife, Noralwizah Lee Abdullah in June 1994. The company was based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Wali Khan Amin Shah is a Saudi man who fought with the Afghan Arabs in Afghanistan, and called for the jihad movement to focus on attacking the United States. He had a role in the foiled Bojinka plot. He was convicted of terrorism and imprisoned on these charges from 1995 to 2021.
Khadaffy Abubakar Janjalani was a Filipino Islamist militant who was the leader of the Moro militant group known as Abu Sayyaf and the leader of one of its factions. He was a staunch Wahhabi follower.
Mohammed Jamal Khalifa (1 February 1957 – 31 January 2007) was a Saudi businessman from Jeddah who married one of Osama bin Laden's sisters. He has been accused of funding terror plots and groups in the Philippines in the 1990s while head of the International Islamic Relief Organization branch there. He was murdered in Madagascar in 2007.
The 2000 Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit was a meeting of several high-level al-Qaeda members held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 5 January to 8 January 2000. During this conference, the September 11, 2001 attacks and October 2000 USS Cole bombing were planned. The CIA and Malaysian government came under fire for failing to identify members of the summit and arresting them before the attacks were successfully carried out.
The Singapore embassies attack plot was a plan in 2001 by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) to bomb the diplomatic missions and attack personnel of the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Israel based in Singapore. There were also several other targets. The plot was uncovered in December 2001 and as many as 15 people were arrested in Singapore within a month. Further investigation and intelligence prompted the detention of another 26 persons from 2002 to 2005. As of 2006, 37 of them were still being detained without trial, under the Internal Security Act. Four had been released on restriction orders.
Yazid Sufaat, also known as Yazud bin Sufaat or Yazid Shufaat, is a Malaysian member of the extremist Islamist terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiyah from shortly after its foundation in 1993 until his arrest by Malaysian authorities in December 2001. His speciality had been to develop anthrax as a weapon of bio-terrorism on behalf of the terror group al-Qaeda. Released in 2008, he was again detained on terrorist charges in Malaysia in 2013.
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists took control of four commercial aircraft and used them as suicide weapons in a series of four coordinated acts of terrorism to strike the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and an additional target in Washington, D.C. Two aircraft hit the World Trade Center while the third hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane did not arrive at its target, but crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. The intended target is believed to have been the United States Capitol. As a result, 2,977 victims were killed, making it the deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil, exceeding Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, which killed 2,335 members of the United States Armed Forces and 68 civilians. The effort was carefully planned by al-Qaeda, which sent 19 terrorists to take over Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 aircraft, operated by American Airlines and United Airlines.
Mohammed Saddiq Odeh is a Saudi-born al-Qaeda member, sentenced in October 2001 to life imprisonment for his parts in the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. Odeh was convicted along with three co-conspirators: Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and Wadih el Hage. Another defendant, Ali Mohamed, pleaded guilty the previous year. Another, Mahdouh Salim, was awaiting trial, and three additional defendants were fighting extradition in England.
Mohammed Atef was the prominent military chief of al-Qaeda, and a deputy of Osama bin Laden, although Atef's role in the organization was not well known by intelligence agencies for years. He was killed in a US airstrike in November 2001.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to send the North Tower crashing into its twin, the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it killed six people, including a pregnant woman, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.
Ahmed Hikmat Shakir is an Iraqi terrorist facilitator implicated in the September 11 attacks. While based in Malaysia, Shakir served as an al-Qaeda “fixer” and provided logistical support in the planning of the attacks on the USS Cole, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and other terrorist attacks. Shakir was arrested in Qatar days after the 9/11 attacks, but was subsequently released and ultimately returned to Iraq.
