Toward the end of the 1980s, the Soviets were retreating in defeat. Bin Laden and Azzam discussed the future of MAK and what to do with the mujahideen force that had built up. Bin Laden and Azzam both wanted to use the force as a "rapid reaction force" to defend oppressed Muslims around the world. Bin Laden wanted to train the mujahideen in terrorist tactics, but Azzam strongly disagreed with this approach, issuing a fatwa saying that it would violate Islamic law. Azzam reiterated the hadith that orders Muslims to kill no women or children.[2]
In November 1989, soon after bin Laden and Azzam split, Azzam was killed in Peshawar, Pakistan. Azzam and his two sons were travelling to Jummah (Friday prayer) when a remote-control-activated bomb detonated, killing them. It is unknown for certain if bin Laden was behind this, but is thought unlikely. Nonetheless, bin Laden was then free to take full control of MAK, laying the groundwork for al-Qaeda.[3] Under the guidance of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden became more radical.[4]
In 1991, bin Laden moved to Sudan, where he led operations in East Africa, including the 1993 assault on U.S. troops at Mogadishu in Somalia. Under Saudi and American pressure, the Sudanese forced bin Laden out of Sudan in 1996, and he returned to Afghanistan.[5]
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 marked a point where bin Laden turned attention toward the United States. He urged the Saudi regime not to host the 500,000 U.S. soldiers, instead advocating use of a mujaheddin force to oust the Iraqis. Bin Laden strongly opposed the continued presence of the U.S. Armed Forces in Saudi Arabia. He interpreted Muhammad as banning the "permanent presence of kafirun (infidels) in Arabia".[6] This drove bin Laden to attack U.S. military targets in Saudi Arabia. The date chosen for the 1998 Kenyan embassy bombings (August 7), was eight years to the day that American troops were sent to Saudi Arabia.[7]
In 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwa, calling for the U.S. military to leave Saudi Arabia. In Islam, a fatwa can only be issued by an Islamic scholar; bin Laden, however, was a political fighter who used Islam to motivate his fighters. The 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings marked a turning point, with bin Laden intent on attacking the U.S.[9] Bin Laden issued another fatwa in February 1998, together with Ayman al Zawahiri, declaring war against the U.S. He stated "We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they [Americans] are all targets."[10] Bin Laden cited grievances including the presence of U.S. kafirun (soldiers) in the Saudi Arabian holy land, the Iraqi people's suffering due to sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf War, and U.S. support of Israel. In his December 1999 interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden reiterated his ideology and objected to U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. He proclaimed that the U.S. was "too near to Mecca", which he considered a provocation to the entire Muslim world.[11] He also believed Israel "was killing and punishing Palestinians with American money and American arms."[11]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed presented a modified plan to bin Laden in 1996 in Afghanistan.[5][13] According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed envisioned hijacking ten airplanes on both the East and West coasts, and for nine of them to crash into the World Trade Center in New York City; The Pentagon, United States Capitol, CIA Headquarters, and FBI Headquarters in the DC metropolitan area; the tallest buildings in California and Washington State (then the US Bank Tower, which at the time was known as Library Tower, in Los Angeles and Columbia Center in Seattle, respectively); and an unspecified nuclear power plant. Mohammed, in the tenth plane, would then kill every adult male passenger and land in a US airport where he would then give a speech denouncing US policies on Israel, the Philippines, and other Arab nations before releasing the remaining passengers.[14] Nothing came of the idea at the time, however, as bin Laden rejected the plan as being too elaborate.[5][9]
In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the U.S., including training personnel to hijack aircraft.[15]
In late-1998 or early-1999, bin Laden summoned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Kandahar and gave his approval for him to proceed with a scaled back version of the "planes operation."[16][5][9] A series of meetings occurred in the spring of 1999, involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy Mohammed Atef.[16] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wanted to hit the World Trade Center, while bin Laden prioritized the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the Pentagon because he believed that it would lead to the political collapse of the U.S. federal government.[5][9] If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane.[17] Bin Laden recommended four individuals for the plot, including Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Walid Muhammad Salih Bin 'Attash (Khallad), and Abu Bara al-Taizi. Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were both Saudi citizens, which made it straightforward for them to obtain U.S. visas, unlike Khallad and al-Taizi who both were Yemeni citizens, and as such unable to get visas to the U.S. easily. The two Yemenis were assigned for the Asia component of the plot. When Mohamed Atta and other members of the Hamburg cell arrived in Afghanistan, bin Laden was involved in selecting them for the plot and assigned Atta to be its leader.[18]
At the time, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led al-Qaeda's 'military committee'.[19] He provided operational support, such as selecting targets, and helped to arrange travel for the hijackers.[16] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed explained to Fouda, "We had a large surplus of brothers willing to die as martyrs. As we studied various targets, nuclear facilities arose as a key option"...but the nuclear targets were dropped for concerns the plan would "get out of hand."[20]
Hamburg cell
Mohammed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah came into the picture in 1999, when they arrived in Kandahar from Germany. The Hamburg cell was formed in 1998 shortly after Atta received Al-Qaeda leadership approval for his plot. Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Said Bahaji, Zakariyah Essabar, and fifteen others were all members. Atta was religious, but not fanatically so, when he came to Germany in Fall 1992 to study urban planning at the Technical University of Hamburg.[21] While in Germany, he was drawn to al-Quds Mosque in Hamburg, which then adhered to a "harsh, uncompromisingly fundamentalist, resoundingly militant" version of Sunni Islam.[22] A friend of Atta's recalled meeting him at the al-Quds Mosque in 1993, though it is unknown when he began going there. Atta had lived as a strict Muslim, but after making a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1995, he returned to Germany more fanatical than before. In late 1997, Mohamed Atta told his roommate that he was going to Mecca, but likely he went to Afghanistan instead. According to journalist Yosri Fouda, Atta went to the mosque around this time "not to pray but to sign his death will." He was known to have attended Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in 1999 and 2000.[23]
Ramzi bin al-Shibh, also known as "Ramzi Omar", was a Yemeni citizen. In 1995, he came to Germany seeking asylum, claiming to be a political refugee from Sudan. The judge, however, refused his request for asylum, so bin al-Shibh returned to Yemen's Hadramawt region. Bin al-Shibh later obtained a German visa under his real name and came to Germany in 1997. There, he met Mohammed Atta, the Hamburg cell's leader, at a mosque.[24] For two years, Atta and bin al-Shibh roomed together in Germany.[24] In late 1999, bin al-Shibh traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he trained at Al-Qaeda training camps, and met others involved in planning the 9/11 attacks.[24] Initial plans for the 9/11 attacks called for bin al-Shibh to be a hijacker pilot, along with Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah. From Hamburg, Germany, bin al-Shibh applied for flight training in the U.S. Concurrently, he applied to Aviation Language Services, which provided language training for student pilots.[25] Bin al-Shibh applied four times for an entry visa to the U.S., but was refused each time. He made visa applications in Germany on May 17, 2000, and again in June, on September 16, and October 25, 2000.[25][26] According to the 9/11 Commission, this visa refusal came out of general concern by U.S. officials that people from Yemen would illegally overstay their visit and seek work in the U.S. Bin al-Shibh's friend, Zakariyah Essabar, was also denied visas repeatedly. After his failure to enter the U.S., bin al-Shibh assumed more of a "coordinator" role in the plot and as a link between Atta in the U.S. and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Afghanistan.[19][27]
Marwan al-Shehhi came to Bonn, Germany, in 1996 on a scholarship from the United Arab Emirates Army to study marine engineering.[28] Al-Shehhi met Atta in 1997, and in 1998 moved to Hamburg to join Atta and bin al-Shibh.[29] As the son of a religiously trained father, al-Shehhi was religious, well-educated in Islam, and adhered to a strict form of the faith.[30] He had a friendlier, more humorous personality than Atta, however, who was serious and more reclusive.[31]
Ziad Jarrah came from Lebanon to Germany in April 1996, where he enrolled in a junior college in Greifswald. There, he met his girlfriend, Aysel Senguen, a medical student. By late 1996, Jarrah's religious views grew radical. In September 1997, he transferred to the Technical University of Hamburg to study aircraft engineering. That summer he worked at a paint shop factory for Volkswagen in Wolfsburg.
Other Hamburg cell members included Said Bahaji, who came to Germany in 1995. He had been born there, but moved to Morocco at age nine. In 1996, Said Bahaji enrolled in the electrical engineering program at the technical university. He spent weekdays at a student home and weekends at his aunt Barbara Arens's home. Arens, his "high tech aunt", stopped the weekend visits on realizing that his religious beliefs had become more radical.
Selection for September 11 plot
In 1999, this group decided to go to Chechnya to fight. While still in Germany, they met Khalid al Masri who put the group in contact with Abu Musab in Duisburg, Germany. Abu Musab turned out to be Mohamedou Ould Slahi. Slahi advised them that it would be difficult to enter Chechnya and advised them instead to go to Afghanistan first for training. In late 1999, the Hamburg group met with bin Laden, and pledged loyalty to him. They agreed to undertake a highly secret mission, and were told to enroll in flight training. Atta was selected by bin Laden to lead the group. Bin Laden met with Atta several more times for additional instructions. The hijacker selection was entirely decided by bin Laden and Mohammed Atef. The hijackers had not yet met with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. At the time, the hijacking team also included Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who were selected in early 1999 by bin Laden.[16]
Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah all obtained new passports, claiming that their old ones were lost, before applying for U.S. visas. Atta, Jarrah, and bin al-Shibh returned to Hamburg early in 2000, while al-Shehhi went back to the United Arab Emirates to obtain a new passport and a U.S. visa. Once back in Germany, they made efforts to appear less radical: they distanced themselves from others, stopped attending extremist mosques, and changed their appearances and behaviors.
Arrival in the United States
Al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi arrived in Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.[32] On January 18, Marwan al-Shehhi applied for a visa into the U.S. while he was in the United Arab Emirates. He was the first member of the Hamburg cell to apply for a visa.
By the end of June, Atta, Jarrah, and al-Shehhi left for the U.S. Bin al-Shibh and Essabar wanted to join Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah, but were denied U.S. visas several times. Bin al-Shibh's visa was denied since he was a Yemeni citizen. He made several more attempts to obtain a U.S. visa. One such attempt was a $2,200 deposit he sent to the Florida Flight Training Center as a down payment for a similar training course taken by Ziad Jarrah.[33] He used that application as a basis for a new attempt to get a student visa, rather than the visitor visa he previously had sought. On another occasion, he arranged for several thousand dollars to be deposited in his Yemeni bank account, to demonstrate financial wherewithal. After his final attempt failed, he was advised by a consular official that they could not help him, and to stop trying. At that point bin al-Shibh decided to support the cell by sending money to it. Mohammed was making repeated trips to Indonesia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia at the time. Jarrah nearly abandoned his role in the plot and probably would have been replaced by Zacarias Moussaoui had he done so.
A man named Omar al-Bayoumi had been in San Diego, California, since 1995.[34] He was raising a family and received a monthly stipend from his former employer, an aviation company in Saudi Arabia.[34] He was seen regularly videotaping various locations.[clarification needed] Al-Bayoumi also was quick to house immigrants who needed housing. In 2000, he settled in Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. According to al-Hazmi, al-Bayoumi met him and al-Mihdhar at a restaurant in Los Angeles. Al-Bayoumi offered a ride to San Diego after he heard the men speak Arabic. Al-Bayoumi threw the men a welcome party and al-Hazmi, who said he was in the U.S. to learn English, signed a six-month lease. He often surfed the Internet from the San Diego State University Library.
The first two months of the lease were paid for, yet the men complained that the lease was too expensive. In the spring, al-Hazmi told a friend that someone was going to wire $5,000 to him, and that the money would come from Saudi Arabia. Al-Hazmi told his friend that he had no account. The friend allowed him to use his account, and later found that the money came from a man named "Ali", and that it did not originate in the U.S. The two wanted to take flight lessons, which is why they got the money. A friend took them to Montgomery Field and arranged lessons for them. They took a single flight lesson but did not return. Fereidoun "Fred" Sorbi, the instructor, recalled, "The first day they came in here, they said they want to fly Boeings. We said you have to start slower. You can't just jump right into Boeings."
Al-Hazmi had season passes to the San Diego Zoo and SeaWorld. The men frequented a men's club in San Diego called Cheetah's near the Islamic Center. Al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi frequently drove to Las Vegas in the Toyota sedan they bought.
Flight training
In March 2000, Mohamed Atta contacted the Academy of Lakeland in Florida by e-mail to inquire about flight training, "Dear sir, we are a small group of young men from different Arab countries. Now we are living in Germany since a while for study purposes. We would like to start training for the career of airline professional pilots. In this field we haven't yet any knowledge but we are ready to undergo an intensive training program (up to ATP and eventually higher)." He sent 50–60 similar e-mails to other flight training schools in the U.S.[25]
On May 18, 2000, Atta applied for and received a U.S. visa.[25] After obtaining his visa, Atta traveled to Prague before going to the U.S. Atta, along with Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah arrived in Venice, Florida, and visited Huffman Aviation to "check out the facility." They explained that "they came from a flight school in the area, they were not happy and they were looking for another flight school".[35] By December, Atta and al-Shehhi left Huffman Aviation, and on December 21, Atta received a pilot license.[36] Jarrah had left Huffman Aviation on January 15, 2001, a month after Atta and Al-Shehhi had done so.
Final preparations
About three weeks before the attacks, the targets were assigned to four teams. The United States Capitol was called "The Faculty of Law". The Pentagon was dubbed "The Faculty of Fine Arts". Mohammed Atta codenamed the World Trade Center "The Faculty of Town Planning".[37]
Financial support
The 9/11 Commission stated in its final report that the "9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack" but the "origin of the funds remains unknown." The Commission noted: "we have seen no evidence that any foreign government-or foreign government official-supplied any funding."[38] The report cites a CIA estimate of Al Qaeda's total operating costs prior to 9/11, of "around $30 million per year".[38]
"Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida in the weeks before the deadliest acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead [...] Syed also is described as a key figure in the funding operation of Al-Qaeda, the network headed by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden."[39]
The Pittsburgh Tribune noted that "There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA."[40]
CNN later confirmed that it was "Ahmed Umar Syed Sheikh, whom[sic] authorities say used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to suspected hijacker Mohammad Atta, who then distributed the money in the United States."[41]
Soon after the money transfer was discovered, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Gen. Mahmood (Mahmud) Ahmed, resigned from his position. Indian news outlets reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating the possibility that Gen. Mahmood Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta, while most Western media outlets only reported his connections to the Taliban as the reason for his departure from the ISI.[citation needed]
The Wall Street Journal was one of few Western news organizations to follow up on the story,[citation needed] citing the Times of India: "U.S. authorities sought [Gen. Mahmud Ahmed's] removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 [was] wired to WTC hijacker Mohamed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the insistence of Gen Mahmud."[42]The Daily Excelsior reported, "The FBI’s examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Gen. Mehmood Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deeper, sensational information surfaced with regard to the transfer of $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, one of the pilots who flew a Boeing into the World Trade Center. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta."[43]
Lt. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed then led a six-member delegation to the Afghan city of Kandahar in order to hold crisis talks with the Taliban leadership, supposedly in an attempt to persuade them to hand over Osama bin Laden.
In June 2001, a "high-placed member of a U.S. intelligence agency" told BBC reporter Greg Palast that "after the [2000] elections, the agencies were told to "back off" investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals".[49]
In May 2002, former FBI agent Robert Wright, Jr. delivered a tearful press conference apologizing to the families who lost loved ones on September 11. He described how his superiors intentionally obstructed his investigation into Al-Qaeda financing.[50][51]
Agent Wright later told ABC's Brian Ross: "September 11th is a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit", specifically referring to the bureau's hindering of his investigation into Yasin al-Qadi, whom Ross described as a powerful Saudi Arabian businessman with extensive financial ties in Chicago.[52] One month after September 11, the U.S. government officially identified Yassin al-Qadi as one of Osama bin Laden's primary financiers and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.[53]
In an interview with Computerworld Magazine, a former business associate described his relationship with al-Qadi: "I met him a few times and talked to him a few times on the telephone. He never talked to me about violence. Instead, he talked very highly of his relationship with [former President] Jimmy Carter and [Vice President] Dick Cheney."[54]
The Muwafaq Foundation, which U.S. authorities confirmed was an arm of bin Laden's terror organization, was headed by Yassin al-Qadi,[55] who was also known as the owner of Ptech[56]– a company that has supplied high-tech computer systems to the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Congress, the United States Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the White House. Matthew Levitt, a former FBI counter-terrorism agent, commented: "For someone like [al-Qadi] to be involved in a capacity, in an organization, a company that has access to classified information, that has access to government open or classified computer systems, would be of grave concern." Also sitting on Ptech's board of directors was Yacub Mirza– "a senior official of major radical Islamic organizations that had been linked by the U.S. government to terrorism." In addition, Hussein Ibrahim, the Vice President and Chief Scientist of Ptech, was vice chairman of a defunct investment group called BMI, a company the FBI had named as a conduit used by al-Qadi to launder money to Hamas militants.[57]
According to Senator Bob Graham, then-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, "Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the U.S. that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship", as reported by the Miami Herald: "And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, obtained by The Herald Saturday, he made clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that the administration blocked from release, despite pleas from leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees."[58]
Related Research Articles
Abdulaziz al-Omari was a Saudi imam and terrorist who was one of five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 as part of the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar was a Saudi terrorist hijacker. He was one of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon as part of the September 11 attacks.
Mohamed Atta was an Egyptian terrorist hijacker for al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he was the ringleader of the September 11 attacks and served as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which he crashed into the North Tower of the original World Trade Center as part of the coordinated suicide attacks. Aged 33, he was the oldest of the 19 hijackers who took part in the mission. Before the attacks, he worked as a construction engineer.
Nawaf Muhammad Salim al-Hazmi was a Saudi terrorist hijacker who was one of five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which they crashed into the Pentagon as part of the September 11 attacks.
The aircraft hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with jihadist organization al-Qaeda. They hailed from four countries; 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. To carry out the attacks, the hijackers were organized into four teams each led by a pilot-trained hijacker who would commandeer the flight with three or four "muscle hijackers" who were trained to help subdue the pilots, passengers, and crew. Each team was assigned to a different flight and given a unique target to crash their respective planes into. Mohamed Atta was the assigned ringleader over all 4 groups.
Ziad Samir Jarrah was a Lebanese terrorist hijacker. He was one of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which was crashed into a field in a rural area near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, following a passenger revolt, as part of the September 11 attacks.
Marwan Yousef Mohamed Rashid Lekrab al-Shehhi was an Emirati terrorist hijacker from al-Qaeda who served as the hijacker-pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, crashing the Boeing 767 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the September 11 attacks. He was one of five hijackers aboard the aircraft and one of two Emiratis to take part in the attacks, the other being Fayez Banihammad, who helped him hijack the same plane.
Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh is a Yemeni terrorist who served as al-Qaeda's communications officer. He has been detained by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (NSGB) since 2002. He is accused of being a "key facilitator" for the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Fayez Banihammad was an Emirati terrorist hijacker from al-Qaeda who was one of the five terrorist hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 175 that was flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks.
Said Bahaji, was a citizen of Germany, electrical engineer, and an alleged member of the Hamburg cell that provided money and material support to the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks.
Walid Muhammad Salih bin Mubarak bin Attash is a Yemeni prisoner held at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-related charges and is suspected of playing a key role in the early stages of the 9/11 attacks. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has described him as a "scion of a terrorist family". American prosecutors at the Guantanamo military commissions allege that he helped in the preparation of the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings and the USS Cole bombing and acted as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden, gaining himself the reputation of an "errand boy". He is formally charged with selecting and helping to train several of the hijackers of the September 11 attacks. On 31 July 2024, Attash agreed to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. His plea deal was revoked by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin two days later.
Omar al-Bayoumi ; is a Saudi national with alleged links to two of the 9/11 hijackers in the United States. Files of the U.S. FBI, dating to before the attacks, demonstrate that he was a Saudi Arabian intelligence agent. An FBI report, declassified in September 2021, lays out evidence that al-Bayoumi had links to known terrorists, provided significant support to 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar upon their arrival in the U.S., and communicated with a key logistics facilitator for Osama bin Laden, each time immediately following significant logistics support to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
The 20th hijacker is a possible additional terrorist in the September 11 attacks of 2001 who, for unknown reasons, was unable to participate. The 20th hijacker, though not present during the actual attacks, is said to have been deeply involved in the preparations. There were many variations of the 9/11 plot, with the number of terrorists fluctuating with available resources and changing circumstances. In the end, there were 19 hijackers: three of the planes were taken over by five members each and the fourth was hijacked by four people. The latter plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, due to the resistance from passengers before it could reach its target in Washington, D.C.
The Hamburg cell was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany, that included students from different Arab countries who eventually came to be key operatives in the September 11 attacks. Important members included Mohamed Atta, who led the four hijacking teams in 2001 and piloted American Airlines Flight 11; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who conspired with the other three members but was unable to enter the United States; Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted United Airlines Flight 175; and Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines Flight 93 and failed to hit a target in Washington, D.C.. Other members included Said Bahaji, Zakariya Essabar, Mounir el-Motassadeq, and Abdelghani Mzoudi.
Ammar al-Balushi or Amar Baloch; born Ali Abdul Aziz Ali on 29 August 1977) is a Pakistani (Balochi) citizen who has been in American custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2006. He was arrested in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2003 before being transferred; the series of criminal charges against him include: "facilitating the 9/11 attackers, acting as a courier for Osama bin Laden and plotting to crash a plane packed with explosives into the U.S. consulate in Karachi." He is a nephew of the Pakistani terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who served as a senior official of al-Qaeda between the late 1980s and early 2000s; and a cousin of the Pakistani terrorist Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who played a key role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Philippine Airlines Flight 434 bombing, and the high-profile Bojinka plot.
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania during a passenger revolt. The September 11 attacks killed 2,977 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in history. In response to the attacks, the United States waged the multi-decade global war on terror to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, as well as the foreign governments purported to support them.
The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. It was headed initially by CIA analyst Michael Scheuer and later by Richard Blee and others.
At around 9:30pm on September 11, 2001, George Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), told President George W. Bush and U.S. senior officials that the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had determined that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for the September 11 attacks. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected the hijackers to al-Qaeda, a militant Salafist Islamist multi-national organization. In a number of video, audio, interview and printed statements, senior members of al-Qaeda have also asserted responsibility for organizing the September 11 attacks.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., by the al-Qaeda terrorist group, a number of investigations were conducted to determine what intelligence may have existed before the attacks and whether this information was ignored by authorities.
Mohammed Atef was an Egyptian militant and 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.
References
1 2 Gunaratna, Ronan (2002). Inside Al Qaeda. Berkley Books.
↑ Gunaratna, Ronan (2002). Inside Al Qaeda. Berkley Books. pp.29–30.
↑ Gunaratna, Ronan (2002). Inside Al Qaeda. Berkley Books. p.31.
↑ Gunaratna, Ronan (2002). Inside Al Qaeda. Berkley Books. p.33.
1 2 Yusufzai, Rahimullah (September 26, 2001). "Face to face with Osama". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on January 19, 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
↑ "The Attack Looms". 9/11 Commission Report. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. 2004. Archived from the original on December 28, 2018. Retrieved July 2, 2008.
↑ Bergen, Peter (2006). The Osama bin Laden I Know. Free Press. p.283.
↑ Indictment of Zacarias MoussaouiArchived 2009-08-02 at the Wayback Machine , with supporting conspirators, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
↑ Leiby, Richard (May 18, 2002). "A Cloak But No Dagger". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 24, 2011. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
