In the 1990s, al-Qaeda official Khalid Sheikh Mohammed came up with the Bojinka plot, a plan to bomb planes in flight from Southeast Asia to the U.S., and assassinate Pope John Paul II in the process. It was scheduled for 1995, but never happened, and the Pope was never killed. In spring 1999, Mohammed, al-Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden, and bin Laden's deputy Mohammed Atef reworked the idea, which became the general plan for September 11. Soon, al-Qaeda came into contact with the Hamburg cell, a group of Islamist terrorists in Hamburg led by Mohamed Atta. Al-Qaeda had some of them visit their training camps in Afghanistan. The organization was allowed to operate in Afghanistan by its Taliban government. There, the cell learned about the hijacking plan, and returned to Hamburg to work out its details.
The hijackers were recruited from across the Middle East. In 2000 and 2001, they all entered the U.S., and lived in many states as they prepared for the attacks. The hijacker-pilots of the four planes—Atta (Flight 11), Marwan al-Shehhi (175), Hani Hanjour (77), and Ziad Jarrah (93), trained at flight schools there. On the morning of September 11, at airports in Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey, the four groups passed through security with minor issues. Jarrah phoned Atta and al-Shehhi, likely to confirm the attacks were still on. The hijackers boarded their planes with carry-on bags, which likely contained sharp instruments like box cutters. After taking off, they used those to stab some of the flights' crew members, frightening passengers and letting the hijackers get into the cockpits.
In the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989), Muslim-majority Afghanistan was invaded by the mostly non-Muslim Soviet Union.[1][2]Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Islamist connected to the royal House of Saud, left his country to organize the Afghan mujahideen, Muslims who fought the Soviets as jihadists; those who engage in jihad, Islamic religious struggle, are called mujahideen. For that purpose, bin Laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam founded Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK).[3][4][5] MAK built up a large military force, until 1989, when the Soviets left Afghanistan. The two men then argued over what to do with that force. They both wanted to use it to defend any oppressed Muslims around the world. bin Laden then publicly urged the soldiers to wage jihad through terrorism; Azzam issued a fatwa condemning this approach, saying Islamic law condemns the killing of women and children.[6] Azzam was soon killed by a bomb in Pakistan; it is unknown if bin Laden was involved. Bin Laden took full control of MAK, which evolved into al-Qaeda.[7] He was then further radicalized by Ayman al-Zawahiri.[8]
The flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, which started the Gulf War (1990–1991). During the war, bin Laden's attention turned towards the United States. He urged the House of Saud not to host the 500,000 U.S. soldiers who used Saudi Arabia, Kuwait's neighbor, as a base of operations, instead advocating the use of a mujahideen force to oust the Iraqis.[9] After the war, the royals allowed U.S. troops to have a continuous presence there. Bin Laden strongly disagreed with this. He believed this was a provocation to all Muslims, interpreting Muhammad as having banned the "permanent presence of kafir [ infidels of Islam] in Arabia". He labelled the royals as apostates.[9][10][11] He also objected to America's alliances with Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, and especially Israel. He viewed Israelis as kafir, and condemned them for oppressing and killing Muslims in Palestine with American funding and arms.[10][12] Due to bin Laden's beliefs, in 1991, the royals exiled him from Saudi Arabia. He moved to Sudan, where he may have had al-Qaeda get involved in the 1993 assault on U.S. troops in Somalia. In 1996, under Saudi and American pressure, Sudan exiled him from their country as well.[11] Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, which, by then, was ran by the Taliban. They allowed al-Qaeda to use the country as its base of operations.[11][13]
In the early 1990s, a Pakistani veteran of the Afghan mujahideen, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, rose through the ranks of al-Qaeda to became a top lieutenant of bin Laden. During that time, he devised a plan for a series of terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda targeting airliners, which he codenamed "Bojinka"—allegedly a "nonsense word" he once heard in Afghanistan. In the "Bojinka plot", al-Qaeda and another group, Jemaah Islamiyah, planned for eleven planes departing Southeast Asia towards the United States to simultaneously be destroyed over the Pacific, via liquid bombs made by mixing chemicals. Pope John Paul II would be assassinated in the process.[21][22][23] Mohammed's nephew, Ramzi Yousef, tested out a part of the idea in 1993, when he and a group of men bombed the underground portion of the World Trade Center (WTC) business complex in New York City, killing six people and injuring a more than a thousand.[21][24]
The plotters planned for the bombings to happen in 1995. In his apartment in Manila, Yousef and other conspirators started mixing chemicals to make the bombs. In 1994, he rehearsed the bombings two more times. One was set off at a Manila theater. The other time, Yousef got on board Philippines Airlines Flight 434, a Boeing 747 scheduled to depart Manila for Tokyo, and planted a bomb in the cabin, before leaving the plane. At the time, it was easy to get liquid explosives past airport security in most places. Mid-flight, the bomb exploded, killing one passenger and damaging the cabin, but the pilot managed to land the plane.[22]
In 1995, weeks before the planned bombings, the plot was foiled when Yousef's apartment burned down. Investigating the fire, police found his laptop, which contained a file named "Bojinka", as well as a number of items that he fitted to carry out the bombing, but theoretically look inconspicuous to airport security.[22][25] These included dolls fitted with clothes that contained nitrocellulose, a highly flammable compound.[22][26] Yousef was captured by Pakistan in February 1995, and turned to over to the U.S., where he was sentenced to life in prison. Investigators publicized the plan for the Bojinka plot. The Baltimore Sun reported in May that Western and Philippine officials were concerned about former Afghan mujahideen fighters who planned to commit terrorist acts in the name of Islam.[25] Mohammed continued working on his idea regarding hijacked airliners.[21]
Redesigning the plan
In 1996, Mohammed presented a modified version of the Bojinka plot idea to bin Laden in Afghanistan.[11][27] Al-Qaeda would hijack ten airplanes, departing from both the West and East Coasts of the United States, and nine would be crashed into the World Trade Center; the United States Capitol and the FBI's headquarters in Washington, D.C.; the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia;[28] the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia;[29]Columbia Center in Seattle; the Library Tower in Los Angeles; and an undetermined nuclear power plant. At the time, Columbia Center and the Library Tower were the tallest skyscrapers in Washington state and California, respectively. Mohammed himself would be a hijacker on the tenth plane, which would not crash; instead, he would help killing every adult male passenger onboard, and land in an undetermined U.S. airport. There, he would give a speech to the public denouncing U.S. policy towards Israel, the Philippines, and the Arab nations, and after he was finished, the women and children would be released unharmed.[30] Nothing came of the plan at the time, as bin Laden rejected it for being too elaborate.[11][14] Mohammed later recalled that, "as we studied various targets, nuclear facilities arose as a key option", but they were discarded after concerns that the plan would "get out of hand."[31]
In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden summoned Mohammed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and approved for him to proceed with a scaled back version of the plan.[32][11][14] In the spring of 1999, they and bin Laden's deputy, Mohammed Atef, held a series of meetings where they designed the final version of the general plan, which was ultimately carried out on September 11, 2001.[32][30] They came up with a rule the hijacker-pilots of the planes would follow, that if they could not reach their intended target, they were to crash the plane at its current location.[33] They listed potential targets that each symbolized to them the U.S.' global power, including: the World Trade Center, representing America's economy; the Pentagon, its military; the U.S. Capitol, its support of Israel; and the White House in D.C., its politics.[30] In a video statement by bin Laden released in 2004 (the first time he accepted responsibility for the attacks), he claimed he was inspired to target the World Trade Center's Twin Towers—1 and 2 WTC, or the North and South Towers, respectively—as revenge for the destruction of towers in Lebanon by U.S.-backed Israeli troops during the siege of Beirut, a part of the 1982 Lebanon War:[34][12]
"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after [witnessing] the injustice and tyranny of the American–Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982, and the events that followed: when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America, so it could taste some of what we are tasting, and to stop killing our children and women."
In 1992, Mohamed Atta, an architect from Egypt, moved to Germany to study urban planning at university in Hamburg.[35][36] Four years later, he began attending the local al-Quds Mosque, popular with Islamist men.[35][37] Atta was radicalized towards Islamism, either by meeting those men, or being directly contacted by an agent of bin Laden.[38] He then became the ringleader of the Hamburg cell, a clandestine cell system of Islamic extremist terrorists who lived in the city prior to September 11. Likely, the cell were likely planning their own jihadist activities in Russia when they met al-Qaeda's leadership, and then joined the organization in late 1999 to work on the details of al-Qaeda's redesigned hijacking plan.[35][38][39]
Over a few months in 1999, before most of them ever engaged in terrorist activities, the members watched footage of jihadists fighting in Chechnya, a region which is internationally recognized as a republic of Russia, but is populated by separatist Chechen groups, including Islamist militants. In the Second Chechen War (1999–2009), the Islamists waged defensive jihad against Russia.[39][37][42][43] Watching the videos, the cell became motivated to join them in-person.[37] In 2004, the U.S. government's 9/11 Commission claimed that the members boarded a train going east—the direction of Chechnya—in late 1999, and by chance, an al-Qaeda member named "Khalid al-Masri" was onboard at the same time. "al-Masri" met the cell, and convinced them to join the organization. The Commission claims that before then, the cell had no connection to al-Qaeda, and no intentions of attacking the U.S.[39] At "al-Masri's" request, Atta, al-Shehhi, bin al-Shibh, and Jarrah separately entered Afghanistan via the Pakistani border, and visited one or more jihadist camps, where al-Qaeda's leaders trained them to be terrorists, and briefed them on the plan to hijack American airliners.[37][39]
The cell members detailed al-Qaeda's attack plan at Atta's apartment on Marienstraße (Marien Street) in Hamburg
After the cell regrouped in Germany, it worked on al-Qaeda's plan in Atta's apartment on Marienstraße (Marien Street). At least bin al-Shibh, Bahaji, and Essabar were his roommates at different times.[44][38][45] Bin al-Shibh was selected by al-Qaeda's higher-ups to be a hijacker in the planned attacks, and he made a video where he proclaimed he was going to be a martyr for Islam.[38] However, he was denied a U.S. visa, so he instead acted as a liaison between the cell and al-Qaeda's leadership, notifying them of wire transfers from the higher-ups.[38][44] Bahaji was the cell's computer expert, and Essabar helped them tamper with and forge passports.[38] el-Motassadeq helped with logistics, and paid some members' bills, such as the students' tuitions.[46][47] Bahaji continued being a liaison after the cell dissolved, notifying some hijackers what their targets were in the planned attacks.[38][44]
The al-Quds Mosque stayed open for nine years after September 11, despite Germany knowing it had links to terrorism. It may have even continued being some visitors' gateway to al-Qaeda, as a frequent visitor at the time, Ahmad Sidiqi, admitted to being involved in bin Laden's foiled 2010 plot for terrorist attacks across Europe. Germany raided it and shut it down in 2010.[38][48][49]
During the planning of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided operational support to the hijackers, such as in helping them to arrange travel.[32] He later recalled that al-Qaeda "had a large surplus of brothers willing to die as martyrs" for Islam.[31] In the 1999 meeting between him, Atef, and bin Laden, the latter recommended four men to be involved: Abu Bara al Yemeni, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Walid bin Attash.[50] Only al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi became hijackers on September 11, along with 17 other men.[51][52] All 19 died as a result of their flights' respective crashes.[51][52]
The plans for the USS Cole bombing(aftermath pictured) and September 11 attacks were likely worked on simultaneously
In 1999, messages from an al-Qaeda logistics center in Yemen were intercepted by the CIA, mentioning that some al-Qaeda members, including al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, would hold a summit in Kuala Lampur in January 2000. Why they were meeting was not mentioned. The event happened as planned; the CIA had Malaysian authorities take pictures of the participants as they arrived, but the meeting was not detailed or tape recorded. After September 11, U.S. intelligence found that the summit was likely held to plan al-Qaeda's future terrorist attacks. Three of the people that authorities photographed were al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, bin al-Shibh (not identified by authorities as being in the pictures until after September 11); and bin Attash, likely an intermediary between bin Laden and the conspirators in the USS Cole bombing.[56] On or about January 15, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi arrived in Los Angeles from Bangkok.[57][58]
Atta, bin al-Shibh, and Jarrah were in Afghanistan in January. A videotape released in 2006, timestamped January 8, 2000, shows them together with bin Laden at al-Qaeda's Tarnak Farms camp in the country.[59] Later in January, after returning to Germany, Atta and al-Shehhi hid their time in Afghanistan from potential security officials at international airports by reporting their passports as stolen and receiving blank duplicates. Jarrah did the same in February.[60] In March, while in Germany, Atta emailed the Academy of Lakeland flight training school in Florida to inquire about their services:
"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 [an airline transport pilot license] and eventually higher)."
He sent 50 to 60 similar emails to other flight training schools in the U.S.[61] On May 18, Atta applied for and received a U.S. visa.[61] On June 3, he arrived in the U.S. from Prague. Around early June 2000, Atta and al-Shehhi attended Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma. During the rest of 2000 and for part of 2001, while staying in Florida, Atta made multiple inquires into starting a crop dusting company; fellow conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui did the same thing around June 2001.[58] Jarrah and al-Shehhi left for the U.S. in June. Bin al-Shibh and Essabar wanted to join them.[62] The former applied for a U.S. visa four times from around June to October, and was denied because he was a Yemeni citizen.[58][62] Essabar was also denied.[62]
Huffman Aviation's log of Mohamed Atta's flights at the school in July and August 2000
From around June to September 2000, al-Shehhi received five wire transfers from a sender or senders in the UAE: $4,790 USD while he was in Manhattan, and to his joint bank account with Atta at a SunTrust bank in Florida: $9,984, $9,485, $19,985, and then $69,985. In that same period, in Germany, bin al-Shibh wired unspecified amounts of money separately to Atta and al-Shehhi in Florida.[58]
Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah arrived in Venice, Florida, and they visited Huffman Aviation, supposedly to "check out the facility", saying they were not happy with a different flight school in the area.[63] Around October, Moussaoui received multiple letters from a Malaysian company named Infocus Tech, stating that he had been hired as their marketing consultant for the U.S., U.K., and the rest of Europe, for which he would be paid $2,500 USD a month.[58]
At the Ohio Pilot Store in the state of Ohio around November 25, Atta purchased videos of the flight decks of Boeing 747 and 757.[58] Atta and al-Shehhi left Huffman Aviation in December.[64] Bin al-Shibh went from Hamburg to London around December 2 to 9. Around the 9th, Moussaoui flew from London to Pakistan. Around two days later, at the Ohio Pilot Store, Atta purchased flight deck videos of Boeing 757 and Airbus A320 aircraft models.[58]
Moussaoui flew from Pakistan back to London around February 7, flew to Chicago around the 23rd, and then to Oklahoma City later that day. Around three days later, he traveled to Norman. He attended flight training at the Airman Flight School from around February to May, before ending his classes prematurely.[58] In Norman, he opened a bank account, and deposited about $32,000 into it.[58] At the Ohio Pilot Store around March 19, Nawaf al-Hazmi purchased flight deck videos of Boeing 747 and 777 models. He is known to be in Oklahoma around April 1.[58]
Around April 23 to June 29, al-Haznawi, al-Nami, al-Suqami, al-Shehhi, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Banihammad, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Moqed, Salem al-Shehri, Wail al-Shehri, and Waleed al-Shehri entered the U.S.[58] In summer 2001, al-Haznawi, al-Suqami, Banihammad, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Jarrah, Mohand al-Shehri, and Saeed al-Ghamdi opened individual bank accounts at SunTrust in Florida.[58]
On May 19, al-Suqami and Waleed al-Shehri flew from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Freeport, Bahamas, where they had reservations at the Princess Resort. However, they lacked proper documentation, and were stopped upon landing. They returned to Florida the same day, then rented a car from a Avis Car Rental agency.[65] At a Standard Chartered bank in Dubai in June, conspirator Mustafa al-Hawsawi opened a checking account, and Banihammad opened both checking and savings accounts.[58] At the Ohio Pilot Store around June 20, Moussaoui purchased flight deck videos of Boeing 747 models.[58]
July 2001
In July, Banihammad gave al-Hawsawi power of attorney over his own accounts, and then al-Hawsawi used that power to pick up ATM and Visa cards for Banihammad, which were shipped to him in Florida. About a month later, around $4,900 USD was deposited into one of Banihammad's Dubai accounts; in Florida, he withdrew that amount in cash.[58]
In summer 2001, Atta went to Zurich, where he purchased a knife around July 8.[58] At some point in the months before the attacks, Jarrah decided to leave al-Qaeda's plan, but then rejoined soon after; he might have done this twice.[66] Around then, Atta complained to bin al-Shibh about his difficulty in getting through to Jarrah amid tensions between them over the viability of the plan. Atta feared he might withdraw from the plot completely.[67] On July 25, Jarrah flew from the U.S. to Germany.[58][67] He then met with bin al-Shibh, who convinced him to go through with the operation.[67] Also around then, Ziad's uncle Nazer Jarrah contacted the Lebanese government and the American embassy in Lebanon, telling them "something very dangerous and serious was afoot with Ziad", and that "Ziad and his friends were up to something"; nobody paid attention.[68]
Around July 10 or 11, Moussaoui paid for simulator courses of commercial flights at the Pan Am International Flight Academy. Around the 29th to August 2, Moussaoui used payphones to call several numbers in Düsseldorf. In Hamburg around July 30 to 31, bin al-Shibh, using the pseudonym "Ahad Sabet", received about $15,000 USD over two transfers from a sender in the UAE under the name "Hashim Abdulrahman".[58]
August 2001
Jarrah may have arrived back in the U.S. on August 5, though some sources indicate he took his pilot's test in the U.S. on the 2nd, having missed his sister's wedding to do so.[69]
Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in August 2001 while undergoing flight training in Minnesota
At train stations in Düsseldorf and Hamburg around August 1 to 3, bin al-Shibh sent about $14,000 USD to Moussaoui in Oklahoma.[58] In Oklahoma City around August 3, Moussaoui purchased two knives.[58] He was driven from to Minnesota around the 9th, and around the 10th, he paid the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Minneapolis about $6,300 for flight training. Between the 13th and 16th, he trained via a Boeing 747 simulator. His possessions around the 16th included: Boeing 747 flight manuals and information software, flight simulator software, a computer disk with info about the aerial application of pesticides, a handheld aviation radio, fighting gloves, shin guards, and two knives. In Minneapolis around the 17th, federal agents interviewed Moussaoui as to why he was in the U.S.; he "falsely stat[ed] that he was simply interested in learning to fly".[58]
In the weeks before the attacks, British-Pakistani man Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, described by the U.S. as "a key figure in the funding operation of al-Qaeda", used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 USD to Atta, who then distributed the funds to other hijackers who were in Florida.[70][71]
Around August 17, Jarrah had a checkride in Fort Lauderdale. Around the 22nd, he purchased schematics of a Boeing 747 cockpit, as well as various GPS equipment, including an antenna.[58] About three weeks before the attacks, the hijackers' targets were assigned to four teams. The U.S. Capitol was called "The Faculty of Law"; the Pentagon, "The Faculty of Fine Arts"; and the World Trade Center, "The Faculty of Town Planning".[72]
The hijackers purchased their flight tickets in this time. On August 24, both al-Mihdhar and Moqed tried to purchase flight tickets from American Airlines online, but had technical difficulties in entering their address, and gave up.[73] On the 27th, Nawaf and Salem al-Hazmi purchased tickets for Flight 77 through Travelocity.[74] On the 28th, Wail and Waleed purchased for Flight 11,[75] and Atta purchased for himself and al-Omari on the same flight.[76] On the 29th, Banihammad and Hamza al-Ghamdi purchased for Flight 175.[74][77] The FBI claimed that Hamza also purchased for a "Flight 7950" from Los Angeles to San Francisco, although they did not give the projected date of the flight.[74] On the 31st, Moqed and Hanjour went to ATS Travel, a travel agency in Totowa, New Jersey. At first, they asked for two tickets on a flight on September 11, but then Moqed, who was speaking for Hanjour, decided to purchase a ticket for the latter on Flight 77.[52][78]
Over a few days in late August and early September, six of the hijackers stayed in Laurel, Maryland, at the Valencia and the Pin-Del Motels; it is unknown if this was to surveil the NSA's headquarters, which were a few miles away.[79][80]
Early September 2001
In early September, Jarrah called his father and asked for money for flight training. His father gave him $2000 USD, which investigators believe did not pay for the training, but rather for tickets for Flight 93—for him, al-Nami, al-Haznawi, and Saeed al-Ghamdi.[81] Wail and Waleed phoned American Airlines on September 3 to change their seat assignments for Flight 11, selecting different seats in first class on the other side of the aircraft, as they offered a direct view of the cockpit.[75] On the 5th, al-Mihdhar and Moqed went together to the American Airlines counter at BWI Airport in Baltimore, and purchased for Flight 77.[82]
In early September 2001, conspirator Mustafa al-Hawsawi received four future hijackers' excess money
In the week before September 11, al-Hawsawi received excess money from at least four hijackers.[58] The FBI believed this was because they not want to "die as thieves".[83] First, Banihammad's SunTrust account transferred about $8,055 USD to one of his own Dubai accounts that al-Hawsawi had access to. al-Hawsawi then received $2,860 and $5,000 from Atta, $5,400 from al-Shehhi; and $5,000 from Waleed al-Shehri. He also received a Fed-Ex package of unknown contents from Atta. On September 11, about $16,384 was deposited into al-Hawsawi's own Dubai account, and al-Hawsawi transferred about $6,534 from Banihammad's Dubai account into his own—then withdrew almost all the remaining money on Banihammad's account, about $1,631, in cash from an ATM.[58]
Jarrah returned to Florida by September 7. On that day, he and the three other Flight 93 hijackers—al-Nami, al-Haznawi, and Saeed al-Ghamdi, flew from Fort Lauderdale to Newark International Airport in Newark, New Jersey.[84][85] On the 9th, Jarrah called his family, and told them he would be at his cousin's wedding on the 22nd.[79][86] Just before the attacks, he possibly set up a large mock cockpit made of cardboard boxes in his apartment.[87]
Between 4:45 to 6:45 a.m. ET on September 11, 2001, Jarrah made five phone calls to numbers in Lebanon, one in France, and one in Germany—the latter to his girlfriend, Aysel Şengün.[54] At 5:01, he also phoned al-Shehhi. They spoke for less than a minute, likely to confirm that the plan for the attacks was ready to proceed.[88] He made a similar call to Atta, but not to the other hijacker-pilot, Hanjour.[89] Atta and al-Omari started the day in Portland, Maine. At 6 a.m., they boarded a Colgan Air flight departing Portland International Jetport for Boston, where they met the three other Flight 11 hijackers at Logan International Airport.[90] The three other groups entered their respective airports: Flight 175 at Logan, the Flight 77 group at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, and the Flight 93 group at Newark International Airport in New Jersey.[52][54]
At the various airport security checkpoints, some of the hijackers set off metal detectors, and were subject to further examinations, like from metal detector hand wands. However, all 19 men were ultimately allowed to continue to their gates.[91][92] In violation of FAA policy, the security agents likely did not check the carry-on bags of those who set off alarms.[93] The hijackers' bags likely contained stabbing instruments such as box cutters, which were used in the hijackings. However, even if the agents did check the bags, such instruments had been allowed by the FAA before September 11 to be carried onboard.[93][92][94]
The flights took off between 7:59 and 8:42 a.m. On Flight 93, at least one of the four terrorists brought onboard a pamphlet instructing them on how to hijack the plane. It began: "Embrace the will to die and renew allegiance. Familiarize yourself with the plan well from every aspect, and anticipate the reaction and resistance from the enemy."[54] The flights were hijacked between 8:14 to 9:28. Some of the hijackers stabbed various crew members on the flights, and on Flight 11, they sprayed mace in the cabins.[54] The airline pilots were attacked,[54] and al-Shehhi, Atta, Hanjour, and Jarrah assumed their roles as pilots, setting the flights to be on course to their targets in New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.[52] On Flight 11, one of the hijackers told the currently-surviving crew and passengers that there was a bomb onboard.[95] Twice during Flight 93's hijacking, Jarrah attempted to radio the cabin that a bomb was onboard by speaking into a voice recorder in the cockpit, but unbeknownst to him, his audio instead went to air traffic controllers in Cleveland.[96][97][98] The four crashes happened at 8:46 (Flight 11 into 1 World Trade Center), 9:03 (Flight 175 into 2 World Trade Center), 9:37 (Flight 77 into the Pentagon), and 10:03 (Flight 93 in Pennsylvania).[54]
Pre-September 11 investigations into al-Qaeda
At some point before September 11, the U.S. became aware that Mamoun Darkazanli was associated with al-Qaeda, and asked German authorities to stop him. However, Germany had no laws at the time prohibiting being part of a foreign terrorist organization, so they did not.[38] When Said Bahaji joined the Hamburg cell, German authorities were investigating him for associating with Mohammed Haydar Zammar.[38][99] The latter had been in the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, as well as a jihadist fighter in the Bosnian War (1992–1995) and a war in Afghanistan.[37][40][39] The investigation was closed, as they could not find evidence of the pair committing crimes.[38][99] Likewise, while the cell were active, Zammar was being surveilled by the CIA and German BKA, but the organizations' efforts were not thorough enough to catch the cell planning the attacks.[37]
"The purpose of this communication is to advise the Bureau and [its agents in] New York of the possibility of a coordinated effort by USAMA-BIN-LADEN (UBL) [sic] to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges. [The FBI in] Phoenix has observed an inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest who are attending or who have attended civil aviation universities and colleges in the State of Arizona."
In December 1998, months after bin Laden announced upcoming attacks on Americans, the Director of Central Intelligence's Counterterrorist Center reported to U.S. president Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing one involving trained personnel hijacking airliners.[100] In the months before September 11, U.S. government agencies received numerous warnings from their employees about the attack. CIA director George Tenet later claimed that, in response to those circulating in his agency, he tried to get more employees paying attention to al-Qaeda's plan, but failed.[80] In that time, an FBI field agent in Phoenix, Arizona, named Kenneth Williams sent his July 10th "Phoenix Memo" to the agency's headquarters and New York field agents, warning that bin Laden was sending his followers to Arizona to undergo flight training. It was not seen by leadership at the FBI, CIA, or Department of Justice until after the attacks.[101] On August 6, president George W. Bush's daily brief was titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S." [sic].[102] The NSA received at least 33 warnings about al-Qaeda's plan. Director Michael Hayden later testified that, days before September 11, they received one that said an attack would happen on the 11th, but its wording was not translated until the 12th. It did not mention the attack's type, specific location, or time of day.[80]
At the time, many U.S. agencies did not significantly cooperate with each other on investigations, so the government did not piece these warnings together to make a cohesive picture of the upcoming attack.[80][103][104] After September 11, the FBI alleged that the CIA did not notify them about al-Qaeda's Kuala Lampur summit after its details were intercepted in 1999. The CIA responded by claiming they did email the FBI; the latter then stated they had no records of receiving such an email.[56]
Financing of the attacks
In October 2001, the Bush administration launched Operation Green Quest, a federal investigative unit which, in part, sought the sources of the funds al-Qaeda had used to plan September 11.[105] The CIA estimated that al-Qaeda's total operating costs prior to the attacks totaled around $30 million USD per year. The 9/11 Commission Report, released in 2004, stated that the conspirators "spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack", but that the "origin of the funds remains unknown", and noted: "we have seen no evidence that any foreign government or foreign government official supplied any funding."[106]
Despite the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission Report, and bin Laden having been exiled by the House of Saud in 1991, al-Qaeda is alleged by some U.S. investigators to have received funding from Saudi Arabia in planning September 11.[107][108] The country's de facto ruler at the time was Crown Prince Abdullah.[109] Prior to the attacks, unaware of the royals' potential connection to the plan, multiple U.S. intelligence agencies investigated possible financial ties between them and bin Laden.[107][110] In June 2001, a "high-placed member of a U.S. intelligence agency" told the BBC that after George W. Bush was inaugurated as president that January,[111] his administration forced the agencies to stop looking into any connections.[107]
One of the halted investigations was being done by Robert Wright Jr. at the FBI. He was focusing on Yassin Kadi, a Saudi businessman who owned Ptech, a company which supplied computer systems to U.S. government agencies and NATO.[107][112][113] In October 2001, the U.S. officially identified him as one of bin Laden's primary financiers.[114] They discovered that he had led the Muwafaq Foundation, an arm of al-Qaeda.[115] Ptech's board of directors was found to have included Yaqub Mirza, who had ties to major Islamic terrorist groups. Hussein Ibrahim, its vice president and chief scientist, was found to have been vice chairman of a then-defunct investment group called BMI, which Kadi had used to launder money for Hamas militants.[113] In 2002, Wright claimed September 11 was "a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit", who halted his investigation, as he felt he would have gained advanced knowledge of the attacks if he was allowed to continue.[110][116]
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In 2002, the U.S. Senate and House's intelligence committees began a joint inquiry into the attacks. At the order of the Bush administration, 28 pages of their final report were not released to the public.[117] Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence on and around September 11, confirmed in 2004 that some details of al-Qaeda's alleged financing by Saudi Arabia were in the pages.[117] All 28 were declassified by president Barack Obama in 2016; the inquiry was revealed to have written that, "while in the United States, some of [the] hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government", including Saudi officials working inside the U.S. They added that much of their info "remains speculative and yet to be independently verified".[118]
Mahmud Ahmed's relationship to Ahmed Ohmar Saeed Sheikh
In October 2001, U.S. authorities were reported as seeking the removal of Mahmud Ahmed as head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), as the FBI had recently found that Ahmed Ohmar Saeed Sheikh wired the aforementioned $100,000 at Mahmud's request.[119] The FBI came to this conclusion after looking into the cell phone company Sheikh had been subscribed to.[120] The allegation had severe implications for the privacy of U.S. intelligence operations prior to September 11, as Ahmed had had a professional relationship with numerous American officials, including vice president Dick Cheney.[121][122] Soon after the allegation was publicized, he resigned as head of the ISI.[122] In 2002, numerous Pakistani officials were reported to have rejected the FBI's theory, instead believing that Sheikh's money came from the CIA.[123]
↑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.
12Bergen, Peter L. (2001). Holy War Inc. Simon & Schuster. p.3.
12Yusufzai, 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.
12Federal Bureau of Investigation (2008-02-04). "Hijackers' Timeline"(PDF). NEFA Foundation. pp.249, 257. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2008-10-12. Retrieved 2008-10-06.
↑"Al Qaeda Aims at the American Homeland". The 9/11 Commission Report. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Archived from the original on 2018-12-25. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
12Leiby, Richard (May 18, 2002). "A Cloak But No Dagger". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 24, 2011. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
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