17 1992/architecture/Cairo: McDermott, 18–
18 father divorced: Timeline Pertaining to Hijackers in Florida, “Timelines 9/11, 2 of 2,” B20, T7, CF
19 “never stopped”: NYT, 10/10/01
20 mother’s lap: Sunday Times (London), 1/6/02
21 “child feelings”: Frontline: “Inside the Terror Network,” 1/17/02, www.pbs.org
22 insect/“brainless”: Time, 9/30/01
23 cardiologist/professor: McDermott, 14
24 did all right/arranged meeting: ibid., 19.
25 flew to Germany: Atta had done a course in German at Cairo’s Goethe Institute. In Germany, he was at some stage sponsored by the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, which assists young professionals from many foreign countries (Goethe: Uwe Michaels statement to Bundeskriminalamt, Hamburg, 10/2/01, authors’ collection; Duisberg: Tagespiel [Germany], 10/16/01).
26 “exceedingly”: Uwe Michaels Statement to Bundeskriminalamt, Hamburg, 10/2/01, authors’ collection
27 own meals/pots/video/risqué: Chicago Tribune, 3/7/03
28 blouse: Sunday Times (London), 1/26/02, LAT, 1/27/02
29 “that person”: int. of Michaels Jr. by Hannah Cleaver
30 “words”: Chicago Tribune, 1/27/02
31 clashes: McDermott, 25–
32 “a dear human”: Newsweek, 10/1/01 applied self/trips: transcript, int. Dittmar Machule, 10/18/01, Four Corners: A Mission to Die For, 10/18/01, www.abc.net.au
33 Omar arrive/phony/returned: MFR 04016498, 1/13/04, LAT, 9/1/02, CR, 161
34 aspired: CR, 161, Fouda & Fielding, 74
35 “in love”: McDermott, 48
36 “very funny”: int. Mounir Motassadeq
37 “disgusting”/read Qur’an: eds. Der Spiegel, 197
38 newcomer/father muezzin: McDermott, 55
39 prayer tape: Corbin, 134
40 “regular guy”: CR, 162
41 “happy”: int. Mounir Motassadeq
42 jokes: Miller & Stone, 263
43 “dreamy”: McDermott, 54
44 military: CR, 162
45 marine engineering: McDermott, 53–
46 $4,000: Corbin, 136
47 “explode”: Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), 9/23/01
48 never spoke: McDermott, 54
49 recite/imagined: ibid., 54, 87
50 “What is”: ibid., 48
51 Jarrah flew in/grew up: Corbin, 137, LAT, 10/23/01, CR, 163, “The Fifth Estate: The Story of Ziad Jarrah,” www.cbc.ca, 10/10/01
52 civil servant/teacher: Fisk, The Great War, 1052, Aysel Sengün statement to Bundeskriminalamt, 9/15/01, authors’ collection
53 great-uncle: Der Spiegel, 9/17/08, conv. Gunther Latsch, Fouda & Fielding, 85
54 cousin: NYT, 2/19/09
55 Sunni/Christian schools/skipped prayers: Aysel Sengün statement to Bundeskriminalamt, 9/15/01, authors’ collection, Fisk, The Great War, 1051–
56 alcohol/“Once”: Corbin, 137, eds. Der Spiegel, 190
57 nightclubs: The Independent (U.K.), 9/16/01, LAT, 10/23/01
58 girls: eds. Der Spiegel, 246
59 Sengün: Aysel Sengün statement to Bundeskriminalamt, 9/15/01, authors’ collection, Corbin, 137, McDermott, 51, 80
60 got religion: McDermott, 51; CR, 163, Newsday, 8/15/07
61 imam/“terrorist”: Tenet identified the imam as Abdulrahman al-Makhadi (Testimony of George Tenet, JI, 6/18/02, & see National Drug Intelligence Center for the FBI, “265D-NY-280350, TWINBOM-PENTTBOM, Biographical Report,” 11/26/01, authors’ collection)
62 “criticized”: Aysel Sengün statement to Bundeskriminalamt, 9/15/01, authors’ collection
63 dentistry/switched: CR, 163
64 “Someone explained”/pregnant: LAT, 1/27/03
65 Shehhi moved/emulating: CR, 162–; Atta/“leader”: transcript, int. Dittmar Machule
66 talked angrily: MSNBC Investigates: The Making of the Death Pilots, MSNBC, 4/7/02 & see Chicago Tribune, 9/11/04.
67 “always”/“the war”: Four Corners: A Mission to Die For, 10/18/01, www.abc.net.au. The student was Ralph Bodenstein. One account of Bodenstein’s recollections states that Atta was angered by Israel’s treatment of Palestinians but that—as an Egyptian—he was “most vehement about matters in his own country.” He often raised the Palestine issue at religious classes he gave to younger Muslims. In his youth, Atta may have been influenced on the Palestine issue by his father. Australian reporter Liz Jackson has recalled that after 9/11, when she approached Atta Sr. for an interview, he “said he’d only talk if we paid US $25,000 to the Palestinian intifada. Without that, if we continued filming, he’d break the camera” (one account: Miller & Stone, 251; raised: Chicago Tribune, 9/11/04, McDermott, 36; Atta Sr.: Four Corners: A Mission to Die For, 10/18/01, www.abc.net.au).
68 Brotherhood abjures violence: see “History of the Muslim Brotherhood,” www.ikhanweb.com
69 exceptions: Benjamin & Simon, 86
70 recruiting grounds/engineering club: WP, 9/22/01
71 men from Allepo: transcript, int. Dittmar Machule, McDermott, 29.
72 Zammar/Darkazanli: CR, 164, 167, McDermott, 72–. Zammar has languished in a jail in Syria since his arrest the month after 9/11. A Syrian court convicted him of membership of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in Syria. Because he was allegedly tortured in prison, Amnesty International has issued an appeal on his behalf. Darkazanli has not been accused of any crime in Germany. Spanish prosecutors sought his extradition, however, in 2004, citing alleged contacts with al Qaeda operatives there. Darkazanli was in Spain in summer 2001 at approximately the same time as Atta and Binalshibh (Zammar: “Unfair Trial & Sentencing of Muhammad Haydar Zammar,” Appeal Case, 3rd Update, 3/22/07, www.amnestyusa.org, Der Spiegel, 11/21/05; Darkazanli: “Germany’s Imam Mamoun Darkazanli,” www.jamestown.org, 8/27/10, JI, Report, 183–).
73 “coincidence”: Chicago Tribune, 11/16/02, Derek Flood, “Germany’s Imam Mamoun Darkazanli,” Vol. 1, No. 8, www.jamestown.org.
74 boxes/books/“I will pay”: WP, 9/11/02
75 Atta vanished/“Don’t ask”: CR, 168, Fouda & Fielding, 123, transcript, int. Dittmar Machule, LAT, 9/1/02, but see Corbin, 139—which suggests he disappeared for more than a year. Tenet so speculated, even though KSM apparently denied to interrogators that Atta went to Afghanistan prior to late 1999 (Testimony of George Tenet, JI, 6/18/02, KSM SUBST).
76 passport lost/new one: Testimony of George Tenet, JI, 6/18/02, McDermott, 57
77 speculation: ibid., Testimony of George Tenet, MFR 04019351, 12/10/03
78 “serve the interests”: ed. Lawrence, 60–
79 “This was sensitive”: Kean & Hamilton, 284–
80 bring attack forward: KSM SUBST
81 KSM concern: McDermott, 117–
82 “the atrocities”: KSM SUBST
83 KSM claims: “Verbatim Transcription of Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing for ISN 10024,” 3/10/07, www.defense.gov
84 “entitled”: int. Yousef by Raghida Dergham, Al Hayat, 4/12/95
85 “If you ask”: McDermott, 13
86 “world Jewish conspiracy”: CR, 161
87 “great-grandparents”: LAT, 10/17/04
88 “How can you”: CR, 162
89 “He enlightened”: McDermott, 80
90 “With God’s”: ed. Lawrence, 61
91 “The problem”: McDermott, 82
92 met/prayed, etc.: ibid., 58–
93 apartment: “Hamburger Mietvertrag für Wohnraum,” Marienstrasse 54, 10/31/98, authors’ collection
94 Dar al-Ansar: McDermott, 63, CR, 164, 495n82. See Notes for Ch. 18, p. 510
95 “the highest”: McDermott, 62
96 “dissatisfied”: ibid., 51–, 275n15
97 dying for faith: ibid., 49
98 “love death”: “Ladenese Epistle: Declaration of War,” pts. I, II, III, www.washingtonpost.com.
99 “The morning”/
“the smell”: McDermott, 88, 280n43. Jarrah’s notes, found with his Hamburg college papers, are in German police files. The 1996 bin Laden declaration—reported in Ch. 22, p. 253—not only includes the “death as you love life” reference but also multiple references to Paradise. Bin Laden was to use almost exactly the same phrase in a letter in Arabic posted on the Internet in October 2002 (notes: McDermott, 89, 280n43; OBL letter: ed. Lawrence, 172)
100 “Paradise”: McDermott, 85
101 “Muslims are”: WP, 9/11/02, CR, 496n88. Washington Post reporter Peter Finn dated the Atta-Nickels exchange as having occurred in November 1999. The commission dates it merely to the year 1999 (WP, 9/11/02, CR, 496n88).
102 traveled Afghanistan: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted], FBI, 2/1/07, INTELWIRE, Report, JI, 134–, MFR 04019351, 12/10/03. Binalshibh, the sole survivor of the group from Germany, would tell interrogators that they had initially planned to fight in Chechnya. The decision to go instead to Afghanistan, he claimed, was the outcome of an encounter with a man he and two others of the Hamburg group met by chance on a train. This claim may or may not be true. According to Binalshibh, the man on the train—whom he identified as Khalid al-Masri—advised them to talk with a second man named Mohamed Slahi. Slahi, when they went to see him, allegedly said it was difficult to get to Chechnya and suggested they travel instead to Afghanistan via Pakistan. Khalid al-Masri, if he ever existed, has yet to be identified. (He is not the man of the same name who after 9/11 was seized in Macedonia by a U.S. “snatch team,” reportedly tortured, and—when CIA officials concluded he had been wrongfully detained—released by being dumped at the roadside in Albania. Slahi was arrested soon after 9/11 and eventually transferred to Guantánamo. A Senate inquiry found that he was subjected to serious ill treatment. Though Slahi admitted having met Binalshibh and his two comrades, he denied having suggested they go to Afghanistan. At the time of writing he remains in Guantánamo but has not been charged. A federal judge ruled in March 2010 that a prosecution of Slahi was impossible because his file was “so tainted by coercion and mistreatment.” In November 2010, a U.S. appeals court ordered the judge to review the case. Mohammed Zammar, meanwhile—who had also reportedly been tortured, not in U.S. custody but in a Syrian jail—told visiting German investigators that he “helped” Binalshibh and the others get to Afghanistan (encounter/Masri/advised: CR, 165, 496n90, German translation of interrogation of Binalshibh provided to prosecution in Motassadeq case, Vereinigte Staaten Von Amerika gegen Zacarias Moussaoui, 4/28/05, authors’ collection; snatched/dumped Albania: WP, 12/4/05, The Independent [U.K.], 5/1907; Slahi: Report, “Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody,” U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, 110th Cong. 2nd Sess., 11/20/08, http://armed-services.senate.gov, 138–, Miami Herald, 11/5/10, WP, 3/24/10; Zammar: Der Spiegel, 11/21/05).
103 bodyguard recalled: The bodyguard was Nasser al-Bahri. Fahd al-Quso, a Yemeni interrogated after 9/11, said he, too, had seen Shehhi in Kandahar, when he became sick (Bahri: Newsweek, 9/3/07, Wright, 366 & see Sunday Times [London], 10/1/06; Quso: New Yorker. 7/10 & 17/06)
104 Another jihadi: Bergen, OBL I Know, 262
105 handwritten note: FBI translation,12/21/01, “Misc. Requests for Documents, FBI-03013592, Packet 2,” CF.
106 videotape/“will”: The footage was described in a story by Yosri Fouda in the London Sunday Times on October 1, 2006. The same day, NBC News showed still photos from the videotape. According to the Times article, the videotape was “obtained through a previously tested channel.” The article also said that sources from both al Qaeda and the United States had confirmed the authenticity of the tape, “on condition of anonymity.” Date marks on the footage show that bin Laden was filmed on January 8 and the future hijackers on January 18, 2000. Atta, Jarrah, and Binalshibh apparently were in Afghanistan on both those days. The different date marks seem to indicate that bin Laden was not present when Atta and Jarrah recorded their martyrdom statements. NBC’s story reported, however, that “U.S. government analysis … identifies hijackers Atta and Jarrah in the large crowd at bin Laden’s feet” (Sunday Times [London] & NBC News, 10/1/06).
107 KSM/Binalshibh described: KSM SUBST, CR, 166–, Fouda & Fielding, 123–, 126, Staff Statement 16, CO
108 Shehhi left/ailment: ibid., CR, 166, New Yorker, 7/10/06, “PENTTBOM, Summary of Captioned Investigation,” 11/5/01, authors’ collection
109 “middling”: KSM SUBST
110 oath: Staff Statement 16, CO, CR, 166–. Shehhi had apparently taken the oath before leaving (CR 166–)
111 OBL considered/select targets: KSM SUBST
112 Jarrah endured: Fouda & Fielding, 128
113 tricks of trade: KSM SUBST
114 airline schedules: Staff Statement 16, CO “learning”/“be normal”: KSM SUBST
115 phone code: New Yorker, 9/13/10
116 “PlayStation”: Daily Mail (U.K.), 4/17/10
117 “worked hard”/Hazmi deputy: KSM SUBST; kunyahs: These kunyahs, and all the honorifics assigned to what became a nineteen-man hijack team, appear in Masterminds of Terror, by Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding, 110, 121n15.
118 “wonderful evening”: Clinton, 881
119 Jordan/Zubaydah: NYT, 1/15/01, Tenet, 125
120 Ressam caught/plan: Counterterrorism to All Field Stations, FBI 265A-SE-83340, etc., 12/29/1999, INTELWIRE, CR, 176–, Staff Statement 15, CO, Richard Clarke, 211, Bergen, Holy War Inc., 140–, NYT, 12/15/01, Burke, 198–, 208–
121 “aware”: Burke, 209, Report, JI, Appendix, 44, CR, 261
122 Clinton rang: Coll, Ghost Wars, 487
123 Berger met: Shenon, 234, 261
124 wiretap orders: Farmer, 39
125 “Foreign”: CR, 179
126 Berger/Clarke Christmas: Richard Clarke, 213, MFR 04021455, 2/13/04
127 thousands on duty/vigil: Richard Clarke, Testimony of Louis Freeh, 4/13/04, CO
128 O’Neill: Miller & Stone, 222–.
129 “I think”/“popped”: Richard Clarke, 214. U.S. intelligence worried not only about December 31 as the date of a possible attack, but also about January 3 and 6. The 3rd is considered a night of destiny in Islam, while January 6, 2000, coincided with the end of Ramadan. As discovered later, an attack was indeed planned for the 3rd—a bombing of the U.S. destroyer Sullivans, which was visiting the Yemeni port of Aden. The explosives-loaded boat, however, sank in the surf before the operation could be carried out. This botched effort preceded by nine months the successful attack on the USS Cole, also in Aden, which is covered in Ch. 25. Walid bin Attash, one of the Yemenis bin Laden initially selected for the 9/11 operation, reportedly played a role in planning both bombings (Jan. 3/6: FBI IG; Sullivans/Attash: Staff Statement 2, CO).
130 “They said”: Benjamin & Simon, 313.
131 “All Islamic”: Staff Report, “Monograph on the Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security,” 8/26/04, CF
132 1998 exercise: Kean & Hamilton, 109, CR, 345
133 “bin Laden and his”: CR, 128
134 “unconventional”: Sunday Times (London), 6/9/02
135 “America”: “New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century,” Commission on National Security, 9/15/99, www.fas.org. The commission was chaired by former U.S. senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman
136 Library of Congress report: Rex Hudson, “The Sociology & Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?,” Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 9/99, 7, NYT, 5/18/02.
137 America West/“walked into”/door locked/alerted/handcuffs/interrogation: Judgment, Muhammad Al-Qudhai’een et al. v. America West Airlines et al., Case No. C-2-00-1380, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, 4/30/03 Manager, Chicago Civil Aviation Security Office to Director, undated FAA Memo, “Other Flights 9/11, FAA Memo re America West 90,” B7, T7, CF, Report, JI, 6
138 “casing”: MFR 04017521, 1/7/04, MFR 04019354, 7/22/03
139 “tied”: MFR 04019354, 7/22/03
140 poster: Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/24/02 (as supplemented 10/17/02), JI
141 “explosive”: ibid.
142 arrested with Zubaydah: CR, 521n60. The man who tried the cockpit door was Muhammad al-Qudhai’een and his companion Hamdan al-Shalawi. Both insisted that Qudhai’een had merely wished to find the airplane lavatory. They subsequently sued America West, alleging racial stereotyping, but the suit was dismissed. Qudhai’een, interviewed in Saudi Arabia by 9/11 Commission staff, said he thought the perpetrators of 9/11 were “ignorant” people. In his interview, Shalawi said he recalled having encountered future pilot hijacker Hani Hanjour before the incident on the airplane. He acknowledged having done “charity work” in Afghanistan back in 1987, but denied ever having been there since. Three officers of the Mabahith, Saudi Arabia’s internal security service, were present during the commission’s interviews of both Shalawi and Qudhai’een. The associate with a bin Laden poster on his wall was Zacaria Soubra, then a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona (Qudhai’een, Shalawi sued: Judgment, Muhammad Al-Qudhai’een et al. v. America West Airlines et al., No. C-2–00–1380, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, 4/30/03; “ignorant”/“charity work”/Mabahith: MFR int. Muhammad al-Qudhai’een, 10/26/03 & MFR int. Hamdan bin al-Shalawi, 10/23/03, “Staff Delegation International Trip,” T1A, CF; Soubra: Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/24/02 [as supplemented 10/17/02], JI, FBI IG).
143 exploratory trips: Fouda & Fielding, 158, Bergen, OBL I Know, 302
144 1999 reports: Report, JI, 334, Statements of Eleanor Hill, 9/18/02, 9/24/02 (as supplemented 10/17/02), JI, FBI IG
145 “The purpose”/found no indication/INS: ibid., Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/24/02, (as supplemented 10/17/02), JI
146 “very frustrating”; MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF.
CHAPTER 25
1 training camp/combat/magazines/games/movies: CR, 157, 493n50, 54
2 phone directories/English/two Yemenis: KSM SUBST, CR, 157–.
3 Mihdhar left early: Detainees’ accounts varied as to whether Mihdhar completed the physical training course. KSM said Mihdhar was not present for the familiarization-with-U.S.-life sessions that Hazmi attended—he had supposedly had similar instruction earlier (CR, 493n50 & 53)
The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden Page 66