AL QAEDA AIMS AT THE AMERICAN HOMELAND
TERRORIST ENTREPRENEURS
By early 1999, al Qaeda was already a potent adversary of the United States. Bin
Ladin and his chief of operations, Abu Hafs al Masri, also known as Mohammed Atef,
occupied undisputed leadership positions atop al Qaeda's organizational structure.
Within this structure, al Qaeda's worldwide terrorist operations relied heavily on
the ideas and work of enterprising and strongwilled field commanders who enjoyed
considerable autonomy. To understand how the organization actually worked and to
introduce the origins of the 9/11 plot, we briefly examine three of these
subordinate commanders: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Riduan Isamuddin (better known
as Hambali), and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. We will devote the most attention to
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief manager of the "planes operation." Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed No one exemplifies the model of the terrorist entrepreneur more clearly
than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. KSM
followed a rather tortuous path to his eventual membership in al Qaeda.
Highly educated and equally comfortable in a government office or a terrorist
safehouse, KSM applied his imagination, technical aptitude, and managerial skills to
hatching and planning an extraordinary array of terrorist schemes. These ideas
included conventional car bombing, political assassination, aircraft bombing,
hijacking, reservoir poisoning, and, ultimately, the use of aircraft as missiles
guided by suicide operatives.
Like his nephew Ramzi Yousef (three years KSM's junior), KSM grew up in Kuwait but
traces his ethnic lineage to the Baluchistan region straddling Iran and Pakistan.
Raised in a religious family, KSM claims to have joined the Muslim Brotherhood at
age 16 and to have become enamored of violent jihad at youth camps in the desert. In
1983, following his graduation from secondary school, KSM left Kuwait to enroll at
Chowan College, a small Baptist school in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. After a
semester at Chowan, KSM transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical
State University in Greensboro, which he attended with Yousef 's brother, another
future al Qaeda member. KSM earned a degree in mechanical engineering in December
1986.
Although he apparently did not attract attention for extreme Islamist beliefs or
activities while in the United States, KSM plunged into the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad
soon after graduating from college. Visiting Pakistan for the first time in early
1987, he traveled to Peshawar, where his brother Zahid introduced him to the famous
Afghan mujahid Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, head of the Hizbul- Ittihad El-Islami (Islamic
Union Party). Sayyaf became KSM's mentor and provided KSM with military training at
Sayyaf 's Sada camp. KSM claims he then fought the Soviets and remained at the front
for three months before being summoned to perform administrative duties for Abdullah
Azzam. KSM next took a job working for an electronics firm that catered to the
communications needs of Afghan groups, where he learned about drills used to
excavate caves in Afghanistan.
Between 1988 and 1992, KSM helped run a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in
Peshawar and Jalalabad; sponsored by Sayyaf, it was designed to aid young Afghan
mujahideen. In 1992, KSM spent some time fighting alongside the mujahideen in Bosnia
and supporting that effort with financial donations. After returning briefly to
Pakistan, he moved his family to Qatar at the suggestion of the former minister of
Islamic affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Abdallah bin Khalid bin Hamad al Thani. KSM took a
position in Qatar as project engineer with the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and
Water. Although he engaged in extensive international travel during his tenure at
the ministry-much of it in furtherance of terrorist activity-KSM would hold his
position there until early 1996, when he fled to Pakistan to avoid capture by U.S.
authorities.
KSM first came to the attention of U.S. law enforcement as a result of his cameo role
in the first World Trade Center bombing. According to KSM, he learned of Ramzi
Yousef 's intention to launch an attack inside the United States in 1991 or 1992,
when Yousef was receiving explosives training in Afghanistan. During the fall of
1992, while Yousef was building the bomb he would use in that attack, KSM and Yousef
had numerous telephone conversations during which Yousef discussed his progress and
sought additional funding. On November 3, 1992, KSM wired $660 from Qatar to the
bank account of Yousef 's co-conspirator, Mohammed Salameh. KSM does not appear to
have contributed any more substantially to this operation.
Yousef 's instant notoriety as the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
inspired KSM to become involved in planning attacks against the United States. By
his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his
experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S.
foreign policy favoring Israel. In 1994, KSM accompanied Yousef to the Philippines,
and the two of them began planning what is now known as the Manila air or "Bojinka"
plot-the intended bombing of 12 U.S. commercial jumbo jets over the Pacific during a
two-day span. This marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a
terrorist operation. While sharing an apartment in Manila during the summer of 1994,
he and Yousef acquired chemicals and other materials necessary to construct bombs
and timers. They also cased target flights to Hong Kong and Seoul that would have
onward legs to the United States. During this same period, KSM and Yousef also
developed plans to assassinate President Clinton during his November 1994 trip to
Manila, and to bomb U.S.-bound cargo carriers by smuggling jackets containing
nitrocellulose on board.
KSM left the Philippines in September 1994 and met up with Yousef in Karachi
following their casing flights. There they enlisted Wali Khan Amin Shah, also known
as Usama Asmurai, in the Manila air plot. During the fall of 1994, Yousef returned
to Manila and successfully tested the digital watch timer he had invented, bombing a
movie theater and a Philippine Airlines flight en route to Tokyo. The plot unraveled
after the Philippine authorities discovered Yousef 's bomb-making operation in
Manila; but by that time, KSM was safely back at his government job in Qatar. Yousef
attempted to follow through on the cargo carriers plan, but he was arrested in
Islamabad by Pakistani authorities on February 7, 1995, after an accomplice turned
him in.
KSM continued to travel among the worldwide jihadist community after Yousef 's
arrest, visiting the Sudan, Yemen, Malaysia, and Brazil in 1995. No clear evidence
connects him to terrorist activities in those locations. While in Sudan, he
reportedly failed in his attempt to meet with Bin Ladin. But KSM did see Atef, who
gave him a contact in Brazil. In January 1996, well aware that U.S. authorities were
chasing him, he left Qatar for good and fled to Afghanistan, where he renewed his
relationship with Rasul Sayyaf.
Just as KSM was reestablishing himself in Afghanistan in mid-1996, Bin Ladin and his
colleagues were also completing their migration from Sudan. Through Atef, KSM
arranged a meeting with Bin Ladin inTora Bora, a mountainous redoubt from the Afghan
war days. At the meeting, KSM presented the al Qaeda leader with a menu of ideas for
terrorist operations. According to KSM, this meeting was the first time he had seen
Bin Ladin since 1989. Although they had fought together in 1987, Bin Ladin and KSM
did not yet enjoy an especially close working relationship. Indeed, KSM has
acknowledged that Bin Ladin likely agreed to meet with him because of the renown of
his nephew, Yousef.
At the meeting, KSM briefed Bin Ladin and Atef on the first World Trade Center
bombing, the Manila air plot, the cargo carriers plan, and other activities pursued
by KSM and his colleagues in the Philippines. KSM also presented a proposal for an
operation that would involve training pilots who would crash planes into buildings
in the United States. This proposal eventually would become the 9/11 operation.
KSM knew that the successful staging of such an attack would require personnel,
money, and logistical support that only an extensive and well-funded organization
like al Qaeda could provide. He thought the operation might appeal to Bin Ladin, who
had a long record of denouncing the United States.
From KSM's perspective, Bin Ladin was in the process of consolidating his new
position in Afghanistan while hearing out others' ideas, and had not yet settled on
an agenda for future anti-U.S. operations. At the meeting, Bin Ladin listened to
KSM's ideas without much comment, but did ask KSM formally to join al Qaeda and move
his family to Afghanistan.
KSM declined. He preferred to remain independent and retain the option of working
with other mujahideen groups still operating in Afghanistan, including the group led
by his old mentor, Sayyaf. Sayyaf was close to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the
Northern Alliance. Therefore working with him might be a problem for KSM because Bin
Ladin was building ties to the rival Taliban.
After meeting with Bin Ladin, KSM says he journeyed onward to India, Indonesia, and
Malaysia, where he met with Jemaah Islamiah's Hambali. Hambali was an Indonesian
veteran of the Afghan war looking to expand the jihad into Southeast Asia. In Iran,
KSM rejoined his family and arranged to move them to Karachi; he claims to have
relocated by January 1997.
After settling his family in Karachi, KSM tried to join the mujahid leader Ibn al
Khattab in Chechnya. Unable to travel through Azerbaijan, KSM returned to Karachi
and then to Afghanistan to renew contacts with Bin Ladin and his colleagues. Though
KSM may not have been a member of al Qaeda at this time, he admits traveling
frequently between Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1997 and the first half of 1998,
visiting Bin Ladin and cultivating relationships with his lieutenants, Atef and Sayf
al Adl, by assisting them with computer and media projects.
According to KSM, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam marked a watershed in the evolution of the 9/11 plot. KSM claims these
bombings convinced him that Bin Ladin was truly committed to attacking the United
States. He continued to make himself useful, collecting news articles and helping
other al Qaeda members with their outdated computer equipment. Bin Ladin, apparently
at Atef 's urging, finally decided to give KSM the green light for the 9/11
operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999.
KSM then accepted Bin Ladin's standing invitation to move to Kandahar and work
directly with al Qaeda. In addition to supervising the planning and preparations for
the 9/11 operation, KSM worked with and eventually led al Qaeda's media committee.
But KSM states he refused to swear a formal oath of allegiance to Bin Ladin, thereby
retaining a last vestige of his cherished autonomy.
At this point, late 1998 to early 1999, planning for the 9/11 operation began in
earnest. Yet while the 9/11 project occupied the bulk of KSM's attention, he
continued to consider other possibilities for terrorist attacks. For example, he
sent al Qaeda operative Issa al Britani to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to learn about
the jihad in Southeast Asia from Hambali. Thereafter, KSM claims, at Bin Ladin's
direction in early 2001, he sent Britani to the United States to case potential
economic and "Jewish" targets in New York City. Furthermore, during the summer of
2001, KSM approached Bin Ladin with the idea of recruiting a Saudi Arabian air force
pilot to commandeer a Saudi fighter jet and attack the Israeli city of Eilat. Bin
Ladin reportedly liked this proposal, but he instructed KSM to concentrate on the
9/11 operation first. Similarly, KSM's proposals to Atef around this same time for
attacks in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Maldives were never executed,
although Hambali's Jemaah Islamiah operatives did some casing of possible
targets.
KSM appears to have been popular among the al Qaeda rank and file. He was reportedly
regarded as an effective leader, especially after the 9/11 attacks. Co-workers
describe him as an intelligent, efficient, and even-tempered manager who approached
his projects with a single-minded dedication that he expected his colleagues to
share. Al Qaeda associate Abu Zubaydah has expressed more qualified admiration for
KSM's innate creativity, emphasizing instead his ability to incorporate the
improvements suggested by others. Nashiri has been similarly measured, observing
that although KSM floated many general ideas for attacks, he rarely conceived a
specific operation himself. 19 Perhaps these estimates reflect a touch of jealousy;
in any case, KSM was plainly a capable coordinator, having had years to hone his
skills and build relationships.
Hambali
Al Qaeda's success in fostering terrorism in Southeast Asia stems largely from its
close relationship with Jemaah Islamiah (JI). In that relationship, Hambali became
the key coordinator. Born and educated in Indonesia, Hambali moved to Malaysia in
the early 1980s to find work. There he claims to have become a follower of the
Islamist extremist teachings of various clerics, including one named Abdullah
Sungkar. Sungkar first inspired Hambali to share the vision of establishing a
radical Islamist regime in Southeast Asia, then furthered Hambali's instruction in
jihad by sending him to Afghanistan in 1986. After undergoing training at Rasul
Sayyaf 's Sada camp (where KSM would later train), Hambali fought against the
Soviets; he eventually returned to Malaysia after 18 months in Afghanistan. By 1998,
Hambali would assume responsibility for the Malaysia/Singapore region within
Sungkar's newly formed terrorist organization, the JI.
Also by 1998, Sungkar and JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir had accepted Bin
Ladin's offer to ally JI with al Qaeda in waging war against Christians and
Jews.
Hambali met with KSM in Karachi to arrange for JI members to receive training in
Afghanistan at al Qaeda's camps. In addition to his close working relationship with
KSM, Hambali soon began dealing with Atef as well. Al Qaeda began funding JI's
increasingly ambitious terrorist plans, which Atef and KSM sought to expand. Under
this arrangement, JI would perform the necessary casing activities and locate
bomb-making materials and other supplies. Al Qaeda would underwrite operations,
provide bomb-making expertise, and deliver suicide operatives.
The al Qaeda-JI partnership yielded a number of proposals that would marry al Qaeda's
financial and technical strengths with JI's access to materials and local
operatives. Here, Hambali played the critical role of coordinator, as he distributed
al Qaeda funds earmarked for the joint operations. In one especially notable
example, Atef turned to Hambali when al Qaeda needed a scientist to take over its
biological weapons program. Hambali obliged by introducing a U.S.- educated JI
member, Yazid Sufaat, to Ayman al Zawahiri in Kandahar. In 2001, Sufaat would spend
several months attempting to cultivate anthrax for al Qaeda in a laboratory he
helped set up near the Kandahar airport.
Hambali did not originally orient JI's operations toward attacking the United States,
but his involvement with al Qaeda appears to have inspired him to pursue American
targets. KSM, in his post-capture interrogations, has taken credit for this shift,
claiming to have urged the JI operations chief to concentrate on attacks designed to
hurt the U.S. economy.
Hambali's newfound interest in striking against the United States manifested itself
in a spate of terrorist plans. Fortunately, none came to fruition.
In addition to staging actual terrorist attacks in partnership with al Qaeda, Hambali
and JI assisted al Qaeda operatives passing through Kuala Lumpur. One important
occasion was in December 1999-January 2000. Hambali accommodated KSM's requests to
help several veterans whom KSM had just finished training in Karachi. They included
Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Khallad, who later would help bomb the USS Cole,
and future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar. Hambali arranged
lodging for them and helped them purchase airline tickets for their onward travel.
Later that year, Hambali and his crew would provide accommodations and other
assistance (including information on flight schools and help in acquiring ammonium
nitrate) for Zacarias Moussaoui, an al Qaeda operative sent to Malaysia by Atef and
KSM.
Hambali used Bin Ladin's Afghan facilities as a training ground for JI recruits.
Though he had a close relationship with Atef and KSM, he maintained JI's
institutional independence from al Qaeda. Hambali insists that he did not discuss
operations with Bin Ladin or swear allegiance to him, having already given such a
pledge of loyalty to Bashir, Sungkar's successor as JI leader. Thus, like any
powerful bureaucrat defending his domain, Hambali objected when al Qaeda leadership
tried to assign JI members to terrorist projects without notifying him.
Abd al Rahim al Nashiri KSM and Hambali both decided to join forces with al Qaeda
because their terrorist aspirations required the money and manpower that only a
robust organization like al Qaeda could supply. On the other hand, Abd al Rahim al
Nashiri-the mastermind of the Cole bombing and the eventual head of al Qaeda
operations in the Arabian Peninsula-appears to have originally been recruited to his
career as a terrorist by Bin Ladin himself.
Having already participated in the Afghan jihad, Nashiri accompanied a group of some
30 mujahideen in pursuit of jihad in Tajikistan in 1996. When serious fighting
failed to materialize, the group traveled to Jalalabad and encountered Bin Ladin,
who had recently returned from Sudan. Bin Ladin addressed them at length, urging the
group to join him in a "jihad against the Americans." Although all were urged to
swear loyalty to Bin Ladin, many, including Nashiri, found the notion distasteful
and refused. After several days of indoctrination that included a barrage of news
clippings and television documentaries, Nashiri left Afghanistan, first returning to
his native Saudi Arabia and then visiting his home in Yemen. There, he says, the
idea for his first terrorist operation took shape as he noticed many U.S. and other
foreign ships plying the waters along the southwest coast of Yemen.
Nashiri returned to Afghanistan, probably in 1997, primarily to check on relatives
fighting there and also to learn about the Taliban. He again encountered Bin Ladin,
still recruiting for "the coming battle with the United States." Nashiri pursued a
more conventional military jihad, joining the Taliban forces in their fight against
Ahmed Massoud's Northern Alliance and shuttling back and forth between the front and
Kandahar, where he would see Bin Ladin and meet with other mujahideen. During this
period, Nashiri also led a plot to smuggle four Russian-made antitank missiles into
Saudi Arabia from Yemen in early 1998 and helped an embassy bombing operative obtain
a Yemeni passport.
At some point, Nashiri joined al Qaeda. His cousin, Jihad Mohammad Ali al Makki, also
known as Azzam, was a suicide bomber for the Nairobi attack. Nashiri traveled
between Yemen and Afghanistan. In late 1998, Nashiri proposed mounting an attack
against a U.S.vessel. Bin Ladin approved. He directed Nashiri to start the planning
and send operatives to Yemen, and he later provided money.
Nashiri reported directly to Bin Ladin, the only other person who, according to
Nashiri, knew all the details of the operation. When Nashiri had difficulty finding
U.S. naval vessels to attack along the western coast of Yemen, Bin Ladin reportedly
instructed him to case the Port of Aden, on the southern coast, instead.
The eventual result was an attempted attack on the USS The Sullivans in January 2000
and the successful attack, in October 2000, on the USS Cole.
Nashiri's success brought him instant status within al Qaeda. He later was recognized
as the chief of al Qaeda operations in and around the Arabian Peninsula. While
Nashiri continued to consult Bin Ladin on the planning of subsequent terrorist
projects, he retained discretion in selecting operatives and devising attacks. In
the two years between the Cole bombing and Nashiri's capture, he would supervise
several more proposed operations for al Qaeda. The October 6, 2002, bombing of the
French tanker Limburg in the Gulf of Aden also was Nashiri's handiwork. Although Bin
Ladin urged Nashiri to continue plotting strikes against U.S. interests in the
Persian Gulf, Nashiri maintains that he actually delayed one of these projects
because of security concerns.31Those concerns, it seems, were well placed, as
Nashiri's November 2002 capture in the United Arab Emirates finally ended his career
as a terrorist.
THE "PLANES OPERATION"
According to KSM, he started to think about attacking the United States after Yousef
returned to Pakistan following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Like Yousef, KSM
reasoned he could best influence U.S. policy by targeting the country's economy. KSM
and Yousef reportedly brainstormed together about what drove the U.S. economy. New
York, which KSM considered the economic capital of the United States, therefore
became the primary target. For similar reasons, California also became a target for
KSM.
KSM claims that the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center taught him that bombs
and explosives could be problematic, and that he needed to graduate to a more novel
form of attack. He maintains that he and Yousef began thinking about using aircraft
as weapons while working on the Manila air/Bojinka plot, and speculated about
striking the World Trade Center and CIA headquarters as early as 1995.
Certainly KSM was not alone in contemplating new kinds of terrorist operations. A
study reportedly conducted by Atef, while he and Bin Ladin were still in Sudan,
concluded that traditional terrorist hijacking operations did not fit the needs of
al Qaeda, because such hijackings were used to negotiate the release of prisoners
rather than to inflict mass casualties. The study is said to have considered the
feasibility of hijacking planes and blowing them up in flight, paralleling the
Bojinka concept. Such a study, if it actually existed, yields significant insight
into the thinking of al Qaeda's leaders: (1) they rejected hijackings aimed at
gaining the release of imprisoned comrades as too complex, because al Qaeda had no
friendly countries in which to land a plane and then negotiate; (2) they considered
the bombing of commercial flights in midair-as carried out against Pan Am Flight 103
over Lockerbie, Scotland- a promising means to inflict massive casualties; and (3)
they did not yet consider using hijacked aircraft as weapons against other
targets.
KSM has insisted to his interrogators that he always contemplated hijacking and
crashing large commercial aircraft. Indeed, KSM describes a grandiose original plan:
a total of ten aircraft to be hijacked, nine of which would crash into targets on
both coasts-they included those eventually hit on September 11 plus CIA and FBI
headquarters, nuclear power plants, and the tallest buildings in California and the
state of Washington. KSM himself was to land the tenth plane at a U.S. airport and,
after killing all adult male passengers on board and alerting the media, deliver a
speech excoriating U.S. support for Israel, the Philippines, and repressive
governments in the Arab world. Beyond KSM's rationalizations about targeting the
U.S. economy, this vision gives a better glimpse of his true ambitions. This is
theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star-the
superterrorist.
KSM concedes that this proposal received a lukewarm response from al Qaeda leaders
skeptical of its scale and complexity. Although Bin Ladin listened to KSM's
proposal, he was not convinced that it was practical. As mentioned earlier, Bin
Ladin was receiving numerous ideas for potential operations- KSM's proposal to
attack U.S. targets with commercial airplanes was only one of many.
KSM presents himself as an entrepreneur seeking venture capital and people. He simply
wanted al Qaeda to supply the money and operatives needed for the attack while
retaining his independence. It is easy to question such a statement. Money is one
thing; supplying a cadre of trained operatives willing to die is much more. Thus,
although KSM contends he would have been just as likely to consider working with any
comparable terrorist organization, he gives no indication of what other groups he
thought could supply such exceptional commodities.
KSM acknowledges formally joining al Qaeda, in late 1998 or 1999, and states that
soon afterward, Bin Ladin also made the decision to support his proposal to attack
the United States using commercial airplanes as weapons. Though KSM speculates about
how Bin Ladin came to share his preoccupation with attacking America, Bin Ladin in
fact had long been an opponent of the United States. KSM thinks that Atef may have
persuaded Bin Ladin to approve this specific proposal. Atef 's role in the entire
operation is unquestionably very significant but tends to fade into the background,
in part because Atef himself is not available to describe it. He was killed in
November 2001 by an American air strike in Afghanistan.
Bin Ladin summoned KSM to Kandahar in March or April 1999 to tell him that al Qaeda
would support his proposal. The plot was now referred to within al Qaeda as the
"planes operation."
The Plan Evolves
Bin Ladin reportedly discussed the planes operation with KSM and Atef in a series of
meetings in the spring of 1999 at the al Matar complex near Kandahar. KSM's original
concept of using one of the hijacked planes to make a media statement was scrapped,
but Bin Ladin considered the basic idea feasible. Bin Ladin, Atef, and KSM developed
an initial list of targets. These included the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the
Pentagon, and the World Trade Center. According to KSM, Bin Ladin wanted to destroy
the White House and the Pentagon, KSM wanted to strike the World Trade Center, and
all of them wanted to hit the Capitol. No one else was involved in the initial
selection of targets.
Bin Ladin also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives: Khalid
al Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, Khallad, and Abu Bara al Yemeni. During the al Matar
meetings, Bin Ladin told KSM that Mihdhar and Hazmi were so eager to participate in
an operation against the United States that they had already obtained U.S. visas.
KSM states that they had done so on their own after the suicide of their friend
Azzam (Nashiri's cousin) in carrying out the Nairobi bombing. KSM had not met them.
His only guidance from Bin Ladin was that the two should eventually go to the United
States for pilot training.
Hazmi and Mihdhar were Saudi nationals, born in Mecca. Like the others in this
initial group of selectees, they were already experienced mujahideen. They had
traveled together to fight in Bosnia in a group that journeyed to the Balkans in
1995. By the time Hazmi and Mihdhar were assigned to the planes operation in early
1999, they had visited Afghanistan on several occasions.
Khallad was another veteran mujahid, like much of his family. His father had been
expelled from Yemen because of his extremist views. Khallad had grown up in Saudi
Arabia, where his father knew Bin Ladin, Abdullah Azzam, and Omar Abdel Rahman (the
"Blind Sheikh"). Khallad departed for Afghanistan in 1994 at the age of 15. Three
years later, he lost his lower right leg in a battle with the Northern Alliance, a
battle in which one of his brothers died. After this experience, he pledged
allegiance to Bin Ladin-whom he had first met as a child in Jeddah-and volunteered
to become a suicide operative.
When Khallad applied for a U.S. visa, however, his application was denied. Earlier in
1999, Bin Ladin had sent Khallad to Yemen to help Nashiri obtain explosives for the
planned ship-bombing and to obtain a visa to visit the United States, so that he
could participate in an operation there. Khallad applied under another name, using
the cover story that he would be visiting a medical clinic to obtain a new
prosthesis for his leg. Another al Qaeda operative gave Khallad the name of a person
living in the United States whom Khallad could use as a point of contact on a visa
application. Khallad contacted this individual to help him get an appointment at a
U.S. clinic. While Khallad was waiting for the letter from the clinic confirming the
appointment, however, he was arrested by Yemeni authorities. The arrest resulted
from mistaken identity: Khallad was driving the car of another conspirator in the
ship-bombing plot who was wanted by the Yemeni authorities.
Khallad was released sometime during the summer of 1999, after his father and Bin
Ladin intervened on his behalf. Khallad learned later that the al Qaeda leader,
apparently concerned that Khallad might reveal Nashiri's operation while under
interrogation, had contacted a Yemeni official to demand Khallad's release,
suggesting that Bin Ladin would not confront the Yemenis if they did not confront
him. This account has been corroborated by others. Giving up on acquiring a U.S.
visa and concerned that the United States might learn of his ties to al Qaeda,
Khallad returned to Afghanistan.
Travel issues thus played a part in al Qaeda's operational planning from the very
start. During the spring and summer of 1999, KSM realized that Khallad and Abu Bara,
both of whom were Yemenis, would not be able to obtain U.S. visas as easily as Saudi
operatives like Mihdhar and Hazmi. Although Khallad had been unable to acquire a
U.S. visa, KSM still wanted him and Abu Bara, as well as another Yemeni operative
from Bin Ladin's security detail, to participate in the planes operation. Yet
because individuals with Saudi passports could travel much more easily than Yemeni,
particularly to the United States, there were fewer martyrdom opportunities for
Yemenis. To overcome this problem, KSM decided to split the planes operation into
two components.
The first part of the planes operation-crashing hijacked aircraft into U.S.
targets-would remain as planned, with Mihdhar and Hazmi playing key roles. The
second part, however, would now embrace the idea of using suicide operatives to blow
up planes, a refinement of KSM's old Manila air plot. The operatives would hijack
U.S.-flagged commercial planes flying Pacific routes across East Asia and destroy
them in midair, possibly with shoe bombs, instead of flying them into targets. (An
alternate scenario apparently involved flying planes into U.S. targets in Japan,
Singapore, or Korea.) This part of the operation has been confirmed by Khallad, who
said that they contemplated hijacking several planes, probably originating in
Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, or Malaysia, and using Yemenis who would not need
pilot training because they would simply down the planes. All the planes hijacked in
the United States and East Asia were to be crashed or exploded at about the same
time to maximize the attack's psychological impact.
Training and Deployment to Kuala Lumpur In the fall of 1999, the four operatives
selected by Bin Ladin for the planes operation were chosen to attend an elite
training course at al Qaeda's Mes Aynak camp in Afghanistan. Bin Ladin personally
selected the veteran fighters who received this training, and several of them were
destined for important operations. One example is Ibrahim al Thawar, or Nibras, who
would participate in the October 12, 2000, suicide attack on the USS Cole. According
to KSM, this training was not given specifically in preparation for the planes
operation or any other particular al Qaeda venture. Although KSM claims not to have
been involved with the training or to have met with the future 9/11 hijackers at Mes
Aynak, he says he did visit the camp while traveling from Kandahar to Kabul with Bin
Ladin and others.
The Mes Aynak training camp was located in an abandoned Russian copper mine near
Kabul. The camp opened in 1999, after the United States had destroyed the training
camp near Khowst with cruise missiles in August 1998, and before theTaliban granted
al Qaeda permission to open the al Faruq camp in Kandahar. Thus, for a brief period
in 1999, Mes Aynak was the only al Qaeda camp operating in Afghanistan. It offered a
full range of instruction, including an advanced commando course taught by senior al
Qaeda member Sayf al Adl. Bin Ladin paid particular attention to the 1999 training
session. When Salah al Din, the trainer for the session, complained about the number
of trainees and said that no more than 20 could be handled at once, Bin Ladin
insisted that everyone he had selected receive the training.
The special training session at Mes Aynak was rigorous and spared no expense. The
course focused on physical fitness, firearms, close quarters combat, shooting from a
motorcycle, and night operations. Although the subjects taught differed little from
those offered at other camps, the course placed extraordinary physical and mental
demands on its participants, who received the best food and other amenities to
enhance their strength and morale.
Upon completing the advanced training at Mes Aynak, Hazmi, Khallad, and Abu Bara went
to Karachi, Pakistan. There KSM instructed them on Western culture and travel. Much
of his activity in mid-1999 had revolved around the collection of training and
informational materials for the participants in the planes operation. For instance,
he collected Western aviation magazines; telephone directories for American cities
such as San Diego and Long Beach, California; brochures for schools; and airline
timetables, and he conducted Internet searches on U.S. flight schools. He also
purchased flight simulator software and a few movies depicting hijackings. To house
his students, KSM rented a safehouse in Karachi with money provided by Bin
Ladin.
In early December 1999, Khallad and Abu Bara arrived in Karachi. Hazmi joined them
there a few days later. On his way to Karachi, Hazmi spent a night in Quetta at a
safehouse where, according to KSM, an Egyptian named Mohamed Atta simultaneously
stayed on his way to Afghanistan for jihad training.
Mihdhar did not attend the training in Karachi with the others. KSM says that he
never met with Mihdhar in 1999 but assumed that Bin Ladin and Atef had briefed
Mihdhar on the planes operation and had excused him from the Karachi training.
The course in Karachi apparently lasted about one or two weeks. According to KSM, he
taught the three operatives basic English words and phrases. He showed them how to
read phone books, interpret airline timetables, use the Internet, use code words in
communications, make travel reservations, and rent an apartment. Khallad adds that
the training involved using flight simulator computer games, viewing movies that
featured hijackings, and reading flight schedules to determine which flights would
be in the air at the same time in different parts of the world. They used the game
software to increase their familiarity with aircraft models and functions, and to
highlight gaps in cabin security. While in Karachi, they also discussed how to case
flights in Southeast Asia. KSM told them to watch the cabin doors at takeoff and
landing, to observe whether the captain went to the lavatory during the flight, and
to note whether the flight attendants brought food into the cockpit. KSM, Khallad,
and Hazmi also visited travel agencies to learn the visa requirements for Asian
countries.
The four trainees traveled to Kuala Lumpur: Khallad, Abu Bara, and Hazmi came from
Karachi; Mihdhar traveled from Yemen. As discussed in chapter 6, U.S. intelligence
would analyze communications associated with Mihdhar, whom they identified during
this travel, and Hazmi, whom they could have identified but did not.
According to KSM, the four operatives were aware that they had volunteered for a
suicide operation, either in the United States or in Asia. With different roles,
they had different tasks. Hazmi and Mihdhar were sent to Kuala Lumpur before
proceeding to their final destination-the United States. According to KSM, they were
to use Yemeni documents to fly to Malaysia, then proceed to the United States using
their Saudi passports to conceal their prior travels to and from Pakistan. KSM had
doctored Hazmi's Saudi passport so it would appear as if Hazmi had traveled to Kuala
Lumpur from Saudi Arabia via Dubai. Khallad and Abu Bara went to Kuala Lumpur to
study airport security and conduct casing flights. According to Khallad, he and Abu
Bara departed for Malaysia in mid-December 1999. Hazmi joined them about ten days
later after briefly returning to Afghanistan to attend to some passport issues.
Khallad had originally scheduled his trip in order to receive a new prosthesis at a
Kuala Lumpur clinic called Endolite, and Bin Ladin suggested that he use the
opportunity to case flights as well. According to Khallad, Malaysia was an ideal
destination because its government did not require citizens of Saudi Arabia or other
Gulf states to have a visa. Malaysian security was reputed to be lax when it came to
Islamist jihadists. Also, other mujahideen wounded in combat had reportedly received
treatment at the Endolite clinic and successfully concealed the origins of their
injuries. Khallad said he got the money for the prosthesis from his father, Bin
Ladin, and another al Qaeda colleague.
According to Khallad, when he and Abu Bara arrived in Kuala Lumpur they contacted
Hambali to let him know where they were staying, since he was to be kept informed of
al Qaeda activities in Southeast Asia. Hambali picked up Khallad and Abu Bara and
brought them to his home, enlisting the help of a colleague who spoke better Arabic.
Hambali then took them to the clinic.
On December 31, Khallad flew from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok; the next day, he flew to
Hong Kong aboard a U.S. airliner. He flew in first class, which he realized was a
mistake because this seating assignment on that flight did not afford him a view of
the cockpit. He claims to have done what he could to case the flight, testing
security by carrying a box cutter in his toiletries kit onto the flight to Hong
Kong. Khallad returned to Bangkok the following day. At the airport, the security
officials searched his carry-on bag and even opened the toiletries kit, but just
glanced at the contents and let him pass. On this flight, Khallad waited until most
of the first-class passengers were dozing, then got up and removed the kit from his
carry-on. None of the flight attendants took notice.
After completing his casing mission, Khallad returned to Kuala Lumpur. Hazmi arrived
in Kuala Lumpur soon thereafter and may even have stayed briefly with Khallad and
Abu Bara at Endolite. Mihdhar arrived on January 5, probably one day after Hazmi.
All four operatives stayed at the apartment of Yazid Sufaat, the Malaysian JI member
who made his home available at Hambali's request. According to Khallad, he and Hazmi
spoke about the possibility of hijacking planes and crashing them or holding
passengers as hostages, but only speculatively. Khallad admits being aware at the
time that Hazmi and Mihdhar were involved in an operation involving planes in the
United States but denies knowing details of the plan.
While in Kuala Lumpur, Khallad wanted to go to Singapore to meet Nibras and Fahd al
Quso, two of the operatives in Nashiri's ship-bombing operation. An attempt to
execute that plan by attacking the USS The Sullivans had failed just a few days
earlier. Nibras and Quso were bringing Khallad money from Yemen, but were stopped in
Bangkok because they lacked visas to continue on to Singapore. Also unable to enter
Singapore, Khallad moved the meeting to Bangkok. Hazmi and Mihdhar decided to go
there as well, reportedly because they thought it would enhance their cover as
tourists to have passport stamps from a popular tourist destination such as
Thailand. With Hambali's help, the three obtained tickets for a flight to Bangkok
and left Kuala Lumpur together. Abu Bara did not have a visa permitting him to
return to Pakistan, so he traveled to Yemen instead.
In Bangkok, Khallad took Hazmi and Mihdhar to one hotel, then went to another hotel
for his meeting on the maritime attack plan. Hazmi and Mihdhar soon moved to that
same hotel, but Khallad insists that the two sets of operatives never met with each
other or anyone else. After conferring with the ship-bombing operatives, Khallad
returned to Karachi and then to Kandahar, where he reported on his casing mission to
Bin Ladin.
Bin Ladin canceled the East Asia part of the planes operation in the spring of 2000.
He evidently decided it would be too difficult to coordinate this attack with the
operation in the United States. As for Hazmi and Mihdhar, they had left Bangkok a
few days before Khallad and arrived in Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.
Meanwhile, the next group of al Qaeda operatives destined for the planes operation
had just surfaced in Afghanistan. As Hazmi and Mihdhar were deploying from Asia to
the United States, al Qaeda's leadership was recruiting and training four
Western-educated men who had recently arrived in Kandahar. Though they hailed from
four different countries-Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Yemen-they
had formed a close-knit group as students in Hamburg, Germany. The new recruits had
come to Afghanistan aspiring to wage jihad in Chechnya. But al Qaeda quickly
recognized their potential and enlisted them in its anti-U.S. jihad.
THE HAMBURG CONTINGENT
Although Bin Ladin, Atef, and KSM initially contemplated using established al Qaeda
members to execute the planes operation, the late 1999 arrival in Kandahar of four
aspiring jihadists from Germany suddenly presented a more attractive alternative.
The Hamburg group shared the anti-U.S. fervor of the other candidates for the
operation, but added the enormous advantages of fluency in English and familiarity
with life in the West, based on years that each member of the group had spent living
in Germany. Not surprisingly, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi Binalshibh, Marwan al Shehhi, and
Ziad Jarrah would all become key players in the 9/11 conspiracy.
Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Atta was born on September 1, 1968, in Kafr el Sheikh, Egypt, to a
middle-class family headed by his father, an attorney. After graduating from Cairo
University with a degree in architectural engineering in 1990, Atta worked as an
urban planner in Cairo for a couple of years. In the fall of 1991, he asked a German
family he had met in Cairo to help him continue his education in Germany. They
suggested he come to Hamburg and invited him to live with them there, at least
initially. After completing a course in German, Atta traveled to Germany for the
first time in July 1992. He resided briefly in Stuttgart and then, in the fall of
1992, moved to Hamburg to live with his host family. After enrolling at the
University of Hamburg, he promptly transferred into the city engineering and
planning course at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, where he would
remain registered as a student until the fall of 1999. He appears to have applied
himself fairly seriously to his studies (at least in comparison to his jihadist
friends) and actually received his degree shortly before traveling to Afghanistan.
In school, Atta came across as very intelligent and reasonably pleasant, with an
excellent command of the German language.
When Atta arrived in Germany, he appeared religious, but not fanatically so. This
would change, especially as his tendency to assert leadership became increasingly
pronounced. According to Binalshibh, as early as 1995 Atta sought to organize a
Muslim student association in Hamburg. In the fall of 1997, he joined a working
group at the Quds mosque in Hamburg, a group designed to bridge the gap between
Muslims and Christians. Atta proved a poor bridge, however, because of his abrasive
and increasingly dogmatic personality. But among those who shared his beliefs, Atta
stood out as a decisionmaker. Atta's friends during this period remember him as
charismatic, intelligent, and persuasive, albeit intolerant of dissent.
In his interactions with other students, Atta voiced virulently anti-Semitic and
anti-American opinions, ranging from condemnations of what he described as a global
Jewish movement centered in New York City that supposedly controlled the financial
world and the media, to polemics against governments of the Arab world. To him,
Saddam Hussein was an American stooge set up to give Washington an excuse to
intervene in the Middle East. Within his circle, Atta advocated violent jihad. He
reportedly asked one individual close to the group if he was "ready to fight for
[his] belief" and dismissed him as too weak for jihad when the person declined. On a
visit home to Egypt in 1998, Atta met one of his college friends. According to this
friend, Atta had changed a great deal, had grown a beard, and had "obviously adopted
fundamentalism" by that time.
Ramzi Binalshibh
Ramzi Binalshibh was born on May 1,1972, in Ghayl Bawazir, Yemen. There does not seem
to be anything remarkable about his family or early background. A friend who knew
Binalshibh in Yemen remembers him as "religious, but not too religious." From 1987
to 1995, Binalshibh worked as a clerk for the International Bank of Yemen. He first
attempted to leave Yemen in 1995, when he applied for a U.S. visa. After his
application was rejected, he went to Germany and applied for asylum under the name
Ramzi Omar, claiming to be a Sudanese citizen seeking asylum. While his asylum
petition was pending, Binalshibh lived in Hamburg and associated with individuals
from several mosques there. In 1997, after his asylum application was denied,
Binalshibh went home to Yemen but returned to Germany shortly thereafter under his
true name, this time registering as a student in Hamburg. Binalshibh continually had
academic problems, failing tests and cutting classes; he was expelled from one
school in September 1998.
According to Binalshibh, he and Atta first met at a mosque in Hamburg in 1995. The
two men became close friends and became identified with their shared extremist
outlook. Like Atta, by the late 1990s Binalshibh was decrying what he perceived to
be a "Jewish world conspiracy." He proclaimed that the highest duty of every Muslim
was to pursue jihad, and that the highest honor was to die during the jihad. Despite
his rhetoric, however, Binalshibh presented a more amiable figure than the austere
Atta, and was known within the community as being sociable, extroverted, polite, and
adventuresome.
In 1998, Binalshibh and Atta began sharing an apartment in the Harburg section of
Hamburg, together with a young student from the United Arab Emirates named Marwan al
Shehhi.
Marwan al Shehhi
Marwan al Shehhi was born on May 9, 1978, in Ras al Khaimah, the United Arab
Emirates. His father, who died in 1997, was a prayer leader at the local mosque.
After graduating from high school in 1995, Shehhi joined the Emirati military and
received half a year of basic training before gaining admission to a military
scholarship program that would fund his continued study in Germany.
Shehhi first entered Germany in April 1996. After sharing an apartment in Bonn for
two months with three other scholarship students, Shehhi moved in with a German
family, with whom he resided for several months before moving into his own
apartment. During this period, he came across as very religious, praying five times
a day. Friends also remember him as convivial and "a regular guy,"wearing Western
clothes and occasionally renting cars for trips to Berlin, France, and the
Netherlands.
As a student, Shehhi was less than a success. Upon completing a course in German, he
enrolled at the University of Bonn in a program for technical, mathematical, and
scientific studies. In June 1997, he requested a leave from his studies, citing the
need to attend to unspecified "problems" in his home country. Although the
university denied his request, Shehhi left anyway, and consequently was compelled to
repeat the first semester of his studies. In addition to having academic
difficulties at this time, Shehhi appeared to become more extreme in the practice of
his faith; for example, he specifically avoided restaurants that cooked with or
served alcohol. In late 1997, he applied for permission to complete his course work
in Hamburg, a request apparently motivated by his desire to join Atta and
Binalshibh. Just how and when the three of them first met remains unclear, although
they seemed to know each other already when Shehhi relocated to Hamburg in early
1998. Atta and Binalshibh moved into his apartment in April.
The transfer to Hamburg did not help Shehhi's academic progress; he was directed by
the scholarship program administrators at the Emirati embassy to repeat his second
semester starting in August 1998, but back in Bonn. Shehhi initially flouted this
directive, however, and did not reenroll at the University of Bonn until the
following January, barely passing his course there. By the end of July 1999, he had
returned to Hamburg, applying to study shipbuilding at the Technical University and,
more significantly, residing once again with Atta and Binalshibh, in an apartment at
54 Marienstrasse.
After Shehhi moved in with Atta and Binalshibh, his evolution toward Islamic
fundamentalism became more pronounced. A fellow Emirati student who came to Hamburg
to visit Shehhi noticed he no longer lived as comfortably as before. Shehhi now
occupied an old apartment with a roommate, had no television, and wore inexpensive
clothes. When asked why he was living so frugally, Shehhi responded that he was
living the way the Prophet had lived.
Similarly, when someone asked why he and Atta never laughed, Shehhi retorted, "How
can you laugh when people are dying in Palestine?"
Ziad Jarrah
Born on May 11, 1975, in Mazraa, Lebanon, Ziad Jarrah came from an affluent family
and attended private, Christian schools. Like Atta, Binalshibh, and Shehhi, Jarrah
aspired to pursue higher education in Germany. In April 1996, he and a cousin
enrolled at a junior college in Greifswald, in northeastern Germany. There Jarrah
met and became intimate with Aysel Senguen, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, who
was preparing to study dentistry.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, Jarrah hardly seems a likely candidate for
becoming an Islamic extremist. Far from displaying radical beliefs when he first
moved to Germany, he arrived with a reputation for knowing where to find the best
discos and beaches in Beirut, and in Greifswald was known to enjoy student parties
and drinking beer. Although he continued to share an apartment in Greifswald with
his cousin, Jarrah was mostly at Senguen's apartment. Witnesses interviewed by
German authorities after 9/11, however, recall that Jarrah started showing signs of
radicalization as early as the end of 1996. After returning from a trip home to
Lebanon, Jarrah started living more strictly according to the Koran. He read
brochures in Arabic about jihad, held forth to friends on the subject of holy war,
and professed disaffection with his previous life and a desire not to leave the
world "in a natural way."
In September 1997, Jarrah abruptly switched his intended course of study from
dentistry to aircraft engineering-at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg.
His motivation for this decision remains unclear. The rationale he expressed to
Senguen-that he had been interested in aviation since playing with toy airplanes as
a child-rings somewhat hollow. In any event, Jarrah appears already to have had
Hamburg contacts by this time, some of whom may have played a role in steering him
toward Islamic extremism.
Following his move to Hamburg that fall, he began visiting Senguen in Greifswald on
weekends, until she moved to the German city of Bochum one year later to enroll in
dental school. Around the same time, he began speaking increasingly about religion,
and his visits to Senguen became less and less frequent. He began criticizing her
for not being religious enough and for dressing too provocatively. He grew a full
beard and started praying regularly. He refused to introduce her to his Hamburg
friends because, he told her, they were religious Muslims and her refusal to become
more observant embarrassed him. At some point in 1999, Jarrah told Senguen that he
was planning to wage a jihad because there was no greater honor than to die for
Allah. Although Jarrah's transformation generated numerous quarrels, their breakups
invariably were followed by reconciliation.
Forming a Cell
In Hamburg, Jarrah had a succession of living accommodations, but he apparently never
resided with his future co-conspirators. It is not clear how and when he became part
of Atta's circle. He became particularly friendly with Binalshibh after meeting him
at the Quds mosque in Hamburg, which Jarrah began attending regularly in late 1997.
The worshippers at this mosque featured an outspoken, flamboyant Islamist named
Mohammed Haydar Zammar. A well-known figure in the Muslim community (and to German
and U.S. intelligence agencies by the late 1990s), Zammar had fought in Afghanistan
and relished any opportunity to extol the virtues of violent jihad. Indeed, a
witness has reported hearing Zammar press Binalshibh to fulfill his duty to wage
jihad. Moreover, after 9/11, Zammar reportedly took credit for influencing not just
Binalshibh but the rest of the Hamburg group. In 1998, Zammar encouraged them to
participate in jihad and even convinced them to go to Afghanistan.
Owing to Zammar's persuasion or some other source of inspiration, Atta, Binalshibh,
Shehhi, and Jarrah eventually prepared themselves to translate their extremist
beliefs into action. By late 1999, they were ready to abandon their student lives in
Germany in favor of violent jihad. This final stage in their evolution toward
embracing Islamist extremism did not entirely escape the notice of the people around
them. The foursome became core members of a group of radical Muslims, often hosting
sessions at their Marienstrasse apartment that involved extremely anti-American
discussions. Meeting three to four times a week, the group became something of a
"sect" whose members, according to one participant in the meetings, tended to deal
only with each other.
Atta's rent checks for the apartment provide evidence of the importance that the
apartment assumed as a center for the group, as he would write on them the notation
"Dar el Ansar," or "house of the followers."
In addition to Atta, Binalshibh, Shehhi, and Jarrah, the group included other
extremists, some of whom also would attend al Qaeda training camps and, in some
instances, would help the 9/11 hijackers as they executed the plot:
Said Bahaji, son of a Moroccan immigrant, was the only German citizen in the
group. Educated in Morocco, Bahaji returned to Germany to study electrical
engineering at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. He spent five months
in the German army before obtaining a medical discharge, and lived with Atta and
Binalshibh at 54 Marienstrasse for eight months between November 1998 and July
1999. Described as an insecure follower with no personality and with limited
knowledge of Islam, Bahaji nonetheless professed his readiness to engage in
violence. Atta and Binalshibh used Bahaji's computer for Internet research, as
evidenced by documents and diskettes seized by German authorities after
9/11.
Zakariya Essabar, a Moroccan citizen, moved to Germany in February 1997 and to
Hamburg in 1998, where he studied medical technology. Soon after moving to
Hamburg, Essabar met Binalshibh and the others through a Turkish mosque. Essabar
turned extremist fairly suddenly, probably in 1999, and reportedly pressured one
acquaintance with physical force to become more religious, grow a beard, and
compel his wife to convert to Islam. Essabar's parents were said to have made
repeated but unsuccessful efforts to sway him from this lifestyle. Shortly
before the 9/11 attacks, he would travel to Afghanistan to communicate the date
for the attacks to the al Qaeda leadership.
Mounir el Motassadeq, another Moroccan, came to Germany in 1993, moving to
Hamburg two years later to study electrical engineering at theTechnical
University. A witness has recalled Motassadeq saying that he would kill his
entire family if his religious beliefs demanded it. One of Motassadeq's
roommates recalls him referring to Hitler as a "good man" and organizing film
sessions that included speeches by Bin Ladin. Motassadeq would help conceal the
Hamburg group's trip to Afghanistan in late 1999.
Abdelghani Mzoudi, also a Moroccan, arrived in Germany in the summer of 1993,
after completing university courses in physics and chemistry. Mzoudi studied in
Dortmund, Bochum, and Muenster before moving to Hamburg in 1995. Mzoudi
described himself as a weak Muslim when he was home in Morocco, but much more
devout when he was back in Hamburg. In April 1996, Mzoudi and Motassadeq
witnessed the execution of Atta's will.
During the course of 1999, Atta and his group became ever more extreme and secretive,
speaking only in Arabic to conceal the content of their conversations. 87 When the
four core members of the Hamburg cell left Germany to journey to Afghanistan late
that year, it seems unlikely that they already knew about the planes operation; no
evidence connects them to al Qaeda before that time. Witnesses have attested,
however, that their pronouncements reflected ample predisposition toward taking some
action against the United States.
In short, they fit the bill for Bin Ladin, Atef, and KSM.
Going to Afghanistan The available evidence indicates that in 1999, Atta, Binalshibh,
Shehhi, and Jarrah decided to fight in Chechnya against the Russians. According to
Binalshibh, a chance meeting on a train in Germany caused the group to travel to
Afghanistan instead. An individual named Khalid al Masri approached Binalshibh and
Shehhi (because they were Arabs with beards, Binalshibh thinks) and struck up a
conversation about jihad in Chechnya. When they later called Masri and expressed
interest in going to Chechnya, he told them to contact Abu Musab in Duisburg,
Germany. Abu Musab turned out to be Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a significant al Qaeda
operative who, even then, was well known to U.S. and German intelligence, though
neither government apparently knew he was operating in Germany in late 1999. When
telephoned by Binalshibh and Shehhi, Slahi reportedly invited these promising
recruits to come see him in Duisburg.
Binalshibh, Shehhi, and Jarrah made the trip. When they arrived, Slahi explained that
it was difficult to get to Chechnya at that time because many travelers were being
detained in Georgia. He recommended they go to Afghanistan instead, where they could
train for jihad before traveling onward to Chechnya. Slahi instructed them to obtain
Pakistani visas and then return to him for further directions on how to reach
Afghanistan. Although Atta did not attend the meeting, he joined in the plan with
the other three. After obtaining the necessary visas, they received Slahi's final
instructions on how to travel to Karachi and then Quetta, where they were to contact
someone named Umar al Masri at the Taliban office.
Following Slahi's advice, Atta and Jarrah left Hamburg during the last week of
November 1999, bound for Karachi. Shehhi left for Afghanistan around the same time;
Binalshibh, about two weeks later. Binalshibh remembers that when he arrived at the
Taliban office in Quetta, there was no one named Umar al Masri. The name,
apparently, was simply a code; a group of Afghans from the office promptly escorted
him to Kandahar. There Binalshibh rejoined Atta and Jarrah, who said they already
had pledged loyalty to Bin Ladin and urged him to do the same. They also informed
him that Shehhi had pledged as well and had already left for the United Arab
Emirates to prepare for the mission. Binalshibh soon met privately with Bin Ladin,
accepted the al Qaeda leader's invitation to work under him, and added his own
pledge to those of his Hamburg colleagues. By this time, Binalshibh claims, he
assumed he was volunteering for a martyrdom operation.
Atta, Jarrah, and Binalshibh then met with Atef, who told them they were about to
undertake a highly secret mission. As Binalshibh tells it, Atef instructed the three
to return to Germany and enroll in flight training. Atta- whom Bin Ladin chose to
lead the group-met with Bin Ladin several times to receive additional instructions,
including a preliminary list of approved targets: the World Trade Center, the
Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.
The new recruits also learned that an individual named Rabia al Makki (Nawaf al
Hazmi) would be part of the operation.
In retrospect, the speed with which Atta, Shehhi, Jarrah, and Binalshibh became core
members of the 9/11 plot-with Atta designated its operational leader-is remarkable.
They had not yet met with KSM when all this occurred. It is clear, then, that Bin
Ladin and Atef were very much in charge of the operation. That these candidates were
selected so quickly-before comprehensive testing in the training camps or in
operations-demonstrates that Bin Ladin and Atef probably already understood the
deficiencies of their initial team, Hazmi and Mihdhar. The new recruits from Germany
possessed an ideal combination of technical skill and knowledge that the original
9/11 operatives, veteran fighters though they were, lacked. Bin Ladin and Atef
wasted no time in assigning the Hamburg group to the most ambitious operation yet
planned by al Qaeda.
Bin Ladin and Atef also plainly judged that Atta was best suited to be the tactical
commander of the operation. Such a quick and critical judgment invites speculation
about whether they had already taken Atta's measure at some earlier meeting. To be
sure, some gaps do appear in the record of Atta's known whereabouts during the
preceding years. One such gap is February-March 1998, a period for which there is no
evidence of his presence in Germany and when he conceivably could have been in
Afghanistan.
Yet to date, neither KSM, Binalshibh, nor any other al Qaeda figure interrogated
about the 9/11 plot has claimed that Atta or any other member of the Hamburg group
traveled to Afghanistan before the trip in late 1999.
While the four core Hamburg cell members were in Afghanistan, their associates back
in Hamburg handled their affairs so that their trip could be kept secret. Motassadeq
appears to have done the most. He terminated Shehhi's apartment lease, telling the
landlord that Shehhi had returned to the UAE for family reasons, and used a power of
attorney to pay bills from Shehhi's bank account.
Motassadeq also assisted Jarrah, offering to look after Aysel Senguen in Jarrah's
absence. Said Bahaji attended to similar routine matters for Atta and Binalshibh,
thereby helping them remain abroad without drawing attention to their absence.
Preparing for the Operation
In early 2000, Atta, Jarrah, and Binalshibh returned to Hamburg. Jarrah arrived
first, on January 31, 2000.97 According to Binalshibh, he and Atta left Kandahar
together and proceeded first to Karachi, where they met KSM and were instructed by
him on security and on living in the United States. Shehhi apparently had already
met with KSM before returning to the UAE. Atta returned to Hamburg in late February,
and Binalshibh arrived shortly thereafter. Shehhi's travels took him to the UAE
(where he acquired a new passport and a U.S. visa), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and one
or more other destinations. Shehhi also returned to Germany, possibly sometime in
March.
After leaving Afghanistan, the hijackers made clear efforts to avoid appearing
radical. Once back in Hamburg, they distanced themselves from conspicuous extremists
like Zammar, whom they knew attracted unwanted attention from the authorities.
They also changed their appearance and behavior. Atta wore Western clothing, shaved
his beard, and no longer attended extremist mosques. Jarrah also no longer wore a
full beard and, according to Senguen, acted much more the way he had when she first
met him. And when Shehhi, while still in the UAE in January 2000, held a belated
wedding celebration (he actually had been married in 1999), a friend of his was
surprised to see that he had shaved off his beard and was acting like his old self
again.
But Jarrah's apparent efforts to appear less radical did not completely conceal his
transformation from his Lebanese family, which grew increasingly concerned about his
fanaticism. Soon after Jarrah returned to Germany, his father asked Jarrah's
cousin-a close companion from boyhood-to intercede. The cousin's ensuing effort to
persuade Jarrah to depart from "the path he was taking" proved unavailing.101Yet
Jarrah clearly differed from the other hijackers in that he maintained much closer
contact with his family and continued his intimate relationship with Senguen. These
ties may well have caused him to harbor some doubts about going through with the
plot, even as late as the summer of 2001, as discussed in chapter 7.
After leaving Afghanistan, the four began researching flight schools and aviation
training. In early January 2000, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali-a nephew of KSM living in the
UAE who would become an important facilitator in the plot- used Shehhi's credit card
to order a Boeing 747-400 flight simulator program and a Boeing 767 flight deck
video, together with attendant literature; Ali had all these items shipped to his
employer's address. Jarrah soon decided that the schools in Germany were not
acceptable and that he would have to learn to fly in the United States. Binalshibh
also researched flight schools in Europe, and in the Netherlands he met a flight
school director who recommended flight schools in the United States because they
were less expensive and required shorter training periods.
In March 2000, Atta emailed 31 different U.S. flight schools on behalf of a small
group of men from various Arab countries studying in Germany who, while lacking
prior training, were interested in learning to fly in the United States. Atta
requested information about the cost of the training, potential financing, and
accommodations.
Before seeking visas to enter the United States, Atta, Shehhi, and Jarrah obtained
new passports, each claiming that his old passport had been lost. Presumably they
were concerned that the Pakistani visas in their old passports would raise
suspicions about possible travel to Afghanistan. Shehhi obtained his visa on January
18, 2000; Atta, on May 18; and Jarrah, on May 25.
Binalshibh's visa request was rejected, however, as were his three subsequent
applications. 105 Binalshibh proved unable to obtain a visa, a victim of the
generalized suspicion that visa applicants from Yemen-especially young men applying
in another country (Binalshibh first applied in Berlin)-might join the ranks of
undocumented aliens seeking work in the United States. Before 9/11, security
concerns were not a major factor in visa issuance unless the applicant already was
on a terrorist watchlist, and none of these four men was. Concerns that Binalshibh
intended to immigrate to the United States doomed his chances to participate
firsthand in the 9/11 attacks. Although Binalshibh had to remain behind, he would
provide critical assistance from abroad to his co-conspirators.
Once again, the need for travel documents dictated al Qaeda's plans.
Travel
It should by now be apparent how significant travel was in the planning undertaken by
a terrorist organization as far-flung as al Qaeda. The story of the plot includes
references to dozens of international trips. Operations required travel, as did
basic communications and the movement of money. Where electronic communications were
regarded as insecure, al Qaeda relied even more heavily on couriers.
KSM and Abu Zubaydah each played key roles in facilitating travel for al Qaeda
operatives. In addition, al Qaeda had an office of passports and host country issues
under its security committee. The office was located at the Kandahar airport and was
managed by Atef. The committee altered papers, including passports, visas, and
identification cards.
Moreover, certain al Qaeda members were charged with organizing passport collection
schemes to keep the pipeline of fraudulent documents flowing. To this end, al Qaeda
required jihadists to turn in their passports before going to the front lines in
Afghanistan. If they were killed, their passports were recycled for use.
The operational mission training course taught operatives how to forge documents.
Certain passport alteration methods, which included substituting photos and erasing
and adding travel cachets, were also taught. Manuals demonstrating the technique for
"cleaning" visas were reportedly circulated among operatives. Mohamed Atta and
Zakariya Essabar were reported to have been trained in passport alteration.
The purpose of all this training was twofold: to develop an institutional capacity
for document forgery and to enable operatives to make necessary adjustments in the
field. It was well-known, for example, that if a Saudi traveled to Afghanistan via
Pakistan, then on his return to Saudi Arabia his passport, bearing a Pakistani
stamp, would be confiscated. So operatives either erased the Pakistani visas from
their passports or traveled through Iran, which did not stamp visas directly into
passports.
A MONEY TRAIL?
Bin Ladin and his aides did not need a very large sum to finance their planned attack
on America. The 9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and
$500,000 to plan and conduct their attack. Consistent with the importance of the
project, al Qaeda funded the plotters. KSM provided his operatives with nearly all
the money they needed to travel to the United States, train, and live. The plotters'
tradecraft was not especially sophisticated, but it was good enough. They moved,
stored, and spent their money in ordinary ways, easily defeating the detection
mechanisms in place at the time.
The origin of the funds remains unknown, although we have a general idea of how al
Qaeda financed itself during the period leading up to 9/11.
General Financing
As we explained in chapter 2, Bin Ladin did not fund al Qaeda through a personal
fortune and a network of businesses in Sudan. Instead, al Qaeda relied primarily on
a fund-raising network developed over time. The CIA now estimates that it cost al
Qaeda about $30 million per year to sustain its activities before 9/11 and that this
money was raised almost entirely through donations.
For many years, the United States thought Bin Ladin financed al Qaeda's expenses
through a vast personal inheritance. Bin Ladin purportedly inherited approximately
$300 million when his father died, and was rumored to have had access to these funds
to wage jihad while in Sudan and Afghanistan and to secure his leadership position
in al Qaeda. In early 2000, the U.S. government discovered a different reality:
roughly from 1970 through 1994, Bin Ladin received about $1 million per year-a
significant sum, to be sure, but not a $300 million fortune that could be used to
fund jihad.
Then, as part of a Saudi government crackdown early in the 1990s, the Bin Ladin
family was forced to find a buyer for Usama's share of the family company in 1994.
The Saudi government subsequently froze the proceeds of the sale. This action had
the effect of divesting Bin Ladin of what otherwise might indeed have been a large
fortune.
Nor were Bin Ladin's assets in Sudan a source of money for al Qaeda. When Bin Ladin
lived in Sudan from 1991 to 1996, he owned a number of businesses and other assets.
These could not have provided significant income, as most were small or not
economically viable. When Bin Ladin left in 1996, it appears that the Sudanese
government expropriated all his assets: he left Sudan with practically nothing. When
Bin Ladin arrived in Afghanistan, he relied on the Taliban until he was able to
reinvigorate his fund-raising efforts by drawing on ties to wealthy Saudi
individuals that he had established during the Afghan war in the 1980s.
Al Qaeda appears to have relied on a core group of financial facilitators who raised
money from a variety of donors and other fund-raisers, primarily in the Gulf
countries and particularly in Saudi Arabia.
Some individual donors surely knew, and others did not, the ultimate destination of
their donations. Al Qaeda and its friends took advantage of Islam's strong calls for
charitable giving, zakat. These financial facilitators also appeared to rely heavily
on certain imams at mosques who were willing to divert zakat donations to al Qaeda's
cause.
Al Qaeda also collected money from employees of corrupt charities.
It took two approaches to using charities for fund-raising. One was to rely on al
Qaeda sympathizers in specific foreign branch offices of large, international
charities-particularly those with lax external oversight and ineffective internal
controls, such as the Saudi-based al Haramain Islamic Foundation.
Smaller charities in various parts of the globe were funded by these large Gulf
charities and had employees who would siphon the money to al Qaeda.
In addition, entire charities, such as the al Wafa organization, may have wittingly
participated in funneling money to al Qaeda. In those cases, al Qaeda operatives
controlled the entire organization, including access to bank accounts.
Charities were a source of money and also provided significant cover, which enabled
operatives to travel undetected under the guise of working for a humanitarian
organization.
It does not appear that any government other than the Taliban financially supported
al Qaeda before 9/11, although some governments may have contained al Qaeda
sympathizers who turned a blind eye to al Qaeda's fundraising activities.
Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we
have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi
officials individually funded the organization. (This conclusion does not exclude
the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted
funds to al Qaeda.)122 Still, al Qaeda found fertile fund-raising ground in Saudi
Arabia, where extreme religious views are common and charitable giving was both
essential to the culture and subject to very limited oversight.
Al Qaeda also sought money from wealthy donors in other Gulf states.
Al Qaeda frequently moved the money it raised by hawala, an informal and ancient
trust-based system for transferring funds.
In some ways, al Qaeda had no choice after its move to Afghanistan in 1996: first,
the banking system there was antiquated and undependable; and second, formal banking
was risky due to the scrutiny that al Qaeda received after the August 1998 East
Africa embassy bombings, including UN resolutions against it and the Taliban.
Bin Ladin relied on the established hawala networks operating in Pakistan, in Dubai,
and throughout the Middle East to transfer funds efficiently. Hawaladars associated
with al Qaeda may have used banks to move and store money, as did various al Qaeda
fund-raisers and operatives outside of Afghanistan, but there is little evidence
that Bin Ladin or core al Qaeda members used banks while in Afghanistan.
Before 9/11, al Qaeda spent funds as quickly as it received them. Actual terrorist
operations represented a relatively small part of al Qaeda's estimated $30 million
annual operating budget. Al Qaeda funded salaries for jihadists, training camps,
airfields, vehicles, arms, and the development of training manuals. Bin Ladin
provided approximately $10-$20 million per year to the Taliban in return for safe
haven. Bin Ladin also may have used money to create alliances with other terrorist
organizations, although it is unlikely that al Qaeda was funding an overall jihad
program. Rather, Bin Ladin selectively provided startup funds to new groups or money
for specific terrorist operations.
Al Qaeda has been alleged to have used a variety of illegitimate means, particularly
drug trafficking and conflict diamonds, to finance itself. While the drug trade was
a source of income for the Taliban, it did not serve the same purpose for al Qaeda,
and there is no reliable evidence that Bin Ladin was involved in or made his money
through drug trafficking.
Similarly, we have seen no persuasive evidence that al Qaeda funded itself by trading
in African conflict diamonds. 129 There also have been claims that al Qaeda financed
itself through manipulation of the stock market based on its advance knowledge of
the 9/11 attacks. Exhaustive investigations by the Securities and Exchange
Commission, FBI, and other agencies have uncovered no evidence that anyone with
advance knowledge of the attacks profited through securities transactions.
To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money
used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical
significance. Al Qaeda had many avenues of funding. If a particular funding source
had dried up, al Qaeda could have easily tapped a different source or diverted funds
from another project to fund an operation that cost $400,000-$500,000 over nearly
two years.
The Funding of the 9/11 Plot
As noted above, the 9/11 plotters spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to
plan and conduct their attack. The available evidence indicates that the 19
operatives were funded by al Qaeda, either through wire transfers or cash provided
by KSM, which they carried into the United States or deposited in foreign accounts
and accessed from this country. Our investigation has uncovered no credible evidence
that any person in the United States gave the hijackers substantial financial
assistance. Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government-or
foreign government official-supplied any funding.
We have found no evidence that the Hamburg cell members (Atta, Shehhi, Jarrah, and
Binalshibh) received funds from al Qaeda before late 1999. It appears they supported
themselves. KSM, Binalshibh, and another plot facilitator, Mustafa al Hawsawi, each
received money, in some cases perhaps as much as $10,000, to perform their roles in
the plot.
After the Hamburg recruits joined the 9/11 conspiracy, al Qaeda began giving them
money. Our knowledge of the funding during this period, before the operatives
entered the United States, remains murky. According to KSM, the Hamburg cell members
each received $5,000 to pay for their return to Germany from Afghanistan after they
had been selected to join the plot, and they received additional funds for travel
from Germany to the United States. Financial transactions of the plotters are
discussed in more detail in chapter 7.
Requirements for a Successful Attack
As some of the core operatives prepared to leave for the United States, al Qaeda's
leaders could have reflected on what they needed to be able to do in order to
organize and conduct a complex international terrorist operation to inflict
catastrophic harm. We believe such a list of requirements would have included
leaders able to evaluate, approve, and supervise the planning and direction of
the operation;
communications sufficient to enable planning and direction of the operatives
and those who would be helping them;
a personnel system that could recruit candidates, vet them, indoctrinate them,
and give them necessary training;
an intelligence effort to gather required information and form assessments of
enemy strengths and weaknesses;
the ability to move people; and
the ability to raise and move the necessary money.
The information we have presented about the development of the planes operation shows
how, by the spring and summer of 2000, al Qaeda was able to meet these requirements.
By late May 2000, two operatives assigned to the planes operation were already in the
United States. Three of the four Hamburg cell members would soon arrive.
