Page 347 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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September 11 Attacks———327

in that country with the radical Islamic Taliban Atta, al-Shehhi, and al-Jarrah began meeting
government. with Hani Hanjour, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Khalid
The September 11 attacks were extraordinarily al-Midhar, all of whom lived in California. Al-Midhar
deadly—instead of killing dozens, a more typical toll had been photographed speaking to a suspect in the
for a terrorist attack, they killed thousands. They also October 2000 bombing of the American naval
demonstrated the perils of the nation’s relatively destroyer Cole in Yemen. In August 2001, al-Midhar
relaxed approach to security: the terrorists took over and Nawaf al-Hamzi were placed on an FBI terrorist-
the airplanes using knives and box cutters that were in alert list as associates of bin Laden in Yemen. Never-
their carry-on baggage. theless, the two were able to leave and reenter the
United States at will before being placed on the list,
and they were able to buy plane tickets in late August
PLOTTING AND PAYING
2001 without triggering any security alerts.
The attacks appear to have taken years to plan and
hundreds of thousands of dollars to execute. Members FUNDING
of a Hamburg, Germany, Al Qaeda cell, are thought to
have originally conceived the idea of using airplanes Beginning in the summer of 2000, Atta and al-Shehhi
as terrorist weapons; they presented Al Qaeda’s senior began to receive large sums of money, wired to them
leadership with the idea and were granted funding and from Binalshibh or from a source in the United Arab
support. Emirates. During this time, the six men lived
The hijackers, 15 of whom were citizens of Saudi in different parts of the United States and moved
Arabia (as is bin Laden), and other conspirators were frequently. They attended flight schools in various
apparently brought together by their embrace of radical states, purchased instruction videos on how to fly
Islam and their hatred of the United States. Most of the large aircraft, and made several trips out of the United
hijackers, perhaps all, spent time in Al Qaeda training States, apparently to contact Al Qaeda cells abroad.
camps in Afghanistan, and some may have met there. Atta also made inquiries into starting crop-dusting
The attacks were apparently planned in Hamburg companies in Florida; later, Moussaoui would do the
sometime in 1998. Members of the Hamburg cell same in Oklahoma.
included three men who would pilot hijacked planes By mid-2001, the rest of the hijackers—Abdul
on September 11—Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Alomari, Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, Satam
and Zia al-Jarrah—as well as Ramzi Binalshibh. al-Suqami, Fayez Ahmed, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza
In late 1999, Atta, al-Shehhi, and al-Jarrah all al-Ghamdi, Moahld al-Shehri, Salem al-Hamzi,
reported their travel documents missing to the Majed Moqed, Ahmed al-Haznaw, Saaed al-Ghamdi,
German police and were issued new ones; they then and Ahmed al-Nami—had entered the United States.
applied for travel visas to the United States. Investi- This group did not seek flight instruction; instead,
gators believe that reporting the documents stolen was they joined gyms and purchased knives. Several
a ploy to get “clean” travel documents, ones without opened bank accounts in Florida, and one, Fayez
visa stamps indicating that the men had traveled to Ahmed, also opened a bank account in United Arab
Afghanistan. Emirates. Ahmed gave power of attorney over that
By mid-2000, Atta, al-Shehhi, and al-Jarrah had all account to Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, who is
received the appropriate visas and had moved to the believed to have handled much of the finances linked
United States. Binalshibh, however, encountered diffi- to the attack. Al-Hawsawi sent credit and automatic
culties. From May to October 2000, he applied four teller cards to Ahmed.
times for a visa to enter the United States; his request
was denied each time. In December 2000, Binalshibh PLAN INTO ACTION
traveled to London, apparently to meet with Zacarias
Moussaoui, a French-born ethnic Moroccan living in The hijackers continued to move around, meeting
London who had reportedly trained at an Al Qaeda together as a group at least once in Las Vegas. They
camp in Afghanistan in 1998. Moussaoui was able to lived cheaply, with one exception—periodically some
obtain the proper visas and entered the United States of the hijackers would take a first-class plane flight,
in February 2001. apparently as practice runs for the September 11 attacks.