7.1 FIRST ARRIVALS IN CALIFORNIA

In chapter 5 we described the Southeast Asia travels of Nawaf al Hazmi,Khalid

al Mihdhar, and others in January 2000 on the first part of the "planes opera=

tion." In that chapter we also described how Mihdhar was spotted in Kuala

Lumpur early in January 2000, along with associates who were not identified,

and then was lost to sight when the group passed through Bangkok. On Jan=

uary 15, Hazmi and Mihdhar arrived in Los Angeles.They spent about two

Why Hazmi and Mihdhar came to California, we do not know for certain.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the organizer of the planes operation,

explains that California was a convenient point of entry from Asia and had the

Hazmi and Mihdhar were ill-prepared for a mission in the United States.

Their only qualifications for this plot were their devotion to Usama Bin Ladin,

their veteran service,and their ability to get valid U.S.visas.Neither had spent

It would therefore be plausible that they or KSM would have tried to iden=

tify, in advance, a friendly contact for them in the United States. In detention,

KSM denies that al Qaeda had any agents in Southern California.We do not

We believe it is unlikely that Hazmi and Mihdhar—neither

of whom, in contrast to the Hamburg group, had any prior exposure to life in

theWest—would have come to the United States without arranging to receive

KSM says that though he told others involved in the conspiracy to stay away

from mosques and to avoid establishing personal contacts, he made an excep=

tion in this case and instructed Hazmi and Mihdhar to pose as newly arrived

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Saudi students and seek assistance at local mosques.He counted on their break=

Our inabil=

ity to ascertain the activities of Hazmi and Mihdhar during their first two weeks

in the United States may reflect al Qaeda tradecraft designed to protect the

identity of anyone who may have assisted them during that period.

Hazmi and Mihdhar were directed to enroll in English-language classes upon

arriving in Southern California, so that they could begin pilot training as soon

as possible.KSM claims to have steered the two to San Diego on the basis of his

own research,which supposedly included thumbing through a San Diego phone

book acquired at a Karachi flea market. Contradicting himself, he also says that,

After the pair cleared Immigration and Customs at Los Angeles International

They appear to have obtained assis=

tance from the Muslim community,specifically the community surrounding the

King Fahd mosque in Culver City, one of the most prominent mosques in

Southern California.

It is fairly certain that Hazmi and Mihdhar spent time at the King Fahd

mosque and made some acquaintances there. One witness interviewed by the

FBI after the September 11 attacks has said he first met the hijackers at the

mosque in early 2000. Furthermore, one of the people who would befriend

them—a man named Mohdar Abdullah—recalled a trip with Hazmi and

Mihdhar to Los Angeles in June when, on their arrival, the three went to the

King Fahd mosque. There Hazmi and Mihdhar greeted various individuals

whom they appeared to have met previously, including a man named "Khal=

lam." In Abdullah’s telling, when Khallam visited the al Qaeda operatives at

their motel that evening,Abdullah was asked to leave the room so that Hazmi,

Mihdhar, and Khallam could meet in private.The identity of Khallam and his

To understand what Hazmi and Mihdhar did in their first weeks in the

United States, evidently staying in Los Angeles, we have investigated whether

anyone associated with the King Fahd mosque assisted them.This subject has

received substantial attention in the media. Some have speculated that Fahad

al Thumairy—an imam at the mosque and an accredited diplomat at the Saudi

Arabian consulate from 1996 until 2003—may have played a role in helping

the hijackers establish themselves on their arrival in Los Angeles.This specula=

tion is based, at least in part, on Thumairy’s reported leadership of an extrem=

A well-known figure at the King Fahd mosque and within the Los Ange=

les Muslim community,Thumairy was reputed to be an Islamic fundamental=

ist and a strict adherent to orthodox Wahhabi doctrine. Some Muslims

concerned about his preaching have said he "injected non-Islamic themes into

his guidance/prayers at the [King Fahd] Mosque"and had followers"support=

Thumairy appears to have associ-

THE ATTACK LOOMS

217

ated with a particularly radical faction within the community of local worship=

pers, and had a network of contacts in other cities in the United States.After

9/11,Thumairy’s conduct was a subject of internal debate among some Saudi

officials. He apparently lost his position at the King Fahd mosque, possibly

because of his immoderate reputation. On May 6, 2003,Thumairy attempted

to reenter the United States from Saudi Arabia but was refused entry,based on

a determination by the State Department that he might be connected with ter=

When interviewed by both the FBI and the Commission staff,Thumairy

has denied preaching anti-Western sermons,much less promoting violent jihad.

More to the point,he claimed not to recognize either Hazmi or Mihdhar.Both

denials are somewhat suspect. (He likewise denied knowing Omar al Bay=

oumi—a man from San Diego we will discuss shortly—even though witnesses

and telephone records establish that the two men had contact with each other.

Similarly,Thumairy’s claim not to know Mohdar Abdullah is belied by Abdul=

lah’s contrary assertion.) On the other hand,Thumairy undoubtedly met with

and provided religious counseling to countless individuals during his tenure at

the King Fahd mosque, so he might not remember two transients like Hazmi

The circumstantial evidence makes Thumairy a logical person to consider

as a possible contact for Hazmi and Mihdhar.Yet, after exploring the available

leads, we have not found evidence that Thumairy provided assistance to the

We do not pick up their trail until February 1, 2000, when they encoun=

tered Omar al Bayoumi and Caysan Bin Don at a halal food restaurant on

Venice Boulevard in Culver City, a few blocks away from the King Fahd

mosque.Bayoumi and Bin Don have both told us that they had driven up from

San Diego earlier that day so that Bayoumi could address a visa issue and col=

lect some papers from the Saudi consulate. Bayoumi heard Hazmi and Mih=

dhar speaking in what he recognized to be Gulf Arabic and struck up a

conversation. Since Bin Don knew only a little Arabic, he had to rely heavily

Mihdhar and Hazmi said they were students from Saudi Arabia who had

just arrived in the United States to study English.They said they were living

in an apartment near the restaurant but did not specify the address.They did

not like Los Angeles and were having a hard time,especially because they did

not know anyone.Bayoumi told them how pleasant San Diego was and offered

to help them settle there.The two pairs then left the restaurant and went their

Bayoumi and Bin Don have been interviewed many times about the Feb=

ruary 1, 2000, lunch. For the most part, their respective accounts corroborate

each other.However,Bayoumi has said that he and Bin Don attempted to visit

the King Fahd mosque after lunch but could not find it.Bin Don,on the other

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hand, recalls visiting the mosque twice that day for prayers, both before and

after the meal.Bin Don’s recollection is spotty and inconsistent.Bayoumi’s ver=

sion can be challenged as well, since the mosque is close to the restaurant and

Bayoumi had visited it,and the surrounding area,on multiple occasions,includ=

ing twice within six weeks of February 1.We do not know whether the lunch

encounter occurred by chance or design.We know about it because Bayoumi

Bayoumi, then 42 years old, was in the United States as a business student,

supported by a private contractor for the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority,where

The object of considerable media

speculation following 9/11, he lives now in Saudi Arabia, well aware of his

notoriety. Both we and the FBI have interviewed him and investigated evi=

dence about him.

Bayoumi is a devout Muslim, obliging and gregarious. He spent much of

his spare time involved in religious study and helping run a mosque in El

Cajon, about 15 miles from San Diego. It is certainly possible that he has dis=

sembled about some aspects of his story, perhaps to counter suspicion. On the

other hand, we have seen no credible evidence that he believed in violent

Our investigators who have

dealt directly with him and studied his background find him to be an unlikely

candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamist extremists.

By February 4, Hazmi and Mihdhar had come to San Diego from Los Ange=

les,possibly driven by Mohdar Abdullah.Abdullah,aYemeni university student

in his early 20s,is fluent in both Arabic and English,and was perfectly suited to

After 9/11,Abdullah was interviewed many times by the FBI.He admitted

knowing of Hazmi and Mihdhar’s extremist leanings and Mihdhar’s involve=

ment with the Islamic Army of Aden (a group with ties to al Qaeda) back in

Yemen.Abdullah clearly was sympathetic to those extremist views. During a

post-9/11 search of his possessions, the FBI found a notebook (belonging to

someone else) with references to planes falling from the sky, mass killing, and

hijacking. Further, when detained as a material witness following the 9/11

attacks,Abdullah expressed hatred for the U.S.government and "stated that the

When interviewed by the FBI after 9/11,Abdullah denied having advance

knowledge of attacks. In May 2004, however, we learned of reports about

Abdullah bragging to fellow inmates at a California prison in September–

October 2003 that he had known Hazmi and Mihdhar were planning a ter=

rorist attack.The stories attributed to Abdullah are not entirely consistent with

each other. Specifically, according to one inmate, Abdullah claimed an

unnamed individual had notified him that Hazmi and Mihdhar would be arriv-

THE ATTACK LOOMS

219

ing in Los Angeles with plans to carry out an attack.Abdullah allegedly told

the same inmate that he had driven the two al Qaeda operatives from Los Ange=

les to San Diego, but did not say when this occurred.We have been unable to

Another inmate has recalled Abdullah claiming he first heard about the

hijackers’ terrorist plans after they arrived in San Diego, when they told him

they planned to fly an airplane into a building and invited him to join them

on the plane.According to this inmate,Abdullah also claimed to have found

out about the 9/11 attacks three weeks in advance,a claim that appears to dove-

tail with evidence that Abdullah may have received a phone call from Hazmi

around that time,that he stopped making calls from his telephone after August

Although boasts among prison inmates often tend to be unreliable,this evi=

dence is obviously important.To date, neither we nor the FBI have been able

to verify Abdullah’s alleged jailhouse statements, despite investigative efforts.

We thus do not know when or how Hazmi and Mihdhar first came to San

Diego.We do know that on February 4, they went to the Islamic Center of

San Diego to find Omar al Bayoumi and take him up on his offer of help.Bay=

oumi obliged by not only locating an apartment but also helping them fill out

the lease application,co-signing the lease and,when the real estate agent refused

to take cash for a deposit, helping them open a bank account (which they did

with a $9,900 deposit); he then provided a certified check from his own

account for which the al Qaeda operatives reimbursed him on the spot for the

deposit. Neither then nor later did Bayoumi give money to either Hazmi or

Hazmi and Mihdhar moved in with no furniture and practically no posses=

sions.Soon after the move,Bayoumi used their apartment for a party attended

by some 20 male members of the Muslim community.At Bayoumi’s request,

Bin Don videotaped the gathering with Bayoumi’s video camera. Hazmi and

Mihdhar did not mingle with the other guests and reportedly spent most of

Hazmi and Mihdhar immediately started looking for a different place to stay.

Based on their comment to Bayoumi about the first apartment being expen=

sive,one might infer that they wanted to save money.They may also have been

reconsidering the wisdom of living so close to the video camera–wielding Bay=

oumi,who Hazmi seemed to think was some sort of Saudi spy.Just over a week

after moving in, Hazmi and Mihdhar filed a 30-day notice of intention to

vacate.Bayoumi apparently loaned them his cell phone to help them check out

Their initial effort to move turned out poorly. An acquaintance arranged

with his landlord to have Mihdhar take over his apartment.Mihdhar put down

a $650 deposit and signed a lease for the apartment effective March 1. Several

weeks later, Mihdhar sought a refund of his deposit, claiming he no longer

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intended to move in because the apartment was too messy.When the landlord

refused to refund the deposit, Mihdhar became belligerent. The landlord

Hazmi and Mihdhar finally found a room to rent in the home of an indi=

vidual they had met at a mosque in San Diego.According to the homeowner,

the future hijackers moved in on May 10,2000.Mihdhar moved out after only

about a month. On June 9, he left San Diego to return to Yemen. Hazmi, on

the other hand, stayed at this house for the rest of his time in California, until

mid-December; he would then leave for Arizona with a newly arrived 9/11

While in San Diego,Hazmi and Mihdhar played the part of recently arrived

foreign students.They continued to reach out to members of the Muslim com=

munity for help.At least initially,they found well-meaning new acquaintances

at the Islamic Center of San Diego, which was only a stone’s throw from the

apartment where they first lived.For example,when they purchased a used car

(with cash), they bought it from a man who lived across the street from the

Islamic Center and who let them use his address in registering the vehicle, an

accommodation "to help a fellow Muslim brother." Similarly, in April, when

their cash supply may have been dwindling, Hazmi persuaded the administra=

tor of the Islamic Center to let him use the administrator’s bank account to

receive a $5,000 wire transfer from someone in Dubai,in the United Arab Emi=

Hazmi and Mihdhar visited other mosques as well, mixing comfortably as

devout worshippers. During the operatives’ critical first weeks in San Diego,

Mohdar Abdullah helped them. Translating between English and Arabic, he

assisted them in obtaining California driver’s licenses and with applying to lan=

guage and flight schools.Abdullah also introduced them to his circle of friends;

he shared an apartment with some of those friends near the Rabat mosque in

Abdullah has emerged as a key associate of Hazmi and Mihdhar in San

Diego. Detained after 9/11 (first as a material witness, then on immigration

charges), he was deported toYemen on May 21, 2004, after the U.S.Attorney

for the Southern District of California declined to prosecute him on charges

arising out of his alleged jailhouse admissions concerning the 9/11 operatives.

The Department of Justice declined to delay his removal pending further inves=

Other friends of Abdullah also translated for Hazmi and Mihdhar and helped

them adjust to life in San Diego. Some held extremist beliefs or were well

acquainted with known extremists. For example, immediately after 9/11,

Osama Awadallah, a Yemeni whose telephone number was found in Hazmi’s

Toyota at Washington Dulles International Airport, was found to possess pho=

tos,videos,and articles relating to Bin Ladin.Awadallah also had lived in a house

where copies of Bin Ladin’s fatwas and other similar materials were distributed

THE ATTACK LOOMS

221

to the residents. Omar Bakarbashat, a Saudi, also met Hazmi and Mihdhar at

the Rabat mosque. He admitted helping Hazmi to learn English and taking

over the operatives’first apartment in San Diego after they moved out.Bakar=

bashat apparently had downloaded stridently anti-American Web pages to his

Another potentially significant San Diego contact for Hazmi and Mihdhar

was Anwar Aulaqi, an imam at the Rabat mosque. Born in New Mexico and

thus a U.S. citizen,Aulaqi grew up inYemen and studied in the United States

on a Yemeni government scholarship.We do not know how or when Hazmi

and Mihdhar first met Aulaqi.The operatives may even have met or at least

talked to him the same day they first moved to San Diego. Hazmi and Mih=

dhar reportedly respected Aulaqi as a religious figure and developed a close rela=

When interviewed after 9/11, Aulaqi said he did not recognize Hazmi’s

name but did identify his picture. Although Aulaqi admitted meeting with

Hazmi several times, he claimed not to remember any specifics of what they

discussed. He described Hazmi as a soft-spoken Saudi student who used to

appear at the mosque with a companion but who did not have a large circle

Aulaqi left San Diego in mid-2000,and by early 2001 had relocated toVir=

ginia.As we will discuss later,Hazmi eventually showed up at Aulaqi’s mosque

inVirginia, an appearance that may not have been coincidental.We have been

unable to learn enough about Aulaqi’s relationship with Hazmi and Mihdhar

In sum, although the evidence is thin as to specific motivations, our overall

impression is that soon after arriving in California,Hazmi and Mihdhar sought

out and found a group of young and ideologically like-minded Muslims with

roots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, individuals mainly associated with Mohdar

Abdullah and the Rabat mosque.The al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San

Diego under their true names, listing Hazmi in the telephone directory.They

managed to avoid attracting much attention.

Hazmi and Mihdhar came to the United States to learn English, take flying

lessons, and become pilots as quickly as possible.They turned out, however, to

have no aptitude for English.Even with help and tutoring from Mohdar Abdul=

lah and other bilingual friends, Hazmi and Mihdhar’s efforts to learn proved

futile.This lack of language skills in turn became an insurmountable barrier to

A pilot they consulted at one school, the Sorbi Flying Club in San Diego,

spoke Arabic. He explained to them that their flight instruction would begin

with small planes.Hazmi and Mihdhar emphasized their interest in learning to

fly jets,Boeing aircraft in particular,and asked where they might enroll to train

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on jets right away.Convinced that the two were either joking or dreaming,the

pilot responded that no such school existed. Other instructors who worked

with Hazmi and Mihdhar remember them as poor students who focused on

learning to control the aircraft in flight but took no interest in takeoffs or land=

ings. By the end of May 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar had given up on learning

Mihdhar’s mind seems to have been with his family back inYemen, as evi=

denced by calls he made from the apartment telephone.When news of the birth

of his first child arrived,he could stand life in California no longer.In late May

and early June of 2000, he closed his bank account, transferred the car regis=

tration to Hazmi,and arranged his return toYemen.According to KSM,Mih=

dhar was bored in San Diego and foresaw no problem in coming back to the

United States since he had not overstayed his visa.Hazmi and Mohdar Abdul=

lah accompanied him to Los Angeles on June 9.After visiting the King Fahd

mosque one last time with his friends, Mihdhar left the country the follow=

KSM kept in fairly close touch with his operatives,using a variety of meth=

ods.When Bin Ladin called KSM back from Pakistan to Afghanistan in the

spring of 2000, KSM asked Khallad (whom we introduced in chapter 5) to

maintain email contact with Hazmi in the United States. Mihdhar’s decision

to strand Hazmi in San Diego enraged KSM, who had not authorized the

departure and feared it would compromise the plan. KSM attempted to drop

Mihdhar from the planes operation and would have done so, he says, had he

Following Mihdhar’s departure, Hazmi grew lonely and worried that he

would have trouble managing by himself. He prayed with his housemate each

morning at 5:00

. and attended services at the Islamic Center.He borrowed

his housemate’s computer for Internet access,following news coverage of fight=

ing in Chechnya and Bosnia.With his housemate’s help, Hazmi also used the

Internet to search for a wife (after obtaining KSM’s approval to marry).This

search did not succeed. Although he developed a close relationship with his

housemate, Hazmi preferred not to use the house telephone, continuing the

After Mihdhar left, other students moved into the house. One of these,

Yazeed al Salmi, stands out. In July 2000, Salmi purchased $4,000 in traveler’s

checks at a bank in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On September 5, Hazmi deposited

$1,900 of the traveler’s checks into his bank account, after withdrawing the

same amount in cash.It is possible that Hazmi was simply cashing the traveler’s

checks for a friend.We do not know; Salmi claims not to remember the trans=

action.After 9/11,Salmi reportedly confided to Mohdar Abdullah that he had

previously known terrorist pilot Hani Hanjour.After living in the same house

with Hazmi for about a month,Salmi moved to the La Mesa apartment shared

THE ATTACK LOOMS

223

By the fall of 2000, Hazmi no longer even pretended to study English or

take flying lessons.Aware that his co-conspirators in Afghanistan and Pakistan

would be sending him a new colleague shortly, he bided his time and worked

for a few weeks at a gas station in La Mesa where some of his friends, includ=

ing Abdullah,were employed.On one occasion,Hazmi told a fellow employee

that he was planning to find a better job,and let slip a prediction that he would

On December 8,2000,Hani Hanjour arrived in San Diego,having traveled

from Dubai via Paris and Cincinnati. Hazmi likely picked up Hanjour at the

airport.We do not know where Hanjour stayed;a few days later,both men left

San Diego. Before departing, they visited the gas station in La Mesa, where

Hazmi reportedly introduced Hanjour as a "long time friend from Saudi Ara=

bia." Hazmi told his housemate that he and his friend "Hani" were headed for

San Jose to take flying lessons and told his friends that he would stay in touch.

Hazmi did not sever all contact with his friends in San Diego.According to

Abdullah,after Hazmi left San Diego in December 2000,he telephoned Abdul=

lah twice:in December 2000 or January 2001,Hazmi said he was in San Fran=

cisco and would be attending flight school there;about two weeks later,he said

he was attending flight school in Arizona. Some evidence, which we will dis=

cuss later, indicates that Hazmi contacted Abdullah again, in August 2001. In

addition, during the month following Hazmi’s departure from San Diego, he

emailed his housemate three times,including a January 2001 email that Hazmi

signed "Smer," an apparent attempt to conceal his identity that struck the

housemate as strange at the time. Hazmi also telephoned his housemate that

he and his friend had decided to take flight lessons in Arizona, and that Mih=

dhar was now back inYemen.That was their last contact.When the housemate

emailed Hazmi in February and March of 2001 to find out how he was far=

ing, Hazmi did not reply.

The housemate who rented the room to Hazmi and Mihdhar during 2000

is an apparently law-abiding citizen with long-standing, friendly contacts

among local police and FBI personnel.He did not see anything unusual enough

in the behavior of Hazmi or Mihdhar to prompt him to report to his law

enforcement contacts. Nor did those contacts ask him for information about

his tenants/housemates.

7.2 THE 9/11 PILOTS IN THE UNITED STATES

In the early summer of 2000,the Hamburg group arrived in the United States

to begin flight training.Marwan al Shehhi came on May 29,arriving in Newark

on a flight from Brussels. He went to New York City and waited there for

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Mohamed Atta to join him. On June 2,Atta traveled to the Czech Republic

by bus from Germany and then flew from Prague to Newark the next day.

According to Ramzi Binalshibh,Atta did not meet with anyone in Prague;he

simply believed it would contribute to operational security to fly out of Prague

rather than Hamburg, the departure point for much of his previous interna=

Atta and Shehhi had not settled on where they would obtain their flight

training. In contrast, Ziad Jarrah had already arranged to attend the Florida

Flight Training Center (FFTC) inVenice,Florida.Jarrah arrived in Newark on

June 27 and then flew toVenice. He immediately began the private pilot pro-

gram at FFTC, intending to get a multi-engine license. Jarrah moved in with

While Jarrah quickly settled into training in Florida,Atta and Shehhi kept

searching for a flight school.After visiting the Airman Flight School in Nor-

man,Oklahoma (where Zacarias Moussaoui would enroll several months later

and where another al Qaeda operative, Ihab Ali, had taken lessons in the mid=

1990s),Atta started flight instruction at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida,

and both Atta and Shehhi subsequently enrolled in the Accelerated Pilot Pro-

gram at that school. By the end of July, both of them took solo flights, and by

mid-August they passed the private pilot airman test.They trained through the

The Hamburg operatives paid for their flight training primarily with funds

wired from Dubai by KSM’s nephew,Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.Between June 29 and

September 17,2000,Ali sent Shehhi and Atta a total of $114,500 in five trans=

fers ranging from $5,000 to $70,000.Ali relied on the unremarkable nature of

his transactions, which were essentially invisible amid the billions of dollars

Ali was not required to provide identification

In mid-September,Atta and Shehhi applied to change their immigration sta=

tus from tourist to student, stating their intention to study at Huffman until

September 1,2001.In late September,they decided to enroll at Jones Aviation

in Sarasota, Florida, about 20 miles north ofVenice.According to the instruc=

tor at Jones, the two were aggressive, rude, and sometimes even fought with

him to take over the controls during their training flights. In early October,

they took the Stage I exam for instruments rating at Jones Aviation and failed.

Very upset,they said they were in a hurry because jobs awaited them at home.

In the meantime, Jarrah obtained a single-engine private pilot certificate in

early August. Having reached that milestone, he departed on the first of five

foreign trips he would take after first entering the United States. In October,

he flew back to Germany to visit his girlfriend,Aysel Senguen.The two trav=

eled to Paris before Jarrah returned to Florida on October 29.His relationship

with her remained close throughout his time in the United States.In addition

THE ATTACK LOOMS

225

to his trips,Jarrah made hundreds of phone calls to her and communicated fre=

Jarrah was supposed to be joined at FFTC by Ramzi Binalshibh, who even

sent the school a deposit. But Binalshibh could not obtain a U.S. visa. His first

applications in May and June 2000 were denied because he lacked established

ties in Germany ensuring his return from a trip to the United States. In Sep=

tember,he went home toYemen to apply for a visa from there,but was denied

on grounds that he also lacked sufficient ties to Yemen. In October, he tried

one last time,in Berlin,applying for a student visa to attend "aviation language

school," but the prior denials were noted and this application was denied as

Unable to participate directly in the operation, Binalshibh instead took on

the role of coordinating between KSM and the operatives in the United States.

Apart from sending a total of about $10,000 in wire transfers to Atta and Sheh=

hi during the summer of 2000,one of Binalshibh’s first tasks in his new role as

In the fall of 2000,KSM had sent Moussaoui to Malaysia for flight training,

but Moussaoui did not find a school he liked.He worked instead on other ter=

rorist schemes,such as buying four tons of ammonium nitrate for bombs to be

planted on cargo planes flying to the United States.When KSM found out,he

recalled Moussaoui back to Pakistan and directed him to go to the United

States for flight training. In early October, Moussaoui went to London.When

Binalshibh visited London in December, he stayed at the same 16-room dor=

mitory where Moussaoui was still residing. From London, Moussaoui sent

Confronting training or travel problems with Hazmi, Mihdhar, Binalshibh,

and Moussaoui, al Qaeda was looking for another possible pilot candidate.A

new recruit with just the right background conveniently presented himself in

Afghanistan.

Hani Hanjour,from Ta’if,Saudi Arabia,first came to the United States in 1991

to study at the Center for English as a Second Language at the University of

Arizona.He seems to have been a rigorously observant Muslim.According to

his older brother, Hani Hanjour went to Afghanistan for the first time in the

late 1980s,as a teenager,to participate in the jihad and,because the Soviets had

In 1996, Hanjour returned to the United States to pursue flight training,

after being rejected by a Saudi flight school. He checked out flight schools in

Florida, California, and Arizona; and he briefly started at a couple of them

before returning to Saudi Arabia. In 1997, he returned to Florida and then,

along with two friends,went back to Arizona and began his flight training there

in earnest.After about three months, Hanjour was able to obtain his private

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pilot’s license.Several more months of training yielded him a commercial pilot

certificate,issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in April 1999.

Hanjour reportedly applied to the civil aviation school in Jeddah after

returning home, but was rejected. He stayed home for a while and then told

his family he was going to the United Arab Emirates to work for an airline.

Where Hanjour actually traveled during this time period is unknown.It is pos=

The fact that Hanjour spent so much time in Arizona may be significant.A

number of important al Qaeda figures attended the University of Arizona in

Some of Hanjour’s

known Arizona associates from the time of his flight training in the late 1990s

FBI investigators have speculated that al Qaeda may

have directed other extremist Muslims in the Phoenix area to enroll in avia=

tion training. It is clear that when Hanjour lived in Arizona in the 1990s, he

associated with several individuals holding extremist beliefs who have been the

subject of counterterrorism investigations. Some of them trained with Han=

jour to be pilots.Others had apparent connections to al Qaeda,including train=

By the spring of 2000,Hanjour was back in Afghanistan.According to KSM,

Hanjour was sent to him in Karachi for inclusion in the plot after Hanjour was

identified in al Qaeda’s al Faruq camp as a trained pilot, on the basis of back-

ground information he had provided. Hanjour had been at a camp in

Afghanistan for a few weeks when Bin Ladin or Atef apparently realized that

he was a trained pilot; he was told to report to KSM, who then trained Han=

On June 20, Hanjour returned home to Saudi Arabia. He obtained a U.S.

student visa on September 25 and told his family he was returning to his job

in the UAE. Hanjour did go to the UAE, but to meet facilitator Ali Abdul

Ali opened a bank account in Dubai for Hanjour and providing the initial

funds for his trip.On December 8,Hanjour traveled to San Diego.His supposed

destination was an English as a second language program in Oakland, Califor=

nia, which he had scheduled before leaving Saudi Arabia but never attended.

Hazmi and Hanjour left San Diego almost immediately and drove to Ari=

zona.Settling in Mesa,Hanjour began refresher training at his old school,Ari=

zona Aviation. He wanted to train on multi-engine planes, but had difficulties

because his English was not good enough.The instructor advised him to dis=

continue but Hanjour said he could not go home without completing the

training. In early 2001, he started training on a Boeing 737 simulator at Pan

Am International Flight Academy in Mesa.An instructor there found his work

well below standard and discouraged him from continuing.Again,Hanjour per-

THE ATTACK LOOMS

227

severed; he completed the initial training by the end of March 2001.At that

point, Hanjour and Hazmi vacated their apartment and started driving east,

anticipating the arrival of the "muscle hijackers"—the operatives who would

storm the cockpits and control the passengers. By as early as April 4, Hanjour

The three pilots in Florida continued with their training.Atta and Shehhi

finished up at Huffman and earned their instrument certificates from the FAA

in November.In mid-December 2000,they passed their commercial pilot tests

and received their licenses.They then began training to fly large jets on a flight

simulator. At about the same time, Jarrah began simulator training, also in

Florida but at a different center.By the end of 2000,less than six months after

their arrival,the three pilots on the East Coast were simulating flights on large

Jarrah, Atta, and Shehhi, having progressed in their training, all took foreign

trips during the holiday period of 2000–2001. Jarrah flew through Germany

to get home to Beirut.A few weeks later,he returned to Florida via Germany,

with Aysel Senguen. She stayed with him in Florida for ten days, even accom=

panying him to a flight training session.We do not know whether Atta or al

Qaeda leaders knew about Jarrah’s trips and Senguen’s visit.The other opera=

tives had broken off regular contact with their families.At the end of January

2001,Jarrah again flew to Beirut,to visit his sick father.After staying there for

several weeks,Jarrah visited Senguen in Germany for a few days before return=

While Jarrah took his personal trips,Atta traveled to Germany in early Jan=

uary 2001 for a progress meeting with Ramzi Binalshibh. Binalshibh says Atta

told him to report to the al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan that the three

Hamburg pilots had completed their flight training and were awaiting orders.

Atta also disclosed that a fourth pilot, Hanjour, had joined Hazmi. Upon

returning to Florida,Atta wired Binalshibh travel money.Binalshibh proceeded

to Afghanistan, made his report, and spent the next several months there and

When Atta returned to Florida, Shehhi left for Morocco, traveling to

Casablanca in mid-January.Shehhi’s family,concerned about not having heard

from him, reported him missing to the UAE government.The UAE embassy

in turn contacted the Hamburg police and a UAE representative tried to find

him in Germany, visiting mosques and Shehhi’s last address in Hamburg.After

learning that his family was looking for him,Shehhi telephoned them on Jan=

uary 20 and said he was still living and studying in Hamburg.The UAE gov=

Atta and Shehhi both encountered some difficulty reentering the United

States, on January 10 and January 18, respectively. Because neither presented a

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Mohamed Atta is known to have been in Prague on two occasions: in

December 1994,when he stayed one night at a transit hotel,and in June

2000, when he was en route to the United States. On the latter occa=

sion, he arrived by bus from Germany, on June 2, and departed for

The allegation that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in

Prague in April 2001 originates from the reporting of a single source of

the Czech intelligence service. Shortly after 9/11, the source reported

having seen Atta meet with Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani,an Iraqi

diplomat,at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague on April 9,2001,at 11:00

.

This information was passed to CIA headquarters.

The U.S. legal attaché ("Legat") in Prague, the representative of the

FBI, met with the Czech service’s source.After the meeting, the assess=

ment of the Legat and the Czech officers present was that they were 70

percent sure that the source was sincere and believed his own story of

the meeting.Subsequently,the Czech intelligence service publicly stated

that there was a 70 percent probability that the meeting between Atta

and Ani had taken place.The Czech Interior Minister also made several

statements to the press about his belief that the meeting had occurred,

and the story was widely reported.

The FBI has gathered evidence indicating that Atta was in Virginia

Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank surveillance camera photo),

and in Coral Springs, Florida on April 11, where he and Shehhi leased

an apartment.On April 6,9,10,and 11,Atta’s cellular telephone was used

numerous times to call various lodging establishments in Florida from

cell sites within Florida.We cannot confirm that he placed those calls.

But there are no U.S. records indicating that Atta departed the country

during this period. Czech officials have reviewed their flight and bor=

der records as well for any indication that Atta was in the Czech Repub=

lic in April 2001, including records of anyone crossing the border who

even looked Arab.They have also reviewed pictures from the area near

the Iraqi embassy and have not discovered photos of anyone who looked

like Atta. No evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech

Republic in April 2001.

According to the Czech government,Ani,the Iraqi officer alleged to

have met with Atta, was about 70 miles away from Prague on April 8–9

and did not return until the afternoon of the ninth,while the source was

firm that the sighting occurred at 11:00

. When questioned about

the reported April 2001 meeting,Ani—now in custody—has denied ever

THE ATTACK LOOMS

229

meeting or having any contact with Atta.Ani says that shortly after 9/11,

he became concerned that press stories about the alleged meeting might

hurt his career. Hoping to clear his name, Ani asked his superiors to

approach the Czech government about refuting the allegation. He also

denies knowing of any other Iraqi official having contact with Atta.

These findings cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that Atta was

in Prague on April 9, 2001. He could have used an alias to travel and a

passport under that alias, but this would be an exception to his practice

of using his true name while traveling (as he did in January and would

in July when he took his next overseas trip).The FBI and CIA have

uncovered no evidence that Atta held any fraudulent passports.

KSM and Binalshibh both deny that an Atta-Ani meeting occurred.

There was no reason for such a meeting, especially considering the risk

it would pose to the operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had com=

pleted most of their training,and the muscle hijackers were about to begin

entering the United States.

The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of

student visa,both of them had to persuade INS inspectors that they should be

admitted so that they could continue their flight training. Neither operative

After returning to Florida from their trips,Atta and Shehhi visited Georgia,

staying briefly in Norcross and Decatur, and renting a single-engine plane to

fly with an instructor in Lawrenceville.By February 19,Atta and Shehhi were

inVirginia.They rented a mailbox inVirginia Beach,cashed a check,and then

promptly returned to Georgia, staying in Stone Mountain.We have found no

explanation for these travels.In mid-March,Jarrah was in Georgia as well,stay=

ing in Decatur.There is no evidence that the three pilots met, although Jarrah

and Atta apparently spoke on the phone.At the end of the month, Jarrah left

the United States again and visited Senguen in Germany for two weeks. In

early April,Atta and Shehhi returned to Virginia Beach and closed the mail-

By the time Atta and Shehhi returned to Virginia Beach from their travels

in Georgia, Hazmi and Hanjour had also arrived in Virginia, in Falls Church.

They made their way to a large mosque there,the Dar al Hijra mosque,some-

As we mentioned earlier, one of the imams at this mosque was the same

Anwar Aulaqi with whom Hazmi had spent time at the Rabat mosque in San

Diego.Aulaqi had moved to Virginia in January 2001. He remembers Hazmi

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from San Diego but has denied having any contact with Hazmi or Hanjour in

At the Dar al Hijra mosque, Hazmi and Hanjour met a Jordanian named

Eyad al Rababah. Rababah says he had gone to the mosque to speak to the

imam,Aulaqi, about finding work.At the conclusion of services, which nor=

mally had 400 to 500 attendees, Rababah says he happened to meet Hazmi

and Hanjour.They were looking for an apartment; Rababah referred them to

a friend who had one to rent.Hazmi and Hanjour moved into the apartment,

Some FBI investigators doubt Rababah’s story. Some agents suspect that

Aulaqi may have tasked Rababah to help Hazmi and Hanjour.We share that

suspicion,given the remarkable coincidence of Aulaqi’s prior relationship with

Hazmi.As noted above, the Commission was unable to locate and interview

Aulaqi.Rababah has been deported to Jordan,having been convicted after 9/11

Rababah, who had lived in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, told

investigators that he had recommended Paterson, New Jersey, as a place with

an Arabic-speaking community where Hazmi and Hanjour might want to set=

tle.They asked for his help in getting them an apartment in Paterson.Rababah

tried without success.He says he then suggested that Hazmi and Hanjour travel

On May 8,Rababah went to Hazmi and Hanjour’s apartment to pick them

up for the trip to Connecticut.There he says he found them with new room=

mates—Ahmed al Ghamdi and Majed Moqed.These two men had been sent

to America to serve as muscle hijackers and had arrived at Dulles Airport on

May 2.Rababah drove Hanjour to Fairfield,Connecticut,followed by Hazmi,

who had Moqed and Ghamdi in his car. After a short stay in Connecticut,

where they apparently called area flight schools and real estate agents,

Rababah drove the four to Paterson to have dinner and show them around.

He says that they returned with him to Fairfield that night, and that he never

Within a few weeks,Hanjour,Hazmi,and several other operatives moved

to Paterson and rented a one-room apartment. When their landlord later

paid a visit, he found six men living there—Nawaf al Hazmi, now joined by

his younger brother Salem, Hanjour, Moqed, probably Ahmed al Ghamdi,

and Abdul Aziz al Omari;Hazmi’s old friend Khalid al Mihdhar would soon

Atta and Shehhi had already returned to Florida. On April 11, they moved

into an apartment in Coral Springs.Atta stayed in Florida,awaiting the arrival

Shehhi, on the other hand, bought a ticket to Cairo and flew there from

Miami on April 18.We do not know much more about Shehhi’s reason for

traveling to Egypt in April than we know about his January trip to Morocco.

THE ATTACK LOOMS

231

Shehhi did meet with Atta’s father, who stated in a post-9/11 interview that

Shehhi just wanted to pick up Atta’s international driver’s license and some

money.This story is not credible.Atta already had the license with him and pre=

sented it during a traffic stop on April 26 while Shehhi was still abroad. Sheh=

hi spent about two weeks in Egypt,obviously more time than would have been

needed just to meet with Atta’s father. Shehhi could have traveled elsewhere

during this time, but no records indicating additional travel have been discov-

Shehhi returned to Miami on May 2. That day, Atta and Jarrah were

together,about 30 miles to the north,visiting a Department of MotorVehicles

office in Lauderdale Lakes,Florida,to get Florida driver’s licenses.Back inVir=

ginia, Hazmi and Hanjour were about to leave for Connecticut and New Jer=

sey.As the summer approached,the lead operatives were settled in Florida and

7.3 ASSEMBLING THE TEAMS

During the summer and early autumn of 2000,Bin Ladin and senior al Qaeda

leaders in Afghanistan started selecting the muscle hijackers—the operatives

who would storm the cockpits and control the passengers. Despite the phrase

widely used to describe them, the so-called muscle hijackers were not at all

Twelve of the 13 muscle hijackers (excluding Nawaf al Hazmi and Mihdhar)

came from Saudi Arabia: Satam al Suqami,Wail al Shehri,Waleed al Shehri,

Abdul Aziz al Omari, Ahmed al Ghamdi, Hamza al Ghamdi, Mohand al

Shehri,Majed Moqed,Salem al Hazmi,Saeed al Ghamdi,Ahmad al Haznawi,

and Ahmed al Nami.The remaining recruit, Fayez Banihammad, came from

the UAE. He appears to have played a unique role among the muscle hijack=

ers because of his work with one of the plot’s financial facilitators, Mustafa al

Saudi authorities interviewed the relatives of these men and have briefed us

on what they found.The muscle hijackers came from a variety of educational

and societal backgrounds. All were between 20 and 28 years old; most were

Four of them—Ahmed al Ghamdi, Saeed al Ghamdi, Hamza al Ghamdi,

and Ahmad al Haznawi—came from a cluster of three towns in the al Bahah

region, an isolated and underdeveloped area of Saudi Arabia, and shared the

same tribal affiliation. None had a university degree.Their travel patterns and

information from family members suggest that the four may have been in con-

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THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

Five more—Wail al Shehri,Waleed al Shehri,Abdul Aziz al Omari,Mohand

al Shehri, and Ahmed al Nami—came from Asir Province, a poor region in

southwestern Saudi Arabia that borders Yemen; this weakly policed area is

sometimes called "the wild frontier."Wail and Waleed al Shehri were brothers.

All five in this group had begun university studies. Omari had graduated with

honors from high school, had attained a degree from the Imam Muhammad

The three remaining muscle hijackers from Saudi Arabia were Satam al

Suqami, Majed Moqed, and Salem al Hazmi. Suqami came from Riyadh.

Moqed hailed from a small town called Annakhil,west of Medina.Suqami had

very little education, and Moqed had dropped out of university. Neither

Suqami nor Moqed appears to have had ties to the other,or to any of the other

Salem al Hazmi, a younger brother of Nawaf, was born in Mecca. Salem’s

family recalled him as a quarrelsome teenager.His brother Nawaf probably rec=

ommended him for recruitment into al Qaeda. One al Qaeda member who

knew them says that Nawaf pleaded with Bin Ladin to allow Salem to partic=

Detainees have offered varying reasons for the use of so many Saudi oper=

atives. Binalshibh argues that al Qaeda wanted to send a message to the gov=

ernment of Saudi Arabia about its relationship with the United States. Several

other al Qaeda figures, however, have stated that ethnicity generally was not a

factor in the selection of operatives unless it was important for security or oper=

KSM,for instance,denies that Saudis were chosen for the 9/11 plot to drive

a wedge between the United States and Saudi Arabia,and stresses practical rea=

sons for considering ethnic background when selecting operatives.He says that

so many were Saudi because Saudis comprised the largest portion of the pool

of recruits in the al Qaeda training camps. KSM estimates that in any given

camp, 70 percent of the mujahideen were Saudi, 20 percent wereYemeni, and

10 percent were from elsewhere. Although Saudi and Yemeni trainees were

most often willing to volunteer for suicide operations,prior to 9/11 it was eas=

Most of the Saudi muscle hijackers developed their ties to extremists two

or three years before the attacks.Their families often did not consider these

young men religious zealots.Some were perceived as devout,others as lacking

in faith.For instance,although Ahmed al Ghamdi,Hamza al Ghamdi,and Saeed

al Ghamdi attended prayer services regularly and Omari often served as an

imam at his mosque in Saudi Arabia, Suqami and Salem al Hazmi appeared

unconcerned with religion and, contrary to Islamic law, were known to drink

Like many other al Qaeda operatives, the Saudis who eventually became

the muscle hijackers were targeted for recruitment outside Afghanistan—

probably in Saudi Arabia itself.Al Qaeda recruiters, certain clerics, and—in a

THE ATTACK LOOMS

233

few cases—family members probably all played a role in spotting potential

candidates. Several of the muscle hijackers seem to have been recruited

According to the head of one of the training camps in Afghanistan, some

were chosen by unnamed Saudi sheikhs who had contacts with al Qaeda.

Omari,for example,is believed to have been a student of a radical Saudi cleric

named Sulayman al Alwan. His mosque, which is located in al Qassim

Province, is known among more moderate clerics as a "terrorist factory."The

province is at the very heart of the strict Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia.

Saeed al Ghamdi and Mohand al Shehri also spent time in al Qassim, both

breaking with their families.According to his father, Mohand al Shehri’s fre=

quent visits to this area resulted in his failing exams at his university in Riyadh.

Saeed al Ghamdi transferred to a university in al Qassim, but he soon stopped

The majority of these Saudi recruits began to break with their families in

late 1999 and early 2000.According to relatives, some recruits began to make

arrangements for extended absences. Others exhibited marked changes in

behavior before disappearing.Salem al Hazmi’s father recounted that Salem—

who had had problems with alcohol and petty theft—stopped drinking and

Several family members remembered that their relatives had expressed a

desire to participate in jihad, particularly in Chechnya. None had mentioned

going to Afghanistan.These statements might be true or cover stories.The four

recruits from the al Ghamdi tribe, for example, all told their families that they

were going to Chechnya. Only two—Ahmed al Ghamdi and Saeed al

Some aspiring Saudi mujahideen, intending to go to Chechnya, encoun=

tered difficulties along the way and diverted to Afghanistan. In 1999, Ibn al

Khattab—the primary commander of Arab nationals in Chechnya—reportedly

had started turning away most foreign mujahideen because of their inexperi=

ence and inability to adjust to the local conditions. KSM states that several of

the 9/11 muscle hijackers faced problems traveling to Chechnya and so went

Khallad has offered a more detailed story of how such diversions occurred.

According to him, a number of Saudi mujahideen who tried to go to Chech=

nya in 1999 to fight the Russians were stopped at the Turkish-Georgian bor=

der.Upon arriving inTurkey,they received phone calls at guesthouses in places

such as Istanbul and Ankara, informing them that the route to Chechnya via

Georgia had been closed.These Saudis then decided to travel to Afghanistan,

where they could train and wait to make another attempt to enter Chechnya

during the summer of 2000.While training at al Qaeda camps,a dozen of them

heard Bin Ladin’s speeches, volunteered to become suicide operatives, and

eventually were selected as muscle hijackers for the planes operation. Khallad

says he met a number of them at the Kandahar airport,where they were help-

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THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

ing to provide extra security. He encouraged Bin Ladin to use them. Khallad

claims to have been closest with Saeed al Ghamdi, whom he convinced to

become a martyr and whom he asked to recruit a friend,Ahmed al Ghamdi,

to the same cause. Although Khallad claims not to recall everyone from this

group who was later chosen for the 9/11 operation,he says they also included

Suqami,Waleed and Wail al Shehri,Omari,Nami,Hamza al Ghamdi,Salem al

According to KSM, operatives volunteered for suicide operations and, for

the most part, were not pressured to martyr themselves. Upon arriving in

Afghanistan,a recruit would fill out an application with standard questions,such

as,What brought you to Afghanistan? How did you travel here? How did you

hear about us?What attracted you to the cause?What is your educational back-

ground?Where have you worked before? Applications were valuable for deter-

mining the potential of new arrivals, for filtering out potential spies from

among them, and for identifying recruits with special skills. For instance, as

pointed out earlier, Hani Hanjour noted his pilot training. Prospective opera=

tives also were asked whether they were prepared to serve as suicide operatives;

those who answered in the affirmative were interviewed by senior al Qaeda

KSM claims that the most important quality for any al Qaeda operative

was willingness to martyr himself.Khallad agrees,and claims that this criterion

had preeminence in selecting the planes operation participants. The second

most important criterion was demonstrable patience,Khallad says,because the

Khallad claims it did not matter whether the hijackers had fought in jihad

previously, since he believes that U.S. authorities were not looking for such

operatives before 9/11. But KSM asserts that young mujahideen with clean

records were chosen to avoid raising alerts during travel.The al Qaeda train=

ing camp head mentioned above adds that operatives with no prior involve=

ment in activities likely to be known to international security agencies were

Most of the muscle hijackers first underwent basic training similar to that

given other al Qaeda recruits. This included training in firearms, heavy

weapons, explosives, and topography. Recruits learned discipline and military

life.They were subjected to artificial stresses to measure their psychological fit=

ness and commitment to jihad.At least seven of the Saudi muscle hijackers took

this basic training regime at the al Faruq camp near Kandahar.This particular

camp appears to have been the preferred location for vetting and training

the potential muscle hijackers because of its proximity to Bin Ladin and

senior al Qaeda leadership.Two others—Suqami and Moqed—trained at Khal=

dan,another large basic training facility located near Kabul,where Mihdhar had

By the time operatives for the planes operation were picked in mid-2000,

some of them had been training in Afghanistan for months, others were just

THE ATTACK LOOMS

235

arriving for the first time, and still others may have been returning after prior

visits to the camps.According to KSM, Bin Ladin would travel to the camps

to deliver lectures and meet the trainees personally. If Bin Ladin believed a

trainee held promise for a special operation, that trainee would be invited to

KSM claims that Bin Ladin could assess new trainees very quickly,in about

ten minutes,and that many of the 9/11 hijackers were selected in this manner.

Bin Ladin, assisted by Atef, personally chose all the future muscle hijackers for

the planes operation, primarily between the summer of 2000 and April 2001.

Upon choosing a trainee, Bin Ladin would ask him to swear loyalty for a sui=

cide operation.After the selection and oath-swearing, the operative would be

sent to KSM for training and the filming of a martyrdom video, a function

KSM sent the muscle hijacker recruits on to Saudi Arabia to obtain U.S.

visas.He gave them money (about $2,000 each) and instructed them to return

to Afghanistan for more training after obtaining the visas.At this early stage,

the operatives were not told details about the operation.The majority of the

Saudi muscle hijackers obtained U.S.visas in Jeddah or Riyadh between Sep=

KSM told potential hijackers to acquire new "clean"passports in their home

countries before applying for a U.S. visa.This was to avoid raising suspicion

about previous travel to countries where al Qaeda operated. Fourteen of the

19 hijackers, including nine Saudi muscle hijackers, obtained new passports.

Some of these passports were then likely doctored by the al Qaeda passport

division in Kandahar, which would add or erase entry and exit stamps to cre=

In addition to the operatives who eventually participated in the 9/11 attacks

as muscle hijackers, Bin Ladin apparently selected at least nine other Saudis

who, for various reasons, did not end up taking part in the operation:

Mohamed Mani Ahmad al Kahtani, Khalid Saeed Ahmad al Zahrani,Ali Abd

al Rahman al Faqasi al Ghamdi, Saeed al Baluchi, Qutaybah al Najdi, Zuhair

al Thubaiti, Saeed Abdullah Saeed al Ghamdi, Saud al Rashid, and Mushabib

al Hamlan. A tenth individual, a Tunisian with Canadian citizenship named

Abderraouf Jdey, may have been a candidate to participate in 9/11, or he may

have been a candidate for a later attack.These candidate hijackers either backed

out,had trouble obtaining needed travel documents,or were removed from the

operation by the al Qaeda leadership. Khallad believes KSM wanted between

four and six operatives per plane. KSM states that al Qaeda had originally

Having acquired U.S. visas in Saudi Arabia, the muscle hijackers returned to

Afghanistan for special training in late 2000 to early 2001.The training report=

edly was conducted at the al Matar complex by Abu Turab al Jordani, one of

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THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

only a handful of al Qaeda operatives who, according to KSM, was aware of

the full details of the planned planes operation.Abu Turab taught the opera=

tives how to conduct hijackings,disarm air marshals,and handle explosives.He

also trained them in bodybuilding and provided them with a few basic Eng=

According to KSM,Abu Turab even had the trainees butcher a sheep and a

camel with a knife to prepare to use knives during the hijackings.The recruits

learned to focus on storming the cockpit at the earliest opportunity when the

doors first opened,and to worry about seizing control over the rest of the plane

later.The operatives were taught about other kinds of attack as well, such as

truck bombing, so that they would not be able to disclose the exact nature of

their operation if they were caught. According to KSM, the muscle did not

learn the full details—including the plan to hijack planes and fly them into

After training in Afghanistan,the operatives went to a safehouse maintained

by KSM in Karachi and stayed there temporarily before being deployed to the

United States via the UAE.The safehouse was run by al Qaeda operative Abd

al Rahim Ghulum Rabbani, also known as Abu Rahmah, a close associate of

KSM who assisted him for three years by finding apartments and lending logis=

tical support to operatives KSM would send.

According to an al Qaeda facilitator, operatives were brought to the safe-

house by a trusted Pakistani al Qaeda courier named Abdullah Sindhi, who

also worked for KSM.The future hijackers usually arrived in groups of two

or three, staying at the safe house for as long as two weeks.The facilitator has

identified each operative whom he assisted at KSM’s direction in the spring

of 2001. Before the operatives left Pakistan, each of them received $10,000

From Pakistan, the operatives transited through the UAE en route to the

United States. In the Emirates they were assisted primarily by al Qaeda oper=

atives Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa al Hawsawi.Ali apparently assisted nine

future hijackers between April and June 2001 as they came through Dubai.He

helped them with plane tickets,traveler’s checks,and hotel reservations;he also

taught them about everyday aspects of life in the West, such as purchasing

clothes and ordering food. Dubai, a modern city with easy access to a major

airport,travel agencies,hotels,and Western commercial establishments,was an

Ali reportedly assumed the operatives he was helping were involved in a big

When he asked

KSM to send him an assistant,KSM dispatched Hawsawi,who had worked on

al Qaeda’s media committee in Kandahar. Hawsawi helped send the last four

operatives (other than Mihdhar) to the United States from the UAE.Hawsawi

would consult with Atta about the hijackers’ travel schedules to the United

States and later check with Atta to confirm that each had arrived.Hawsawi told

THE ATTACK LOOMS

237

the muscle hijackers that they would be met by Atta at the airport. Hawsawi

The muscle hijackers began arriving in the United States in late April 2001.

In most cases, they traveled in pairs on tourist visas and entered the United

States in Orlando or Miami, Florida;Washington, D.C.; or New York.Those

arriving in Florida were assisted by Atta and Shehhi, while Hazmi and Han=

jour took care of the rest. By the end of June, 14 of the 15 muscle hijackers

The muscle hijackers supplied an infusion of funds,which they carried as a

mixture of cash and traveler’s checks purchased in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Seven muscle hijackers are known to have purchased a total of nearly $50,000

in traveler’s checks that were used in the United States. Moreover, substantial

deposits into operatives’U.S.bank accounts immediately followed the entry of

other muscle hijackers, indicating that those newcomers brought money with

them as well. In addition, muscle hijacker Banihammad came to the United

States after opening bank accounts in the UAE into which were deposited the

equivalent of approximately $30,000 on June 25,2001.After his June 27 arrival

in the United States, Banihammad made Visa and ATM withdrawals from his

The hijackers made extensive use of banks in the United States, choosing

both branches of major international banks and smaller regional banks.All of

the hijackers opened accounts in their own name,and used passports and other

identification documents that appeared valid on their face.Contrary to numer=

ous published reports, there is no evidence the hijackers ever used false Social

Security numbers to open any bank accounts.While the hijackers were not

experts on the use of the U.S. financial system, nothing they did would have

led the banks to suspect criminal behavior,let alone a terrorist plot to commit

The last muscle hijacker to arrive was Khalid al Mihdhar.As mentioned ear=

lier, he had abandoned Hazmi in San Diego in June 2000 and returned to his

family inYemen.Mihdhar reportedly stayed inYemen for about a month before

Khallad persuaded him to return to Afghanistan. Mihdhar complained about

life in the United States.He met with KSM,who remained annoyed at his deci=

sion to go AWOL. But KSM’s desire to drop him from the operation yielded

By late 2000, Mihdhar was in Mecca, staying with a cousin until February

2001, when he went home to visit his family before returning to Afghanistan.

In June 2001, Mihdhar returned once more to Mecca to stay with his cousin

for another month. Mihdhar said that Bin Ladin was planning five attacks on

the United States. Before leaving, Mihdhar asked his cousin to watch over his

On July 4, 2001, Mihdhar left Saudi Arabia to return to the United States,

arriving at John F.Kennedy International Airport in NewYork.Mihdhar gave

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Left to right,

hijackers

Left to right,

pilot; Fayez Baniham

AL QAEDA AIMS ATTHE AMERICAN HOMELAND

239

Left to right,

Left to right,

hijackers

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his intended address as the Marriott Hotel, New York City, but instead spent

one night at another New York hotel. He then joined the group of hijackers

in Paterson, reuniting with Nawaf al Hazmi after more than a year.With two

months remaining,all 19 hijackers were in the United States and ready to take

As we mentioned in chapter 2, while in Sudan, senior managers in al Qaeda

maintained contacts with Iran and the Iranian-supported worldwide terrorist

organization Hezbollah, which is based mainly in southern Lebanon and

Beirut.Al Qaeda members received advice and training from Hezbollah.

Intelligence indicates the persistence of contacts between Iranian security

officials and senior al Qaeda figures after Bin Ladin’s return to Afghanistan.

Khallad has said that Iran made a concerted effort to strengthen relations with

al Qaeda after the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, but was rebuffed

because Bin Ladin did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia.Khal=

lad and other detainees have described the willingness of Iranian officials to

facilitate the travel of al Qaeda members through Iran,on their way to and from

Afghanistan.For example,Iranian border inspectors would be told not to place

telltale stamps in the passports of these travelers. Such arrangements were par=

Our knowledge of the international travels of the al Qaeda operatives

selected for the 9/11 operation remains fragmentary. But we now have evi=

dence suggesting that 8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi "muscle"operatives traveled into

In October 2000, a senior operative of Hezbollah visited Saudi Arabia to

coordinate activities there. He also planned to assist individuals in Saudi Ara=

bia in traveling to Iran during November.A top Hezbollah commander and

Also in October 2000, two future muscle hijackers, Mohand al Shehri and

Hamza al Ghamdi,flew from Iran to Kuwait.In November, Ahmed al Ghamdi

apparently flew to Beirut, traveling—perhaps by coincidence—on the same

flight as a senior Hezbollah operative.Also in November,Salem al Hazmi appar=

In mid-November, we believe, three of the future muscle hijackers,Wail al

Shehri,Waleed al Shehri,and Ahmed al Nami,all of whom had obtained their

U.S. visas in late October, traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and

then onward to Iran.An associate of a senior Hezbollah operative was on the

same flight that took the future hijackers to Iran. Hezbollah officials in Beirut

and Iran were expecting the arrival of a group during the same time period.

The travel of this group was important enough to merit the attention of sen=

Later in November,two future muscle hijackers,Satam al Suqami and Majed

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241

Moqed,flew into Iran from Bahrain.In February 2001,Khalid al Mihdhar may

have taken a flight from Syria to Iran, and then traveled further within Iran to

KSM and Binalshibh have confirmed that several of the 9/11 hijackers (at

least eight, according to Binalshibh) transited Iran on their way to or from

Afghanistan, taking advantage of the Iranian practice of not stamping Saudi

passports.They deny any other reason for the hijackers’travel to Iran.They also

In sum, there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda

members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11,and that some of these were

future 9/11 hijackers.There also is circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbol=

lah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of these future muscle

hijackers into Iran in November 2000. However,we cannot rule out the pos=

sibility of a remarkable coincidence—that is,that Hezbollah was actually focus=

ing on some other group of individuals traveling from Saudi Arabia during this

We have found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the plan=

ning for what later became the 9/11 attack.At the time of their travel through

Iran, the al Qaeda operatives themselves were probably not aware of the spe=

cific details of their future operation.

After 9/11, Iran and Hezbollah wished to conceal any past evidence of

cooperation with Sunni terrorists associated with al Qaeda.A senior Hezbol=

We believe this topic requires further investigation by the U.S.government.

7.4 FINAL STRATEGIES AND TACTICS

During the early summer of 2001,Atta, assisted by Shehhi, was busy coordi=

nating the arrival of most of the muscle hijackers in southern Florida—pick=

ing them up at the airport,finding them places to stay,and helping them settle

The majority settled in Florida.Some opened bank accounts,acquired mail-

boxes,and rented cars.Several also joined local gyms,presumably to stay fit for

the operation.Upon first arriving,most stayed in hotels and motels;but by mid-

June, they settled in shared apartments relatively close to one another and

Though these muscle hijackers did not travel much after arriving in

the United States, two of them,Waleed al Shehri and Satam al Suqami, took

unusual trips.

On May 19, Shehri and Suqami flew from Fort Lauderdale to Freeport,

the Bahamas,where they had reservations at the Bahamas Princess Resort.The

two were turned away by Bahamian officials on arrival,however,because they

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lacked visas; they returned to Florida that same day. They likely took this trip

to renew Suqami’s immigration status,as Suqami’s legal stay in the United States

On July 30,Shehri traveled alone from Fort Lauderdale to Boston.He flew

to San Francisco the next day, where he stayed one night before returning via

Las Vegas.While this travel may have been a casing flight—Shehri traveled in

first class on the same type of aircraft he would help hijack on September 11

(a Boeing 767) and the trip included a layover in Las Vegas—Shehri was nei=

ther a pilot nor a plot leader,as were the other hijackers who took surveillance

The three Hamburg pilots—Atta,Shehhi,and Jarrah—took the first of their

cross-country surveillance flights early in the summer. Shehhi flew from New

York to LasVegas via San Francisco in late May.Jarrah flew from Baltimore to

LasVegas via Los Angeles in early June.Atta flew from Boston to LasVegas via

San Francisco at the end of June.Each traveled in first class,on United Airlines.

For the east-west transcontinental leg,each operative flew on the same type of

aircraft he would pilot on September 11 (Atta and Shehhi, a Boeing 767; Jar=

Hanjour and Hazmi,as noted below,took similar cross-

country surveillance flights in August.

Jarrah and Hanjour also received additional training and practice flights in

the early summer.A few days before departing on his cross-country test flight,

Jarrah flew from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia, where he trained at Hort=

man Aviation and asked to fly the Hudson Corridor, a low-altitude "hallway"

along the Hudson River that passes NewYork landmarks like the World Trade

Center. Heavy traffic in the area can make the corridor a dangerous route for

an inexperienced pilot. Because Hortman deemed Jarrah unfit to fly solo, he

Hanjour, too, requested to fly the Hudson Corridor about this same time,

at Air Fleet Training Systems in Teterboro,New Jersey,where he started receiv=

ing ground instruction soon after settling in the area with Hazmi.Hanjour flew

the Hudson Corridor, but his instructor declined a second request because of

what he considered Hanjour’s poor piloting skills. Shortly thereafter, Hanjour

switched to Caldwell Flight Academy in Fairfield,New Jersey,where he rented

small aircraft on several occasions during June and July. In one such instance

on July 20, Hanjour—likely accompanied by Hazmi—rented a plane from

Caldwell and took a practice flight from Fairfield to Gaithersburg, Maryland,

a route that would have allowed them to fly near Washington,D.C.Other evi=

dence suggests that Hanjour may even have returned to Arizona for flight sim=

There is no indication that Atta or Shehhi received any additional flight

training in June.Both were likely too busy organizing the newly arrived mus=

cle hijackers and taking their cross-country surveillance flights.Atta,moreover,

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Although Atta and Hazmi appear to have been inVirginia at about the same

time in early April,they probably did not meet then.Analysis of late April com=

munications associated with KSM indicates that they had wanted to get

Atta and Hazmi

probably first met in the United States only when Hazmi traveled round-trip

from Newark to Miami between June 19 and June 25.

After he returned to New Jersey, Hazmi’s behavior began to closely paral=

lel that of the other hijackers. He and Hanjour, for instance, soon established

new bank accounts,acquired a mailbox,rented cars,and started visiting a gym.

So did the four other hijackers who evidently were staying with them in New

Jersey. Several also obtained new photo identification, first in New Jersey and

then at theVirginia Department of MotorVehicles,where Hazmi and Hanjour

had obtained such documents months earlier, likely with help from their Jor=

Atta probably met again with Hazmi in early July. Returning from his ini=

tial cross-country surveillance flight, Atta flew into New York. Rather than

return immediately to Florida,he checked into a New Jersey hotel.He picked

up tickets to travel to Spain at a travel agency in Paterson on July 4 before

departing for Fort Lauderdale. Now that the muscle hijackers had arrived, he

After meeting with Atta in Berlin in January 2001,Binalshibh had spent much

of the spring of 2001 in Afghanistan and Pakistan, helping move the muscle

hijackers as they passed through Karachi. During the Berlin meeting, the two

had agreed to meet later in the year in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the operation

in person again. In late May, Binalshibh reported directly to Bin Ladin at an

Bin Ladin told Binalshibh to instruct Atta and the others to focus on their

security and that of the operation,and to advise Atta to proceed as planned with

the targets discussed before Atta left Afghanistan in early 2000—the World

Trade Center, the Pentagon, the White House, and the Capitol. According

to Binalshibh, Bin Ladin said he preferred the White House over the Capitol,

asking Binalshibh to confirm that Atta understood this preference. Binalshibh

says Bin Ladin had given the same message to Waleed al Shehri for conveyance

to Atta earlier that spring. Binalshibh also received permission to meet Atta in

Malaysia.Atef provided money for the trip,which KSM would help Binalshibh

In early June,Binalshibh traveled by taxi from Kandahar to Quetta,Pakistan,

where al Qaeda courier Abu Rahmah took him to KSM.According to Binal=

shibh, KSM provided a plane ticket to Malaysia and a fraudulent Saudi pass-

port to use for the trip.KSM told him to ask Atta to select a date for the attacks.

Binalshibh was to return to Germany and then inform KSM of the date.KSM

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also gave Binalshibh the email address of Zacarias Moussaoui for future con-

Binalshibh contacted Atta upon arriving in Malaysia and found a change in

plan.Atta could not travel because he was too busy helping the new arrivals

settle in the United States.After remaining in Malaysia for approximately three

weeks, Binalshibh went to Bangkok for a few days before returning to Ger=

In early July,Atta called Binalshibh to suggest meeting in Madrid, for rea=

sons Binalshibh claims not to know. He says he preferred Berlin, but that he

and Atta knew too many people in Germany and feared being spotted

together. Unable to buy a ticket to Madrid at the height of the tourist season,

Binalshibh booked a seat on a flight to Reus,near Barcelona,the next day.Atta

was already en route to Madrid, so Binalshibh phoned Shehhi in the United

Atta arrived in Madrid on July 8. He spent the night in a hotel and made

three calls from his room, most likely to coordinate with Binalshibh.The next

day,Atta rented a car and drove to Reus to pick up Binalshibh; the two then

drove to the nearby town of Cambrils.Hotel records show Atta renting rooms

in the same area until July 19, when he returned his rental car in Madrid and

flew back to Fort Lauderdale. On July 16, Binalshibh returned to Hamburg,

using a ticket Atta had purchased for him earlier that day.According to Binal=

Binalshibh says he told Atta that Bin Ladin wanted the attacks carried out

as soon as possible. Bin Ladin, Binalshibh conveyed, was worried about hav=

ing so many operatives in the United States.Atta replied that he could not yet

provide a date because he was too busy organizing the arriving hijackers and

still needed to coordinate the timing of the flights so that the crashes would

occur simultaneously.Atta said he required about five to six weeks before he

could provide an attack date. Binalshibh advised Atta that Bin Ladin had

directed that the other operatives not be informed of the date until the last

minute.Atta was to provide Binalshibh with advance notice of at least a week

or two so that Binalshibh could travel to Afghanistan and report the date per=

As to targets, Atta understood Bin Ladin’s interest in striking the White

House.Atta said he thought this target too difficult,but had tasked Hazmi and

Hanjour to evaluate its feasibility and was awaiting their answer.Atta said that

those two operatives had rented small aircraft and flown reconnaissance flights

near the Pentagon.Atta explained that Hanjour was assigned to attack the Pen=

tagon, Jarrah the Capitol, and that both Atta and Shehhi would hit the World

Trade Center. If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash

the plane.If Atta could not strike the World Trade Center,he planned to crash

his aircraft directly into the streets of NewYork.Atta told Binalshibh that each

pilot had volunteered for his assigned target,and that the assignments were sub=

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245

During the Spain meeting,Atta also mentioned that he had considered tar=

geting a nuclear facility he had seen during familiarization flights near New

York—a target they referred to as "electrical engineering."According to Binal=

shibh,the other pilots did not like the idea.They thought a nuclear target would

be difficult because the airspace around it was restricted,making reconnaissance

flights impossible and increasing the likelihood that any plane would be shot

down before impact.Moreover,unlike the approved targets,this alternative had

not been discussed with senior al Qaeda leaders and therefore did not have the

requisite blessing. Nor would a nuclear facility have particular symbolic value.

Atta did not ask Binalshibh to pass this idea on to Bin Ladin,Atef, or KSM,

Binalshibh claims that during their time in Spain,he and Atta also discussed

how the hijackings