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Future 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alnami and candidate hijacker Mushabib al-Hamlan obtain US visas from the American consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14-15 ] Alnami's visa is issued by Shayna Steinger, a consular official who apparently issues the 9/11 hijackers with 12 visas (see July 1, 2000) and will issue Alnami with a second visa next year (see April 23, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 12/30/2002, pp. 2; Office of the Inspector General (US Department of State), 1/30/2003] Alnami's application is incomplete, as he lists his occupation as "student," but does not provide a complete address for his school. He also gives his US address as "in Los Angeles" and writes that "my friend Moshibab" will be traveling with him. The 9/11 Commission will later suggest that Alnami's passport may contain fraudulent travel stamps associated with al-Qaeda, although this is not certain and is apparently not noticed at this time. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14-15 ] The 9/11 Commission will also suggest that one or more of Alnami's passports may contain a suspicious indicator of Islamist extremism, but this is not certain (see November 6, 1999 and November 2, 2007). Some of the radicals who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 also had Saudi passports with the same indicator (see Around February 1993). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 563-4; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14-15 ] Before obtaining the visa, Alnami and al-Hamlan followed instructions given them by al-Qaeda leaders Mohammed Atef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and contacted future 9/11 hijacker Waleed Alshehri in Jeddah. They briefly share an apartment with Alshehri, who provides them with directions to the consulate and shows them how to fill out visa applications. Al-Hamlan will soon drop out of the plot after contacting his family. Alnami will later be said to fly to Beirut with the Alshehris (see Mid-November, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 526]
Entity Tags: Shayna Steinger, Mushabib al-Hamlan, US Consulate, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Office, 9/11 Commission, Waleed Alshehri, Ahmed Alnami
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline
Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers
After leaving Yemen following the bombing of the USS Cole (see Around October 12, 2000), 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar travels to various countries in Asia. He is reportedly in Malaysia in October (see October 2000); From late 2000 to February 2001 he stays with his cousin in Mecca, Saudi Arabia (see Late 2000-February 2001); He then returns to Yemen, to stay with his family at an al-Qaeda communications hub monitored by US intelligence (see February 2001, Late August 1998, and (Mid-June-Mid-July 2000)); Following this, he goes to Afghanistan; There are some reports he travels to the United Arab Emirates in June (see June 2001); He is also said to be in Malaysia again in June (see June 2001); Finally, he goes to stay with his cousin in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for another month. Before flying to New York (see July 4, 2001), Almihdhar tells his cousin that Osama bin Laden is planning five attacks on the US and asks the cousin to watch over his family, because he has a job to do (see Between June 1 and July 4, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 237; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 137 ] After 9/11, there will be speculation that during this period Almihdhar is coordinating the arrival of the other muscle hijackers. According to FBI Director Robert Mueller, this would his explain his stay in Saudi Arabia and his return only after all the other hijackers had arrived. [US Congress, 9/26/2002] However, there is some evidence suggesting that Almihdhar may have visited the US in this time frame, perhaps using a passport in a false name (see June 10, 2000).
Entity Tags: Khalid Almihdhar, Robert S. Mueller III
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar
Fahad al-Quso, a Yemeni and known associate of Osama bin Laden, turns himself in to the Yemeni government after some of his relatives are questioned in the wake of the USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000). [New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ] He admits that he and one of the two Cole suicide bombers went to Bangkok, Thailand, and gave several thousand dollars to a man known as Khallad, who is identified as one of the masterminds of the Cole bombing. He says the money is to buy a new artificial leg for the one-legged Khallad. The transcript of the interrogation is given to the FBI a month later. FBI agent Ali Soufan sees the transcript and remembers a source he recruited in Afghanistan who spoke of a one-legged man named Khallad who is close to bin Laden. Khallad is his nickname; his real name is Tawfiq bin Attash. A mug shot of bin Attash is sent to this source, who makes a positive identification. Soufan wonders why money was being sent away from the Cole plotters and away from Yemen prior to a major planned attack and speculates that it may mean another al-Qaeda operation is being planned elsewhere. Soufan asks the CIA for information about Khallad and this other attack, which turns out to be 9/11, but the CIA withholds the information (see Late November 2000). Al-Quso will later reveal more to the FBI, leading to more missed opportunities (see Early December 2000). [Wright, 2006, pp. 328-329]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Fahad al-Quso, Ali Soufan, Khallad bin Attash, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit
Imran Mandhai. [Source: crimelibrary (.com)]The FBI in Florida investigates a group of Muslims it suspects of being terrorists, including an apparent associate of Mohamed Atta named Adnan Shukrijumah (see April-May 2001 and May 2, 2001). The investigation starts with the November 2000 Florida arrest of Turkish immigrant Hakki Aksoy, who is found to be in possession of instructions for making a car bomb. An FBI informer named Howard Gilbert enters the Darul Aloom mosque in Pembroke Pines (a town just north of Miami) to check out one of Aksoy's associates, Imran Mandhai. Gilbert starts plotting with Mandhai and a friend of Mandai's named Shuyeb Mossa Jokhan. [New Times Broward-Palm Beach, 8/1/2002; Miami New Times, 8/8/2002; USA Today, 6/15/2003] Gilbert is replaced by another FBI informant known as "Mohamed the bomb maker," who agrees to wear a wire and testify in court. Mohamed and Mandhai drive around South Florida selecting local bomb targets including a National Guard armory, electrical substations, Jewish-owned businesses, the Israeli consulate in Miami, plus Mount Rushmore in the Midwest. Mandhai and Jokhan are unable to buy weapons themselves, but Gilbert, the first informant, had given Mandhai a copy of a bomb-making manual, and Mohamed, the second informant, shows Mandhai the range of guns and explosives he can provide. [Broward Herald, 5/29/2002; FrontPage Magazine, 10/27/2003; US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit: appeal, 7/2/2004 ] The FBI interviews Mandhai and Jokhan in late spring 2001 and they acknowledge they are training for jihad. However, the FBI's surveillance of them stops shortly after this. The FBI takes no action against them for a year, and then indicts them in May 2002. At the trial they are both found guilty; Mandhai receives twelve years and Jokhan five. It is unclear why the FBI acts in this way, although it is possibly related to a forced curtailment of electronic surveillance that is taking place at this time. In the summer of 2000, the bureau was ordered to shutdown certain wiretaps after an FBI official was found to have been misrepresenting petitions for taps on terror suspects (see Summer 2000-September 11, 2001). Coincidentally, after Gilbert and Mandhai develop a series of courses for potential recruits entitled "Skills Necessary for Jihad" in the spring of 2001, Mandhai prints them at the same Kinko's copy shop in Hollywood that is used by Mohamed Atta and Hamza Alghamdi to buy their tickets for 9/11 (see August 25-September 5, 2001). [Broward Herald, 5/29/2002; Salon, 12/3/2002; USA Today, 6/15/2003]
Entity Tags: Imran Mandhai, Hakki Aksoy, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Adnan Shukrijumah, Shuyeb Mossa Jokhan, Howard Gilbert
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Mohamed Atta
The FBI's investigation of the USS Cole bombing in Aden, Yemen, connects the bombers to an al-Qaeda communications hub in Sana'a, the country's capital, which has been monitored by the US for at least two years (see Late August 1998 and Mid-August 1998-October 2000). It was also used in the East African embassy bombings (see August 4-25, 1998) and will be used by the 9/11 hijackers (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). It is not known when this connection is made. No apparent action is taken against Ahmed al-Hada, the operative who runs the communications hub, before 9/11. However, this may be due to the importance of intelligence generated from his phone (see Late 1998-Early 2002). In early 2001, al-Hada will be publicly identified as an al-Qaeda operative at the embassy bombings trial, when his phone number is disclosed openly in court and reported in the media (see February 2001 and After). Yet he still is not publicly indicted for either the embassy bombings or the Cole bombing, even though a number of other fugitives are publicly indicted. In 2002, US officials will describe al-Hada as a "prominent al-Qaeda member who is believed to have been involved in the Cole bombing," and say his phone was used by the bombers to relay messages and "put everything together" before the attack. [MSNBC, 2/14/2002; MSNBC, 5/2005]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ahmed al-Hada
Category Tags: Yemen Hub
9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alghamdi apparently flies to Beirut. Based on NSA reporting drafted shortly after September 11, the 9/11 Commission will say that a senior Hezbollah operative is on the same flight, although it will point out that this is "perhaps by coincidence." The commission will suggest this is the first leg on a journey to Afghanistan, and say that this flight may be part of Iranian assistance to al-Qaeda consisting of allowing operatives to transit Iran without stamping their passports on the way to and from Afghanistan (see After October 12, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 240, 529; Shenon, 2008, pp. 370-3] Alghamdi obtained a US visa in Saudi Arabia on September 3, 2000. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 13 ] What he did between obtaining the visa and taking this flight is unknown, as is the place from which he flies to Beirut.
Entity Tags: Ahmed Alghamdi, 9/11 Commission
Salem Alhazmi. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division]9/11 hijacker Salem Alhazmi flies from Saudi Arabia to Beirut. Tracked by Saudis - According to the 9/11 Commission, Alhazmi's passport has an indicator of Islamic extremism (see April 4, 1999). Such indicators are used by the Saudi authorities to track some of the hijackers before 9/11 (see November 2, 2007), so the Saudi authorities presumably register his departure. Alleged Iran Link - The 9/11 Commission will mention this flight in a section of its report dealing with possible co-operation between Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda on travel issues (see October 8-13, 2000, After October 12, 2000, and Mid-November, 2000), but there are no direct links between this flight and Iranian operatives. The co-operation consisted of Iran allowing al-Qaeda operatives to transit Iran without stamping their passports on the way to and from Afghanistan (see After October 12, 2000), so the Commission suggests this flight may be the first step on a journey to Afghanistan. The 9/11 Commission's statement that Alhazmi took this flight is based on intelligence reports from the NSA, mostly drafted shortly after 9/11. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 240-1, 529; Shenon, 2008, pp. 370-3] Reason for Presence in Saudi Arabia Unclear - Although several of the hijackers are in Saudi Arabia at this time to obtain visas, it is unclear why Alhazmi would be in the country, as there is no mention of him obtaining a US visa around this time. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 13-16 ] Returns, Leaves Again - Alhazmi leaves Saudi Arabia again on January 1, 2001, traveling to Yemen. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 116 ] He is presumably tracked by Saudi authorities as he enters Saudi Arabia after returning from Beirut and also as he leaves Saudi Arabia for Yemen.
Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Salem Alhazmi
Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Cambone will later state, "[T]he purpose of Able Danger was to develop a campaign plan. By November of 2000, the Garland effort was terminated—that is, the activity with Raytheon—and resources were shifted to the development of the actual draft of the campaign plan. That is, for a period of about five months or so, continuous effort was made to develop the tools. But by the time we come to the end of 2000, we need the plan. And so, SOCOM decides that it's going to put its resources against developing the plan, terminate the activity at Garland, Texas, and begins to draft the plan. That plan, in the end, was rolled into a larger activity within the Joint Staff in the early 2001 timeframe, and that larger plan has within it components that are very much connected to the heritage of the Able Danger activity.… As best we can ascertain, US SOCOM had Raytheon, at the end of its effort in November of 2000, take most of the data that had been generated at Raytheon, and take it out of its system, essentially to purge it. A small percentage of information, roughly about one percent of that developed at Garland, was in turn transferred over to US Special Operations Command." Cambone says the reason for this second massive data purge was, "[W]here we are by the end of the year 2000 is that, information that had been generated at LIWA [Land Information Warfare Activity] runs up against the concern about US persons information being stored improperly, as well as having the authority to do the operation for the Army." [US Congress, 2/15/2006] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer will later blame the retirement of Gen. Pete Schoomaker in October 2000 and his replacement by Gen. Charles Holland as a major reason for the shut down of the data mining effort. He says, "Gen. Holland, in my judgment, did not understand the concept, and order[ed] the effort to terminate its activities in Garland, Texas, and for the personnel to return to Tampa [Florida, the location of SOCOM headquarters]." Over the next few months, Holland will direct Able Danger to change into the Special Operations Joint Integration Center (SOJIC). According to Shaffer, "the teeth and operational focus [are] removed and the capability to do the complex data mining and mission planning support (leadership support) is eliminated," effectively ending Able Danger. [US Congress, 2/15/2006 ]
Entity Tags: Land Information Warfare Activity, Able Danger, Charles Holland, Raytheon, Stephen A. Cambone, Anthony Shaffer
Category Tags: Able Danger
Zacarias Moussaoui and two of the 9/11 hijackers purchase flight training equipment from Sporty's Pilot Shop in Batavia, Ohio. November 5, 2000: Mohamed Atta purchases flight deck videos for a Boeing 747-200 and a Boeing 757-200, as well as other items; December 11, 2000: Atta purchases flight deck videos for a Boeing 767-300ER and an Airbus A320-200; March 19, 2001: Nawaf Alhazmi purchases flight deck videos for a Boeing 747-400, a Boeing 747-200, and a Boeing 777-200, as well as another video. Alhazmi also purchases maps around this time from another shop (see March 23, 2001); June 20, 2001: Zacarias Moussaoui purchases flight deck videos for a Boeing 747-400 and a Boeing 747-200. [Sporty's, 6/20/2001; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 12/11/2001 ] However, it is not clear whether Moussaoui was to take part in 9/11 or some other operation (see January 30, 2003).
Entity Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Mohamed Atta, Nawaf Alhazmi, Sporty's Pilot Shop
Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Mohamed Atta, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training
Ahmed Alhaznawi in a video released in 2002. [Source: Al Jazeera]9/11 Hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi receives a new passport in Saudi Arabia. It is unknown exactly when Alhaznawi receives this passport, but he uses it to apply for a US visa on November 12, 2000 (see November 12, 2000), so it must be before that. According to the 9/11 Commission, the passport may contain an "indicator of extremism" that is "associated with al-Qaeda." However, although it is certain some of the other hijackers have such indicator in their passports, it is not certain that Alhaznawi does. The commission will merely say that there "is reason to believe" his passport may contain such indicator and note that it was "issued in the same Saudi passport office" that issued passports with the indicator to some of the other hijackers. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 564; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 9, 15, 33 ] According to author James Bamford, the indicator is a "secret coded indicator, placed there by the Saudi government, warning of a possible terrorist affiliation." [Bamford, 2008, pp. 58-59] The Saudi government reportedly uses this indicator to track some of the Saudi hijackers before 9/11 "with precision" (see November 2, 2007).
Entity Tags: Ahmed Alhaznawi
Future 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi obtains a US visa from the American consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 15 ] The visa is issued by Shayna Steinger, a consular official who apparently issues the 9/11 hijackers with 12 visas (see July 1, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 12/30/2002, pp. 2; Office of the Inspector General (US Department of State), 1/30/2003] Alhaznawi may present a passport with fraudulent travel stamps and does not fully complete his application form, leaving blank the address of his school. He is not interviewed. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 15, 36, 180-1 ] The 9/11 Commission will also suggest that Alhaznawi's passport may contain a suspicious indicator of Islamist extremism, but this is not certain (see Before November 12, 2000 and November 2, 2007). Some of the radicals who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 also had Saudi passports with the same indicator (see Around February 1993). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 563-4; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14-15 ]
Entity Tags: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Shayna Steinger, US Consulate, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Office
9/11 Hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi departs Saudi Arabia. The exact date of his departure is unknown, but it must be after he obtains a US visa at the US consulate in Jeddah on November 12 (see November 12, 2000). Although Alhaznawi's precise destination is unknown, he reportedly returns to Afghanistan for training by early 2001 (see (December 2000-March 2001)) and will also arrive in the United Arab Emirates from Pakistan in early 2001 (see April 11-June 28, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 15, 36 ] According to the 9/11 Commission, Alhaznawi may have had a passport containing an indicator of Islamic extremism (see Before November 12, 2000). Such indicators were used by the Saudi authorities to track some of the hijackers before 9/11 (see November 2, 2007).
Waleed Alshehri. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division]Based on intelligence reports, the 9/11 Commission will later say that 9/11 hijackers Wail Alshehri, Waleed Alshehri, and Ahmed Alnami travel in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then onward to Iran in mid-November 2000. An associate of a senior Hezbollah operative is also on the flight from Beirut to Iran. According to US intelligence, Hezbollah officials in Beirut and Iran are expecting the arrival of a group at around this time and this group is important enough to merit the attention of senior figures in Hezbollah. The commission will say that this flight may be part of Iranian assistance to al-Qaeda consisting of allowing operatives to transit Iran without stamping their passports on the way to and from Afghanistan (see After October 12, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 240, 529] Contradicted by Families' Claims - However, two to three years before the 9/11 Commission publishes these claims, the families of both Ahmed Alnami and the Alshehri brothers will deny they travel anywhere at this time, and say they leave home in December, not the middle of November. After 9/11, Alnami's father will initially say Alnami has been missing since December 2000 and will later repeat that he left home in December 2000 in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. [Washington Post, 9/25/2001; Daily Telegraph, 9/15/2002] The Alshehri brothers' family will also claim they do not leave until after mid-November 2000. Initially, the father will say that they left "last Ramadan." [Arab News, 9/17/2001] The month of Ramadan begins on November 27 in 2000. [Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 11/26/2000] Based on a 2002 interview with one of their brothers, the Boston Globe will also later say that they leave in December. [Boston Globe, 3/3/2002] If this is true, the story of their travel with a Hezbollah operative would probably be incorrect. 9/11 Commission's Sourcing - The 9/11 Commission cites intelligence reports, mostly drafted between October and December 2001, as its sources. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 240, 529] These reports come from the NSA. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 370-373] Alnami Possibly Tracked by Saudi Intelligence - According to the 9/11 Commission, Alnami may have had a passport with an indicator of Islamic extremism (see November 6, 1999). Such indicators were used by the Saudi authorities to track some of the hijackers before 9/11 (see November 2, 2007).
Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Wail Alshehri, Ahmed Alnami, Waleed Alshehri
The US puts out an international arrest warrant for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). The warrant seeks KSM in connection with the 1995 Bojinka plot (see January 6, 1995). [Knight Ridder, 3/13/2003] It is not clear why the US waited so long to issue this warrant, considering that the US connected him to a major terrorist act back in 1993 (see March 20, 1993), learned he was a major figure in the Bojinka plot in 1995 (see After February 7, 1995-January 1996), secretly indicted him in January 1996, and placed a $2 million reward on his head in January 1998 (see January 8, 1998).
Entity Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Category Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Based on information obtained during the investigation of the USS Cole bombing (see Late October-Late November 2000), the FBI asks the CIA for information about al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash and a possible al-Qaeda meeting in Southeast Asia in early 2000, but the CIA withholds the information. The request is sent by FBI Director Louis Freeh on behalf of agent Ali Soufan, who is working on the Cole investigation. Soufan began to suspect such a meeting may have taken place when he learned that two of the operatives involved in the bombing had taken money out of Yemen to give to bin Attash in Thailand before the attack (see January 13, 2000), making him think the money may have been intended for a bigger plot. The CIA is highly aware of the January 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000), which was considered so important that CIA Director George Tenet and other CIA leaders were repeatedly briefed about it (see January 6-9, 2000). The CIA has photos of bin Attash and al-Quso attending the meeting (see January 5-8, 2000 and Shortly After), which took place only a few days before al-Quso's meeting with bin Attash in Thailand. Yet the CIA does not respond to Soufan's clearly stated request. Author Lawrence Wright will later comment, "The fact that the CIA withheld information about the mastermind of the Cole bombing and the meeting in Malaysia, when directly asked by the FBI, amount[s] to obstruction of justice in the death of seventeen American sailors [who were killed in the Cole bombing]." Although he was not told one of the 9/11 hijackers had a US visa, Freeh was briefed on the Malaysia summit when it took place (see January 6, 2000), but apparently he does not tell Soufan what he knows, and Soufan remains unaware that any kind of al-Qaeda meeting in Southeast Asia even occurred. [Wright, 2006, pp. 328-9; New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ]
Entity Tags: Khallad bin Attash, Louis J. Freeh, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lawrence Wright, Ali Soufan, Central Intelligence Agency
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Key Hijacker Events
9/11 hijacker Majeed Moqed obtains a US visa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The application is incomplete, as Moqed claims to be a student, but does not give his alleged school's address. He is not interviewed. The consular officer that deals with Moqed previously issued a visa to another of the hijackers (see October 23, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14, 16, 38 ] This visa cannot be issued by a consular officer who issues the hijackers with at least 11 visas, as he works in Jeddah, not Riyadh (see July 1, 2000).
Entity Tags: Majed Moqed
Elizabeth Colton (left) may have issued Satam al Suqami's US visa. [Source: US Department of State/FBI]Future 9/11 hijacker Satam al Suqami obtains a US visa from the American embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Al Suqami has traveled extensively around Asia in recent years (see November 5, 1998-September 24, 2000) and uses a passport that has fraudulent travel stamps that will later be associated with al-Qaeda, but this is apparently not noticed. The application is incomplete, as al Suqami does not give the name and address of his current employer. The consular officer who issues the visa will later tell the House Committee on Government Reform that al Suqami was interviewed and will recall details of the interview: The reason for the interview is because al Suqami gives his occupation as "dealer," which Saudis often use to mean businessman, and several questions are asked, including who is paying for his trip. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 16, 38 ] The officer will repeat this claim to the State Department's inspector general, adding that she specifically remembers the interview, has a photographic memory, and recalls al Suqami's photo. [Office of the Inspector General (US Department of State), 2/6/2003] However, the officer will say that notes are always taken during interviews and there are no such notes on al Suqami's application. The 9/11 Commission will say that this raises "the possibility that the officer's memory of having conducted the interview was false." [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 16 ] The officer's identity is unknown, although she may well be Elizabeth Colton. The 9/11 Commission's Terrorist Travel monograph will say that, before joining the State Department, the officer had interviwed the "Blind Sheikh," Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 49, 62 ] Colton has previously been chief of Newsweek's bureau in Cairo, Egypt, where the Blind Sheikh lived before immigrating to the US (see December 15, 1986-1989). [Consulate General of the United States, Dubai, UAE, 8/2007] She has also met other notable personalities in the Middle East, such as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. [State Magazine, 11/2000] A State Department inspector general memo of an interview of the officer will say that she helped develop the Visa Express program introduced in Saudi Arabia in May and June of 2001 (see May 2001). [Office of the Inspector General (US Department of State), 2/6/2003] The Visa Express manual will list Colton as the program's Riyadh contact. [Embassy of the United States, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 6/2001]
Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Satam Al Suqami, Elizabeth O. Colton
9/11 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah and a couple of companions from flying school rent a plane for a trip from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas. There is no immigration departure record, although there is a record of his re-entry. Upon his return to the US, Jarrah undergoes immigration and customs checks, including an inspection of the plane by customs for the presence of drugs, contraband, and currency. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 16 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] He will later tell his girlfriend that the pilot gets drunk in Nassau and he has to fly back himself, although he does not have a license for the plane. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 197] Jarrah should not be re-admitted to the US because he is out of status—he breached immigration rules by taking a flight training course despite entering the US as a tourist—but this is apparently not noticed (see June 27-28, 2000).
Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah
Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Hijacker Contact w Government in US
9/11 hijackers Satam Al Suqami and Majed Moqed fly from Bahrain to Tehran, Iran. Shortly before, they had entered Bahrain from Saudi Arabia, after obtaining US visas there. Suqami continues to Istanbul, Turkey. Moqed's final destination is not known definitely, but al-Qaeda operative Luai Sakra will say that Moqed arrives with Al Suqami in Turkey for training (see Late 1999-2000), so presumably he takes the same flight as Al Suqami. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 107 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 34 ] The 9/11 Commission will mention this flight in a section dealing with possible co-operation between Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda on travel issues—Iran was allegedly allowing al-Qaeda operatives to pass through Iran on their way to and from Afghanistan without stamping their passports (see October 8-13, 2000, After October 12, 2000, and Mid-November, 2000)—but no there are no direct links between this flight and Iranian operatives. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 240-1]
Entity Tags: Satam Al Suqami, Majed Moqed
Two images of Ziad Jarrah. The photo on the right is from the wreckage of Flight 93.
[Source: FBI]There is some evidence indicating hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah transits Dubai on January 30, 2001 after spending two months in Afghanistan (see January 30, 2001). [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002] However, the Florida Flight Training Center, where Jarrah has been studying for the previous six months, later says he is in school there until January 15, 2001. His family later reports he arrives in Lebanon to visit them on January 26, five days before he supposedly passes through Dubai. His father had just undergone open-heart surgery, and Jarrah visits him every day in the hospital until after January 30. Pointing out this incident, his uncle Jamal Jarrah later asks, "How could he be in two places at one time?" [Longman, 2002, pp. 101-02] Other accounts place Jarrah in Dubai one year earlier, not in 2001 (see January 30, 2000). If the 2001 version is correct, this is not the only example of Jarrah being in two places at the same time—there is also evidence he was in different places at once from March 1995-February 1996 (see March 1995-February 1996). Additionally, records seem to indicate that Jarrah flies out of the US on December 26, 2000, and then again on December 28, 2000 (see December 26-28, 2000), and then twice on the same day on July 25, 2001 (see July 25, 2001).
Entity Tags: Florida Flight Training Center, Jamal Jarrah, Ziad Jarrah
Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah
The US intelligence community considers creating a strategic analysis about terrorism, but none is done before 9/11. The last National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on terrorism was released in 1997 (see 1997). The 9/11 Commission will later say that assessments such as NIEs can "provoke widespread thought and debate [and ] have a major impact on their recipients, often in a wider circle of decision makers." By late 2000, CIA Director George Tenet recognizes the lack of any recent strategic analysis about al-Qaeda or Islamic militancy in general. He appoints a senior manager, who briefs him in March 2001 about "creating a strategic assessment capability." The CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) establishes a new strategic assessments branch in July 2001 and about ten analysts are slated to work for it. But it takes time to hire the new staff and the first head of this branch reports for work just one day before 9/11. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 342-343] Not only is there no NIE or any other sweeping strategic assessment on al-Qaeda between 1997 and 9/11, but one still will not be completed five years after 9/11. Apparently the US military opposes such an assessment for fear it would reduce the military's role in counterterrorism efforts (see September 12, 2006).
Entity Tags: Counterterrorist Center, US intelligence, George J. Tenet, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11
Abdulaziz Alomari in a video released in 2002. [Source: Al Jazeera]9/11 hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari is reported to leave home in Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan at this time. [Saudi Information Agency, 9/11/2002] However, he appears to have already been to Afghanistan, as he obtained a new passport on June 5, made an ATM withdrawal in Karachi, Pakistan, on July 8, and is said to have been seen near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the summer (see Summer 2000). [US Department of State, 6/18/2001; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 50 ] Several of the other hijackers were in Afghanistan in the summer of 2000 and return to Saudi Arabia briefly at this time to obtain US visas (see, for example, September 4, 2000 and October 24, 2000). However, there is no record of Alomari receiving a visa at this time, so it is unclear why he would return to Saudi Arabia. Salem Alhazmi, with whom Alomari will later travel to the US (see April 23-June 29, 2001), also apparently returns to Saudi Arabia at this time, but does not obtain a visa (see November 2000). Alomari finally obtains a US visa in the summer of 2001 (see June 18, 2001).
Entity Tags: Abdulaziz Alomari
CIA Director Tenet and other top CIA officials brief President-elect Bush, Vice President-elect Cheney, future National Security Adviser Rice, and other incoming national security officials on al-Qaeda and covert action programs in Afghanistan. Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt recalls conveying that bin Laden is one of the gravest threats to the country. Bush asks whether killing bin Laden would end the problem. Pavitt says he answers that killing bin Laden would have an impact but not stop the threat. The CIA recommends the most important action to combat al-Qaeda is to arm the Predator drone and use it over Afghanistan. [9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004; Reuters, 3/24/2004] However, while the drone is soon armed, Bush never gives the order to use it in Afghanistan until after 9/11 (see September 4, 2001).
Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Central Intelligence Agency, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Al-Qaeda, James Pavitt, Osama bin Laden
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani. [Source: US Defense Department]Future 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alghamdi is allegedly arrested in Pakistan and then released. This is according to the Guantanamo file of Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, who is arrested on September 10, 2002 (see September 10-11, 2002). Rabbani supposedly is running several al-Qaeda safe houses in Karachi, Pakistan, from early 2000 until his arrest. His file states that, according to an unnamed high-ranking al-Qaeda prisoner, Rabbani and Alghamdi are on the road either heading to or from Afghanistan and are arrested by Pakistani police. But Rabbani pays a small bribe and both of them are released. It is unknown if the police know anything about the backgrounds of the two men. [US Department of Defense, 6/9/2008] It is not mentioned when this incident happens, if it indeed happens, but presumably it would be some time between mid-2000 and early 2001, when Alghamdi likely spends time in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Note that this is based on Guantanamo files leaked to the public in 2011 by the non-profit whistleblower group WikiLeaks. There are many doubts about the reliability of the information in the files (see April 24, 2011).
Entity Tags: Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, Ahmed Alghamdi
Future 9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi goes missing, and his family, German police, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials look for him until he finally calls and says he is okay. Alshehhi Goes Missing - Alshehhi is a citizen from the UAE. In the spring of 2000, Alshehhi spent time with his family in the UAE before returning to Germany. He called his mother periodically after that (his father had already died), but the calls grew less frequent. In April 2000, Alshehhi was removed from the UAE army for the crime of desertion (see April 1, 2000). During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in December 2000, Alshehhi does not call his mother at all. His mother grows alarmed and calls the UAE embassy in Germany. UAE officials contact the Technical University in Harburg, near Hamburg, where Alshehhi is supposed to be studying, and find out that he has not been there for a year and he has been removed from the school's registration rolls. Local German police open a missing person investigation, but are unable to find him. On December 23, 2000, the UAE army stops paying for Alshehhi's studies (see Spring 1996-December 23, 2000). Alshehhi's Half-Brother Leads a Search - Finally, Alshehhi's mother sends his half-brother Mohamed Yousef Mohamed Alqusaidi to Germany to look for him. A UAE embassy official spends several days traveling with Alqusaidi in Bonn and Hamburg looking for Alshehhi, but without success. A UAE official will later say: "We knew he was not going to school and the Germans never had this. We were trying to get him back. We were trying to track him." In Harburg, they talk to Mounir El Motassadeq, who says that Alshehhi has gone to Chechnya or Afghanistan. Alqusaidi returns to the UAE. Alshehhi Calls and Lies about What He's Doing - Later in the month, Alshehhi calls his family and says that stories about him being out of Germany are wrong. He says that he has been going through a rough time but things are improving, and he is now studying elsewhere in Hamburg. It is unclear if his family believes him or not. But his half-brother Alqusaidi had been periodically sending him money, and sent him money for the last time around November 2000 (see July 1999-November 2000). [McDermott, 2005, pp. 214-215] In fact, Alshehhi has been learning to fly in Florida with Mohamed Atta (see July 6-December 19, 2000).
Entity Tags: Mounir El Motassadeq, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Yousef Mohamed Alqusaidi
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Al-Qaeda's Hamburg Cell
According to later German reports, "a whole horde of Israeli counter-terror investigators, posing as students, [follow] the trails of Arab terrorists and their cells in the United States.… In the town of Hollywood, Florida, they [identify]… [9/11 hijackers Mohamed] Atta and Marwan Alshehhi as possible terrorists. Agents [live] in the vicinity of the apartment of the two seemingly normal flight school students, observing them around the clock." Supposedly, around April, the Israeli agents are discovered and deported, terminating the investigation. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 10/1/2002]
Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Israeli Spy Ring
9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi tells two associates, Mohdar Abdullah and FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh, that he has re-entered flight training, but it is unclear if this is true. He calls Abdullah twice in December 2000/January 2001, initially saying that he is in San Francisco and will have flight training there, but he later says that he has moved to Arizona and both he and hijacker Hani Hanjour are in flight training. He also calls Shaikh to say that he and Hanjour are to have flight training in Arizona. Alhazmi lived with Shaikh for several months, but moved out in the middle of December (see May 10-Mid-December 2000 and December 12, 2000-March 2001). [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 276; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 223] Hanjour is known to undergo flight training in Arizona at this time (see January-February 2001 and February 8-March 12, 2001). There is no known public record of Alhazmi training to be a pilot at this time, although there is other evidence Alhazmi trained to be a pilot (see November 25, 2007).
Entity Tags: Mohdar Abdullah, Nawaf Alhazmi, Abdussattar Shaikh
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training, Hijacker Contact w Government in US
Stills from martyr videos recorded in March 2001. From top to bottom: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Abdulaziz Alomari, Saeed Alghamdi, Wail Alshehri, and Hamza Alghamdi. The backgrounds were digitally inserted later.
[Source: Al-Jazeera]Supposedly, all 13 of the "muscle" hijackers record a farewell video before leaving training in Kandahar, Afghanistan, around this time. [CBS News, 10/9/2002] Several will be released after 9/11. A video of Ahmed Alhaznawi will be shown by the Al Jazeera television network in April 2002. In it, he pledges to give his life to "martyrdom" and swears to send a "bloodied message" to Americans by attacking them in their "heartland" (see April 15, 2002). [Guardian, 4/16/2002] In September 2002, Al Jazeera will show a similar farewell video of Abdulaziz Alomari. [Associated Press, 9/9/2002] Alomari states, "God praise everybody who trained and helped me, namely the leader Sheik Osama bin Laden" (see September 9, 2002). [Washington Post, 9/11/2002] Also in September 2002, some images broadcast on Al Jazeera will suggest that al-Qaeda has martyr videos for nearly all of the 9/11 hijackers (see September 9, 2002). Saeed Alghamdi's video will be released in September 2003. In it, he will mention that the video was recorded in late December 2000 (see September 12, 2003).
Wail Alshehri and Hamza Alghamdi's videos will be released in September 2006 (see September 7, 2006). [Associated Press, 9/7/2006] Ahmed Alghamdi's video will be released in September 2008 (see September 19, 2008).
Entity Tags: Mohand Alshehri, Osama bin Laden, Salem Alhazmi, Satam Al Suqami, Waleed Alshehri, Majed Moqed, Wail Alshehri, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Hamza Alghamdi, Abdulaziz Alomari, Ahmed Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami
Fahad al-Quso. [Source: FBI]In late October 2000, al-Qaeda operative Fahad al-Quso was interrogated by authorities in Yemen, and FBI agent Ali Soufan was able to use that information to discover the identity of one of the USS Cole bombing masterminds, Khallad bin Attash (see Late October-Late November 2000). In early December, while most FBI investigators are having to leave Yemen, Soufan is given the chance to interrogate al-Quso directly. Soufan gets al-Quso to admit that he had met with bin Attash and one of the Cole suicide bombers in Bangkok, Thailand, in January 2000 (see January 13, 2000). Al-Quso admits he gave bin Attash $36,000 and not the $5,000 for medical expenses that al-Quso had claimed when talking to the Yemenis the month before. Al-Quso says they stayed in the Washington Hotel in Bangkok, so Soufan checks telephone records to verify his account. Soufan finds records of phone calls between the hotel and al-Quso's house in Yemen. They also find calls to both places from a pay phone in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The phone happens to be directly outside the condominium where an al-Qaeda summit was taking place a few days before al-Quso went to Bangkok (see January 5-8, 2000). Soufan asks the CIA for information about bin Attash, but the CIA wrongly claims it knows nothing, and doesn't even tell Soufan of the Malaysia summit that it had closely monitored (see Late November 2000). [New York Times, 4/11/2004; Wright, 2006, pp. 330-331] Meanwhile, FBI head investigator John O'Neill correctly believes that al-Quso is still holding back important information (at the very least, al-Quso is still hiding his participation in the Malaysia summit). However, O'Neill had been kicked out of Yemen by his superiors a week or two before (see October 14-Late November, 2000), and without his influential presence the Yemeni government will not allow any more interrogations. After 9/11, al-Quso will finally admit to meeting with Alhazmi and Almihdhar. One investigator calls the missed opportunity of exposing the 9/11 plot through al-Quso's connections "mind-boggling." [PBS Frontline, 10/3/2002] In April 2003, al-Quso will escape from a Yemeni prison (see April 11, 2003-March 2004). [Associated Press, 4/11/2003]
Entity Tags: Ali Soufan, John O'Neill, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Khallad bin Attash, Fahad al-Quso
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Key Hijacker Events, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar
9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar enters Saudi Arabia, remaining there for about two or three months. He spends some time in Mecca with a cousin. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 237; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 137 ] Almihdhar is on the terrorist watch list there (see 1997), and his passport contains an indicator the Saudi authorities use to track terrorists (see April 6, 1999), so the Saudis presumably register his arrival and departure.
Entity Tags: Khalid Almihdhar
The FAA practices for scenarios similar to the attacks that take place on 9/11 as part of at least one training exercise this month, according to a liaison officer with the agency. John Hawley, who works for the FAA's intelligence division as a liaison to the State Department, will later recall that during an exercise, or exercises, this month, some scenarios are practiced that are "pretty damn close to [the] 9/11 plot." He will tell the 9/11 Commission that "one of the scenarios may have had something to do with a chartered flight out of Ohio that had turned the transponder off," and comment that the scenarios "really forced you to think outside the box." According to Hawley, Mike Canavan—the recently-appointed associate administrator for civil aviation security at the FAA (see December 4, 2000)—is "definitely in charge" of running these scenarios. [9/11 Commission, 10/8/2003 ] Apparently referring to one of these scenarios, the 9/11 Commission will ask Canavan if he recalls a tabletop exercise conducted by the FAA this month, involving a FedEx plane "being commandeered by a suicide hijacker." Canavan will respond that he "did not recall such an exercise, and shared that it must have been at a pretty low level, since he didn't recall" it. He will say he never participates in any tabletop exercises while at the FAA. [9/11 Commission, 11/4/2003 ] During one of the 9/11 Commission's public hearings, Canavan will similarly say he does not remember "any publication or any training exercise where a commercial airliner was used as a weapon." [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003]
Entity Tags: Mike Canavan, Federal Aviation Administration, John Hawley
Category Tags: Military Exercises
Hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour opens an account with Citibank in Deira, Dubai, with a deposit of $3,000. Hanjour's movements between September 25, 2000, when he obtained a US visa in Jeddah, and this date are unclear, but he flies to the US three days later (see December 8, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 13-14 ] According to the 9/11 Commission, plot facilitator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali gave him the initial $3,000 and later deposits another $5,000 in the account. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 138 ] However, these deposits will not be mentioned at a military hearing to determine Ali's combat status, although other transactions between Ali and the hijackers will be (see March 30, 2007). [US Department of Defense, 4/12/2007 ] Hanjour uses the money on this account, together with $9,600 that is deposited in his account with the Saudi British Bank, to pay some of his expenses in the US. Hijackers Fayez Ahmed Banihammed (see June 25, 2001), Marwan Alshehhi (see July 1999-November 2000), and possibly Mohamed Atta (see Late October 2001) also have accounts in the UAE through which money is passed to fund the plot. Khalid Almihdhar and Abdulaziz Alomari (see September 7, 2001) also draw on money from Saudi bank accounts. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 138 ]
Entity Tags: Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Hani Hanjour, Abdulaziz Alomari, Khalid Almihdhar
Category Tags: Hani Hanjour, Other 9/11 Hijackers
Hani Hanjour's US visa issued September 25, 2000. [Source: FBI]Future 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour re-enters the US, flying from Dubai, via Paris to Cincinnati, then on to San Diego, where he joins fellow hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 223] Three months earlier, Hanjour had applied for a four-week course in English at the ELS Language Center in Oakland, where he had studied in 1996 (see April 30-Early September 1996). Using his conditional acceptance letter from ELS, he applied in Saudi Arabia for a student visa to enter the US, which was granted by the US consulate in Jeddah (see September 10, 2000 and September 25, 2000). However, he never turns up for his course. [Associated Press, 10/11/2001; Washington Post, 10/15/2001; Washington Post, 9/10/2002] Hanjour applied for a student visa in Jeddah, but, for some reason, appears to have been granted a tourist visa. However, upon entry the visa is changed to a student visa. The 9/11 Commission will attempt to interview the primary inspector who makes this change. However, it will be unable to do so. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14, 38 ]
Entity Tags: Hani Hanjour, Nawaf Alhazmi
Category Tags: Hani Hanjour
9/11 hijackers Hani Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi move together from San Diego to Mesa, Arizona, just outside Phoenix. [US News and World Report, 6/20/2004] While there, Hanjour spends time training at Arizona Aviation flight school, which he previously attended in January 1998 (see 1998). According to the 9/11 Commission, "He wanted to train on multi-engine planes, but had difficulties because his English was not good enough. The instructor advised him to discontinue but Hanjour said he could not go home without completing the training." [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 226] He also attends the JetTech flight school in Phoenix (see January-February 2001). In March 2001, Hanjour moves to Paterson, New Jersey, where he rents an apartment with Salem Alhazmi (see March 2001-September 1, 2001).
Entity Tags: Hani Hanjour, Salem Alhazmi, Nawaf Alhazmi, Arizona Aviation flight school, JetTech
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Hani Hanjour
James Gilmore.
[Source: Publicity photo]A federal panel chaired by former Governor James Gilmore (R-VA) warns President-elect Bush that the US in vulnerable to terrorist attack and urges him to bolster US preparedness within one year. Gilmore states, "The United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for combating terrorism. The terrorist threat is real, and it is serious." The panel urges the US counterterrorism effort should be consolidated into one new agency. It further argues the US has no clear counterterrorism program and argues for dozens of special changes at all levels of government. Gilmore says, "We are impelled by the stark realization that a terrorist attack on some level inside our borders is inevitable and the United States must be ready." The panel also calls for improvement in human intelligence instead of a reliance on technology. [Washington Post, 12/15/2000] The 9/11 Commission will later make many of the same recommendations. However, the Commission will barely mention the Gilmore panel in their report, except to note that Congress appointed the panel and failed to follow through on implementing the recommendations. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 107, 479]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, James Gilmore
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Warning Signs
Ziad Jarrah using a flight simulator in January 2001. [Source: Los Angeles Times]From December 15-18, 2000, 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah attends Aeroservice Aviation in Miami, Florida where he takes lessons in Boeing 727 and 737 simulators. Around this same time, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi take lessons in a 727 simulator, but at a different Florida center (see December 29-31, 2000). After returning to the US from a visit home to Beirut, Jarrah again attends Aeroservice Aviation on January 8, 2001. His girlfriend Aysel Senguen is with him for a ten-day stay at the time, accompanies him to the flight training session, and photographs him in the simulator. [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/10/2001; US Congress, 9/26/2002; Los Angeles Times, 1/27/2003; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 227] However, some accounts conflict with him being in Florida on this second occasion (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001 and January 30, 2001). [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002]
Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Aeroservice Aviation
Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training
After the FBI and CIA obtain a passport photo of al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash (see November 22-December 16, 2000), they are unable to connect him to one of his aliases, Salah Saeed Mohammed bin Yousaf, even though he had submitted an application for a US visa using this alias the year before (see April 3, 1999). Presumably, a search of visa applications would have turned up a photograph similar to the one the US now has of him, allowing the US to connect bin Attash to the alias. However, no such search is made, even though the CIA knows the alias is connected to 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar (see January 8, 2000), who obtained US visas at the same time bin Attash's application was denied (see April 3-7, 1999). No such search is made even after the CIA connects bin Attash to Alhazmi and Almihdhar under bin Attash's real name as well in early 2001 (see January 4, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 192-3, 538; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 248, 267-278 ] The US misses other opportunities to learn more about this alias (see After January 8, 2000 and After August 23, 2001).
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Khallad bin Attash
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Alhazmi and Almihdhar
The CIA station in Islamabad, Pakistan, writes a cable noting that further connections have been made between 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar and al-Qaeda. This CIA station is already aware that Almihdhar attended an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000 (see January 5-8, 2000). Due to these additional connections, the CIA believes that there may be a connection between Almihdhar and the USS Cole bombers and that Almihdhar may have met Fahad al-Quso and Khallad bin Attash, two of the operatives involved in the bombing, in Southeast Asia in January 2000 (see January 13, 2000 and Early December 2000). The station realizes this is important because bin Attash is linked to Osama bin Laden, but also speculates that bin Attash and Almihdhar may be the same person. The reason given for this speculation is that both bin Attash and Almihdhar are in Bangkok, Thailand, at the same time, in the second week of January 2000 (see Mid-Late December 2000). [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 269-270 ]
Entity Tags: Khallad bin Attash, CIA Islamabad Station, Central Intelligence Agency, Khalid Almihdhar
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar
In a memo to President Clinton that is also widely distributed in the US intelligence community, CIA Director George Tenet warns: "The next several weeks will bring an increased risk of attacks on our country's interests from one or more Middle Eastern terrorist groups… The volume of credible threat reporting has grown significantly in the past few months, particularly concerning plans by Osama bin Laden's organization for new attacks in Europe and the Middle East.… Our most credible information on bin Laden activity suggests his organization is looking at US facilities in the Middle East, especially the Arabian peninsula, in Turkey and Western Europe. Bin Laden's network is global however and capable of attacks in other regions, including the United States." [Tenet, 2007, pp. 128-129] Just one day later, Clinton will brief incoming President Bush on the al-Qaeda threat (see December 19, 2000).
Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Osama bin Laden, US intelligence, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, Central Intelligence Agency
Category Tags: Warning Signs, Presidential Level Warnings
Khallad bin Attash (left) and Khalid Almihdhar (right) were apparently confused by the CIA. [Source: FBI]Because the CIA thinks 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar and al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash are in the same place at the same time—in Bangkok, Thailand, for a meeting with Fahad al-Quso, an operative involved in the attack of the USS Cole, in January 2000 (see January 5-6, 2000)—and possibly because of the similarity between Almihdhar's first name Khalid and bin Attash's nickname Khallad, some officers apparently theorize that bin Attash and Almihdhar may be the same person. However, the FBI is not informed of this. In order to confirm or refute this theory, the CIA station in Islamabad, Pakistan, asks for surveillance photos of an al-Qaeda summit that Almihdhar attended, intending to show the photos to a source who knows bin Attash and has previously identified him in another photo (see November 22-December 16, 2000 and Early January 2001). However, there is no record of this theory being communicated to the FBI, even though the CIA knows bin Attash was involved in the Cole bombing and the FBI is investigating him (see Late October-Late November 2000). Some CIA cables drafted at this time contain information about bin Attash and information not related to bin Attash; CIA officers are instructed to share the information not related to bin Attash with the FBI, but are not instructed to share the information about bin Attash and al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit. The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General will later say that if the CIA had told the FBI more about bin Attash around this time, the FBI would have asked for more information about Almihdhar and had a better chance of locating him before 9/11. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 269-270, 278 ]
Entity Tags: Khallad bin Attash, Office of the Inspector General (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation, CIA Islamabad Station, Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency
Clinton and Bush meeting in the White House on December 19, 2000. [Source: NBC]President Clinton and President-Elect Bush meet for their "exit interview," in a two-hour meeting. [CNN, 12/19/2000] Clinton gives Bush his list of his top five priorities. At the top of the list is dealing with Osama bin Laden. Clinton also discusses the tensions between Pakistan and India, who are threatening each other with nuclear strikes; the crisis in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine; he discusses North Korea; and he discusses Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Bush shakes Clinton's hand after Clinton wraps up his presentation, and says, "Thanks for your advice, Mr. President, but I think you've got your priorities wrong. I'm putting Saddam at the top of the list." [Moore, 3/15/2004, pp. 16-17] Just one day before, CIA Director George Tenet had warned Clinton that al-Qaeda could attack US interests in the next several weeks (see December 18, 2000). In 2003, Clinton will speak about the interview, saying that he recognized Bush felt the biggest security issues facing the US was Iraq and a national missile defense: "I told him that in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden." [Reuters, 10/16/2003]
Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
Category Tags: Warning Signs, Presidential Level Warnings, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, while learning to fly in Florida, stall a small plane on a Miami International Airport runway. Unable to start the plane, they simply walk away. Flight controllers have to guide the waiting passenger airliners around the stalled aircraft until it is towed away 35 minutes later. They weren't supposed to be using that airport in the first place. The FAA threatens to investigate the two students and the flight school they are attending. The flight school sends records to the FAA, but no more is heard of the investigation. [New York Times, 10/17/2001] "Students do stupid things during their flight course, but this is quite stupid," says the owner of the flight school. Nothing was wrong with the plane. [CNN, 10/17/2001]
Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training, Hijacker Contact w Government in US
Records indicate future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flies from Miami, Florida, to Beirut on December 26, 2000, but then also flies from Tampa, Florida, to Dusseldorf, Germany, on December 28, 2000. The first trip has stops in Munich, Germany, and Istanbul, Turkey. The second flight has stops in Fort Myers, Florida, and Frankfurt, Germany. This is according to a 2002 FBI document about the 9/11 attacks. The document contains an analyst note pointing out that records show Jarrah left the US these two times, but doesn't attempt to explain the discrepancy except to comment that one or the other flight may be right. Jarrah apparently returns to the US on January 5, 2001, after visiting family in Lebanon. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 4/19/2002] Additionally, around this time, there are claims that Jarrah is both training in Afghanistan and visiting family in Lebanon. One uncle of his will later ask, "How could he be in two places at one time?" (See Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). Jarrah also seems to leave the US twice in a short time period on one other occasion (see July 25, 2001).
Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, HIjacker Visas and Immigration
The Pan Am Boeing 767 flight simulator used by the hijackers. [Source: FBI]Having finished their flight training at Huffman Aviation and passed their commercial pilot license tests (see August 14-December 19, 2000), future 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi spend December 29 and 30 at the SimCenter flight school at Opa-Locka Airport, near Miami. Saying they want to join an Egyptian airline and need experience in a large plane, they each pay $1,500 in cash and spend six hours, split over the two days, training in the school's Boeing 727 simulator. Henry George, the school's owner who trains them, will later describe their training as a "mini, mini introduction," and say they spend most of their time practicing maneuvers and turns. George will describe Atta and Alshehhi as "average pilots," and say they are "quite ordinary. They were respectful and quiet almost to the point of being shy." [New York Times, 9/15/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 9/27/2001; Aviation International News, 11/2001; BBC, 12/12/2001] The FBI will claim that Atta and Alshehhi spend December 31 at Pan Am International, also in Opa-Locka, training on a Boeing 767 simulator there. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui, a/k/a Shaqil, a/k/a Abu Khalid al Sahrawi, Defendant, 3/7/2006] Yet no other reports, including the 9/11 Commission Report, will mention this. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel will specifically claim the alleged hijackers "never approached Pan Am," although it will not say how it arrived at this conclusion. It will point out that, in contrast to the 767s Atta and Alshehhi allegedly pilot on 9/11, the 727 the two men train to fly at the SimCenter "is a rather old three-engine jet with an old-fashioned cockpit, including a cramped instrument panel loaded down with small dials, knobs, and gauges.… But the 767 and 757 have highly sophisticated 'glass cockpits,' featuring video screens and digital readouts, and requiring an advanced level of computer skills." Furthermore, according to Steven Wallach, an aviation consultant and former airline captain, if the hijackers "took the controls at high altitude and a long distance from their targets, then they likely had considerable training in a 767 or 757. They would have had to descend and navigate to Washington and New York. They would have had to know how to operate the autopilot, as well as other intricate functions." However, "if the hijackers took over the controls at the last moment, that would indicate a minimum of 767-757 training." [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/22/2001] SimCenter owner Henry George will claim: "I suppose Atta had just enough training to keep the plane in the air—how to make turns and move it up and down. He could not, however, have taxied a 757 or 767 from the gate, got it airborne, or landed it safely." [Daily Telegraph, 9/14/2001]
Entity Tags: SimCenter, Henry George, Pan Am International Flight School, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training, Key Hijacker Events
Documents obtained by Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Salem Alhazmi indicate that they are in the New Jersey / New York area at this time, although the cards may be later fakes. All three hijackers obtain USA ID cards whose expiry date is December 30, 2006. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 191-2 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] USAID Systems, the Florida firm that manufactured the system through which the cards were issued, will later tell Time magazine that Almihdhar's card was issued exactly six years before its expiration date. [Time, 8/29/2005] However, according to the FBI and the 9/11 Commission, Nawaf Alhazmi is in Arizona (see December 12, 2000-March 2001), and Salem Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar are in the Middle East at this time (see June 10, 2000, Late October 2000-July 4, 2001, and April 23-June 29, 2001).
Almihdhar's card later proves to be a forgery, and may therefore not have been issued on this date. The Alhazmi brothers' cards may also be forgeries (see (July-August 2001))
Entity Tags: Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Other 9/11 Hijackers
Sometime this year, the FBI discovers a new and "massive" Israeli spying operation inside the US. In 2004, UPI will report that, according to a former senior US government official, the FBI learned of a spy operation in the East Coast of the US, including New York and New Jersey. The FBI begins intensive surveillance on certain Israeli diplomats and other suspects. As part of this surveillance, in 2003 the FBI will be videotaping Naor Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, when they will discover Gilon is meeting with Larry Franklin, Defense Department analyst. In 2005, Franklin will plead guilty to passing classified secrets to Israeli officials (see October 5, 2005). It appears that the surveillance of some Israeli diplomatic officials in the US actually began by April 1999 (see April 13, 1999-2004), though details remain murky. [United Press International, 12/9/2004] It is not known if this discovered spy operation is connected to or the same as the Israeli art student and moving van spy rings, which appears to have been discovered in 2001 (see March 23, 2001 and June 2001), or something completely different. It is also not clear if the discovery came from an investigation of media leaks begun two days before 9/11 (see September 9, 2001), or if it predated that and the 9/11 attacks.
Entity Tags: Larry Franklin, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Naor Gilon
Category Tags: Alleged Israeli Spy Ring
During a post-9/11 trial in Germany, Shadi Abdellah, a militant who briefly served as one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards, will claim that in early 2001: "Bin Laden spoke in a speech of an attack against the United States and said there would be thousands of dead.… When there was an attack, we weren't told. They just said to us, 'Pray for your brothers.'" [Guardian, 11/28/2002; Associated Press, 11/2/2004] According to another account, Abdellah hears bin Laden say: "We will hit America's spine soon. Thousands will die. We will hit them hard." [Los Angeles Times, 11/28/2002] Abdellah spent time at al-Qaeda training camps from early 2000 until May 2001, so presumably this speech was in May 2001 or before then. Abdellah will be captured in Germany in 2002 for a role in helping to plot attacks against Jewish targets there (see April 2002). [Guardian, 11/28/2002; Associated Press, 11/2/2004] Bin Laden will make other similar public comments hinting at a massive attack against the US later in the summer of 2001 (see Summer 2001). While it is unknown if US intelligence is aware of such speeches before 9/11, by July 2001 the CIA will report that a source in Afghanistan has said, "Everyone is talking about an impending attack" (see July 2001).
Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Shadi Abdellah
Category Tags: Warning Signs
Mohammed Fazazi, the imam at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, Germany, attended by three of the future 9/11 hijackers, gives an extremely militant sermon that is recorded on video. In the sermon given at Al-Quds, he says, "You have not understood the words of God or the Koran if you believe that the nonbelievers want to do good." He advocates killing all non-Muslims "no matter if it's a man, a woman, or a child." He laments the difficulty of doing this not for the victims or the number of people who must die, but for the hardship it places on the killers. The video of this sermon will later be seen by Los Angeles Times reporters. [Los Angeles Times, 7/6/2005] The three 9/11 hijackers who lived in Hamburg—Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah—are in the US by the time Fazazi makes these comments, although most of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell members such as Ramzi bin al-Shibh are still in Hamburg. But the hijackers attended Fazazi's sermons for years prior to leaving Germany (see 1993-Late 2001 and Early 1996). They also frequently had private meetings with him (see Early 1996). Fazazi will leave Germany in late 2001 (see Mid-September-Late 2001) and will later be convicted of a role in the 2003 bombings in Casablanca, Morocco (see May 16, 2003).
Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Mohammed Fazazi
Category Tags: Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, Al-Qaeda's Hamburg Cell
Donald Kerrick. [Source: White House]Clinton and Bush staff overlap for several months while new Bush appointees are appointed and confirmed. Clinton holdovers seem more concerned about al-Qaeda than the new Bush staffers. For instance, according to a colleague, Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser, had become "totally preoccupied" with fears of a domestic terror attack. [Newsweek, 5/27/2002] Brian Sheridan, Clinton's outgoing Deputy Defense Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, is astonished when his offers during the transition to bring the new military leadership up to speed on terrorism are brushed aside. "I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic. Never took it up." [Los Angeles Times, 3/30/2004] Army Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick, Deputy National Security Adviser and manager of Clinton's NSC (National Security Council) staff, still remains at the NSC nearly four months after Bush takes office. He later notes that while Clinton's advisers met "nearly weekly" on terrorism by the end of his term, he does not detect the same kind of focus with the new Bush advisers: "That's not being derogatory. It's just a fact. I didn't detect any activity but what [Clinton holdover Richard] Clarke and the CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] were doing." [Washington Post, 1/20/2002] Kerrick submits a memo to the new people at the NSC, warning, "We are going to be struck again." He says, "They never responded. It was not high on their priority list. I was never invited to one meeting. They never asked me to do anything. They were not focusing. They didn't see terrorism as the big megaissue that the Clinton administration saw it as." Kerrick adds, "They were gambling nothing would happen." [Los Angeles Times, 3/30/2004] Bush's first Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Henry Shelton, later says terrorism was relegated "to the back burner" until 9/11. [Washington Post, 10/2/2002]
Entity Tags: Hugh Shelton, National Security Council, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration (43), Clinton administration, Donald Kerrick, Brian Sheridan, Counterterrorism and Security Group, Sandy Berger
Elie Assaad. [Source: ABC News]Elie Assaad is working as an undercover operative for the FBI, and he is sent to infiltrate the Al Hijrah mosque in Miramar, outside of Miami, Florida. Future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, who lives nearby at the time, frequents the mosque with Adnan Shukrijumah (see 2000-2001). Several years after 9/11, the US will call Shukrijumah an important al-Qaeda operative and will put out a $5 million reward for him. Assaad will later claim, "There was something wrong with these guys." The small mosque is run by Adnan's father, Gulshair Shukrijumah, who previously worked as a translator for Sheikh Abdul-Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," who was convicted of a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Assaad is posing as a personal representative of Osama bin Laden under the name "Mohammed." He will later claim that Adnan invites him to meet him at his home, but the FBI tells him to stay away, because Atta and his associates are suspicious and secretive. Instead, Assaad's FBI handlers assign him to go after easier targets: two "wannabe terrorists" whose cases are easy to solve (see November 2000-Spring 2002). Both targets are eventually convicted and sent to prison. After 9/11, Assaad will continue to work as an undercover operative for the FBI, and his work will be praised in 2006 by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. But others will criticize the cases he is involved in as entrapment against mostly harmless targets. ABC News will report on Assaad's story after he retires from government work in 2009. In response, the FBI will issue a statement, saying, "The claims made in the news report and the factual conclusions contained in the story are not supported by the evidence." The FBI will not specify which claims or conclusions it is referring to, and much of the story is a critique of post-9/11 FBI undercover stings in general. Former counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke, working as an ABC News consultant, will call the case "yet another example of the way the system broke down prior to 9/11. If the system had worked, we might have been able to identify these people before the attacks." [ABC News, 9/10/2009] It appears that the FBI is interested in Adnan Shukrijumah in two different cases around this time, but is unable to get close to him (see (Spring 2001)). In one case, an involved informant is known as "Mohamed," which may well be Assaad using his alias "Mohammed." A story on that case will suggest that Shukrijumah had a strong suspicion that "Mohamed" was a government informant (see April-May 2001).
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Elie Assaad, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Adnan Shukrijumah, Gulshair Shukrijumah
Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Hijacker Contact w Government in US, Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11
In January, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton is given a three hour briefing on Able Danger. Shelton supported the formation of Able Danger back in 1999 (see Fall 1999). The content of the briefing has never been reported. Then in March, during a briefing on another classified program called Door Hop Galley, Able Danger is again brought up. This briefing, given by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, is attended by Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Richard Schiefren, an attorney at DOD; and Stephen Cambone, Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. [Government Security News, 9/2005; Office of Congressman Curt Weldon, 9/17/2005 Sources: Curt Weldon] In mid-September 2005, Weldon will say, "I knew that the Clinton administration clearly knew about this. Now I know of at least two briefings in the Bush administration." He calls these two briefings "very troubling." He wants to know what became of the information presented in these briefings, suggesting it shouldn't have been destroyed as part of the other Able Danger data purges. [Delaware County Daily Times, 9/16/2005; Office of Congressman Curt Weldon, 9/17/2005]
Entity Tags: Bush administration (43), Clinton administration, Henry Hugh Shelton, Thomas Wilson, Stephen A. Cambone, Richard Schiefren, Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer
Future 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Waleed Alshehri are seen flying small aircraft at an airport in Oklahoma, and Zacarias Moussaoui is there at the same time. This is according to a 2002 FBI document about the 9/11 attacks. The document notes that "several employees" at Million Air, located at Wiley Post Airport in Bethany, Oklahoma, see Atta, Alshehhi, and Alshehri on the same Beechcraft Duchess aircraft at the same time. Furthermore, Moussaoui is seen there in the same timeframe, although the FBI report will not mention if Moussaoui is ever seen with the other three. The employees cannot give exact dates when these people are seen, but all the visits are in the six months leading up to 9/11 and two visits are said to take place after August 4, 2001. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 4/19/2002] Other Local Connections - Moussaoui takes flying lessons in Norman, Oklahoma, which is about 30 miles away from Bethany, from February to June 2001. Apparently he stays there most of the time until early August (see February 23-June 2001). Atta and Alshehhi visited the flight school in Norman in July 2000 (see July 2-3, 2000). A motel owner will later claim that around August 1, 2001, he saw Moussaoui, Atta, and Alshehhi together at his motel. The location of the motel is not specified, except that it is about 28 miles from Norman and off Highway 40, which runs about five miles south of Bethany (see August 1, 2001). [LA Weekly, 8/2/2002] Why No Mention in Moussaoui Trial? - Several years after 9/11, US officials will charge Moussaoui with a role in the 9/11 attacks. Strangely, these sightings in Oklahoma will never be mentioned in the trial, even though almost no evidence is put forward in the trial physically linking Moussaoui to any of the 9/11 hijackers in the US (see May 3, 2006).
Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mohamed Atta, Waleed Alshehri, Zacarias Moussaoui
Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training
Ahmed Shehab. [Source: Ahmedshehab.com]The landlord and at least twelve tenants of a Toronto high rise building see 9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi living there in the spring of 2001. Other witnesses recall seeing Alshehhi and/or hijacker Mohamed Atta in or near the building. Nabil al-Marabh is sporadically staying in the same building in an apartment unit owned by his uncle, Ahmed Shehab, a prominent local imam. None of the witnesses appear to have sighted any of the other hijackers. Alshehhi and Atta are also seen by eyewitnesses around this time at a Toronto photocopy shop owned by Shehab, and there are even some who see Atta occasionally working there (see January 2001-Summer 2001). [Toronto Sun, 9/28/2001; Toronto Sun, 9/28/2001; ABC News 7 (Chicago), 1/31/2002] The apartment where al-Marabh stayed will not be raided by police until about two weeks after 9/11, and one week after reports of al-Marabh's connections to the hijackers has been in the newspapers. The Toronto Sun will report, "Many [building] residents questioned why police waited so long to raid [the] apartment after al-Marabh was arrested. Several tenants alleged they had seen a man late at night during the past week, taking away boxes from the apartment." [Toronto Sun, 9/28/2001] Al-Marabh also shares a Toronto apartment with Hassan Almrei, a Syrian who the Canadian authorities are already suspecting for possible militant ties (see September 13, 2000 and After). One article says that are roommates in 2001, and it would likely mean early 2001 since al-Marabh leaves Toronto during the summer. Canadian authorities will later arrest Almrei and discover that he has extensive connections with al-Qaeda (see October 19, 2001). [ABC News 7 (Chicago), 1/31/2002] Some of the 9/11 hijackers may have been in Toronto as late as the end of August 2001. A motel manager in Hollywood, Florida, will later say that Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah stay at his motel on August 30, 2001. He will say they gave a non-existent Toronto address and drove a car with Ontario, Canada, license plates. They claimed to be computer engineers from Iran, and said they had just come down from Canada to find jobs. [Washington Post, 10/4/2001; Toronto Sun, 10/5/2001]
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ahmed Shehab, Hassan Almrei, Nabil al-Marabh
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Nabil Al-Marabh
The Toronto photocopy shop owned by Nabil al-Marabh's uncle. [Source: CTV]Many eyewitnesses see 9/11 hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta at a Toronto photocopy shop owned by Nabil al-Marabh's uncle Ahmed Shehab, a prominent local imam. Some of the dozens of eyewitness accounts say Atta sporadically works in the shop. There is a large picture of bin Laden hanging in the store. Alshehhi and Atta are also seen by other eyewitnesses in a Toronto apartment building during this same time period (see January 2001-Summer 2001). [Toronto Sun, 10/21/2001] In a series of raids after 9/11, many partially completed fake IDs will be found in the store and at al-Marabh's apartment. A stack of tightly-controlled immigration forms enabling one to immigrate to Canada will also be found. [Toronto Sun, 9/28/2001; Toronto Sun, 10/5/2001; Toronto Sun, 10/16/2001] According to the Toronto Sun, "Forensic officers said there are similarities in the paper stock, laminates, and ink seized from the downtown store and that which was used in identification left behind by the [9/11 hijackers]." [Toronto Sun, 10/16/2001]
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ahmed Shehab, Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Nabil Al-Marabh, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta
Clearwater Airpark. [Source: Douglas R. Clifford / St. Petersburg Times]9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi reportedly spend at least 30 minutes practicing landing a single-engine plane at Clearwater Airpark, Florida, after it has closed for the night. This is according to Daniel Pursell, the chief instructor at Huffman Aviation, the Venice flight school attended by the two during the latter half of 2000 (see July 6-December 19, 2000). What they are doing at Clearwater is unknown. Their activities draw the attention of a police aide acting as a night watchman, who leaves a voice message at Huffman complaining about the incident. The plane is subsequently identified as having been rented by Atta and Alshehhi. Pursell, along with fellow instructor Thierry Leklou, reprimands them when they return to Venice the following morning. According to the St. Petersburg Times, the two leave Huffman shortly afterwards. This incident first surfaces publicly in 2006, when Pursell testifies at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. However, others will dispute his allegations. Local police say no incident reports were filed describing the event, and neither the FAA nor city have any record of unauthorized landings during this period. According to Bill Morris, Clearwater's marine and aviation director, a police aide would have called for backup and recorded the plane's details in a log, rather than calling Huffman. He says even if the aide had wanted to contact the plane's owner, it would have been impossible to ascertain who this was at night, as allegedly occurred, because the FAA's offices would have been closed. [CNN, 3/23/2006; St. Petersburg Times, 3/30/2006; Clearwater Citizen, 4/6/2006] Furthermore, Atta and Alshehhi supposedly finished training at Huffman Aviation in December 2000, and the school's owner Rudi Dekkers will claim Huffman last heard from them around the end of that month. [US Congress, 3/19/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 17 ] However, a similar incident to this is known to have occurred previously, where Atta and Alshehhi abandoned one of Huffman's planes at Miami International Airport (see December 26, 2000). [CNN, 3/23/2006] And according to the 9/11 Commission, after passing their instrument rating airplane tests on November 6, 2000, the pair was "able to sign out planes. They did so on a number of occasions, often returning at 2:00 and 3:00 A.M. after logging four or five hours of flying time." [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 15 ] The St. Petersburg Times reports that Atta and Alshehhi "would rent a plane from Huffman and be gone for days at a time, Pursell said. They could fly to 20 airports across the state and never be noticed." [St. Petersburg Times, 3/30/2006]
Entity Tags: Daniel Pursell, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Clearwater Airpark, Thierry Leklou
Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training
Bassam Kanj.
[Source: FBI]Bassam Kanj is killed in a battle in Lebanon. Kanj lived on and off in Boston for nearly 15 years, and was a friend of al-Qaeda operatives Nabil al-Marabh, Raed Hijazi, and Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi. All four of them fought together in Afghanistan in the late 1980s (see Late 1980s), then worked at the same Boston taxi company in the 1990s (see June 1995-Early 1999). In late 1998, Kanj left Boston for Lebanon where he apparently recruited a couple hundred people to take part in a rebellion to overthrow the Lebanese government. He is killed during a five day battle, along with 21 others. Two days after the battle, a Lebanese newspaper identifies him as an al-Qaeda operative who had received financial support from bin Laden. This leads to a renewed focus on him in the US. In February 2001, the Boston Globe will report, "The FBI is continuing to look at Kanj's and Hijazi's activities in the Boston area in hopes of learning more about their contacts inside bin Laden's far-flung organization." Michael Rolince, chief of international terrorism operations for the FBI, will tell the Globe that both men had a "higher station" than most in al-Qaeda, and will add, "We are still trying to sort out who played what role." [Boston Globe, 2/5/2001] Presumably, this leads the FBI to take another look at Nabil al-Marabh, who had been roommates with both Hijazi and Kanj and is already wanted for a variety of al-Qaeda contacts. An individual matching al-Marabh's description is even mentioned in a prominent New York Times story about al-Qaeda in January 2001. The article states, "In early 1997, Hijazi moved to Boston, where he had a friend from his years in Afghanistan." [New York Times, 1/15/2001] Yet apparently there is no concerted effort to find al-Marabh, who will even be set free after being arrested trying to illegally enter the US (see June 27, 2001-July 11, 2001). The Boston FBI began investigating Elzahabi for militant ties in 1999, but lost track of him when he went to fight in Chechnya (see 1997 and 1999). But apparently he is not detected reentering the US shortly before 9/11 (see Mid-August 2001).
Entity Tags: Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, Nabil al-Marabh, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bassam Kanj, Michael Rolince, Raed Hijazi
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer will later claim that DIA Deputy Director of Human Intelligence William Huntington is briefed by Shaffer at this time about a project named Dorhawk Galley. Some information about Able Danger's methodology comes up. According to Shaffer, Huntington refuses to hear it and announces, "I can't be here, I can't see this." Huntington immediately leaves Shaffer's office and refuses to hear the information. Commenting on the episode, Shaffer later notes, "By doing this, he could later feign ignorance of the project should it have been compromised to the public. It is my belief that he is an example of the cultural problem—senior bureaucrats who are more focused on their own career and having 'plausible deniability' to never allow anything 'controversial or risky' to 'touch them.'" Shaffer will also state, "It is of grave concern that Mr. Huntington is the one who is behind the troubling coincidence regarding my security clearance being suspended in March of 2004, just after reporting to my DIA chain of command [to include Mr. Huntington] of my contact with the 9-11 Commission, and my offer to share the Able Danger information to the 9-11 commission." [US Congress, 2/15/2006 ; US Congress, 2/15/2006]
Entity Tags: Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer, Dorhawk Galley, William Huntington
Future 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow is not offered a job in the Bush administration, and returns to the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia to teach. Zelikow had worked on the transition team (see January 3, 2001), and thought he would receive an important position in the new administration. He told his friends he thought he was in line for the position of deputy national security adviser to Condoleezza Rice, with whom he had written a book in the mid-1990s (see 1995). Most people in the Bush administration admire his ability, but find him hard to work with. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card will even describe Zelikow as a "bully" historian. Author Philip Shenon will later comment that Zelikow is "perplexed that his talents had not been recognized by the people who handed out the best jobs in the Bush administration." After returning to university, Zelikow will lobby the White House to make the university where he works the official repository of its oral history. His point of contact at the White House is political adviser Karl Rove. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 42-44]
Entity Tags: Andrew Card, Karl C. Rove, Philip Shenon, Philip Zelikow
Category Tags: 9/11 Commission, Role of Philip Zelikow
The CIA's Counterterrorist Center completes a report on the bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). The report, drafted by CIA officer Clark Shannon, finds that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are circumstantially tied to the attack. However, the report fails to mention details known to the CIA involving figures later connected to the 9/11 plot. The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General will later observe, "The report did not mention [hijacker Khalid Almihdhar's] visa, [hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi's] travel to the United States or the Khallad [bin Attash] identification from the Kuala Lumpur photographs" (see January 2-5, 2000, March 5, 2000, and January 4, 2001). [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 283 ]
Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Office of the Inspector General (DOJ), Clark Shannon, Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar
Hani Hanjour, from a 2000 US visa application.
[Source: 9/11 Commission]In January 2001, the Arizona flight school JetTech alerts the FAA about hijacker Hani Hanjour. No one at the school suspects Hanjour of terrorist intent, but they tell the FAA he lacks both the English and flying skills necessary for the commercial pilot's license he has already obtained. For instance, he had taken classes at the University of Arizona but failed his English classes with a 0.26 grade point average. A JetTech flight school manager "couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had." A former employee says, "I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all." They also note he is an exceptionally poor student who does not seem to care about passing his courses. [New York Times, 5/4/2002; CBS News, 5/10/2002] An FAA official named John Anthony actually sits next to Hanjour in class and observes his skills. He suggests the use of a translator to help Hanjour pass, but the flight school points out that goes "against the rules that require a pilot to be able to write and speak English fluently before they even get their license." [Associated Press, 5/10/2002] The FAA verifies that Hanjour's 1999 pilot's license is legitimate (see April 15, 1999), but takes no other action. However, his license should have been rejected because it had already expired in late 1999 when he failed to take a manadatory medical test. [Associated Press, 9/15/2001; CBS News, 5/10/2002] An Arizona FAA inspector later says, "There should have been a stop right then and there." He will claim that federal law would have required Hanjour to be re-examined. [Associated Press, 6/13/2002] In February, Hanjour begins advanced simulator training, "a far more complicated task than he had faced in earning a commercial license." [New York Times, 6/19/2002] The flight school again alerts the FAA about this and gives a total of five alerts about Hanjour, but no further action on him is taken. The FBI is not told about Hanjour. [CBS News, 5/10/2002] Ironically, in July 2001, Arizona FBI agent Ken Williams will recommend in a memo that the FBI liaison with local flight schools and keep track of suspicious activity by Middle Eastern students (see July 10, 2001).
Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, John Anthony, Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, JetTech
Category Tags: Hani Hanjour, Phoenix Memo, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training, Key Hijacker Events, Hijacker Contact w Government in US
Ahmed Alnami in prayer. [Source: Spiegel TV]Eleven of the 9/11 hijackers stay in or pass through Britain, according to the British Home Secretary and top investigators. Most are in Britain between April and June, just passing through from Dubai, United Arab Emirates (see April 22-June 27, 2001). However, investigators suspect some stay in Britain for training and fundraising (see June 2001). The eleven are Satam Al Suqami, Waleed Alshehri, Majed Moqed, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Ahmed Alnami, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Wail Alshehri, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, and Saeed Alghamdi. Ahmed Alghamdi was one of several that should have been "instantly 'red-flagged' by British intelligence," because of his links to Raed Hijazi, a suspected ally of bin Laden being held in Jordan on charges of conspiring to destroy holy sites. Apparently, the investigation concludes that other "muscle" hijackers and leaders like Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi did not pass through Britain at this time. [London Times, 9/26/2001; Washington Post, 9/27/2001; BBC, 9/28/2001; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/30/2001] However, police will investigate whether Atta visited Britain in 1999 and 2000, together with some Algerians. [Daily Telegraph, 9/30/2001] The London Times will also write, "Officials hope that the inquiries in Britain will disclose the true identities of the suicide team. Some are known to have arrived in Britain using false passports and fake identities that they kept for the hijack." [London Times, 9/26/2001]
Entity Tags: Raed Hijazi, Saeed Alghamdi, Waleed Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Wail Alshehri, Marwan Alshehhi, Satam Al Suqami, Hamza Alghamdi, Majed Moqed, Ahmed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Alnami, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad
The FAA gives 15 warnings to domestic airlines between January and August 2001, but about one general security warning a month had been common for a long time. [CNN, 5/17/2002] Even a government official later calls the content of these 15 warnings "standard fare."
[Miami Herald, 5/17/2002] As one newspaper later reports, "there were so many [warnings] that airline officials grew numb to them."
[St. Petersburg Times, 9/23/2002] In May 2002, in response to recent revelations about what was known before 9/11, the major airlines will hold a press conference claiming they were never warned of a specific hijacking threat, and were not told to tighten security. For instance, an American Airlines spokesman states that the airline "received no specific information from the US government advising the carrier of a potential terrorist hijacking in the United States in the months prior to September 11, 2001. American receives FAA security information bulletins periodically, but the bulletins were extremely general in nature and did not identify a specific threat or recommend any specific security enhancements."
[Miami Herald, 5/17/2002] Bush administration officials later state that the terror information they are receiving is so vague that tighter security does not seem required. [Associated Press, 5/18/2002] However, it seems that even these general warnings are never passed on to airline employees. Rosemary Dillard, a supervisor for American Airlines, states, "My job was supervision over all the flight attendants who flew out of National, Baltimore, or Dulles. In the summer of 2001, we had absolutely no warnings about any threats of hijackings or terrorism, from the airline or from the FAA."
[New York Observer, 6/20/2004] The content of these seemingly harmless warnings remain classified after 9/11. They are said to be exempted from public disclosure by a federal statute that covers "information that would be detrimental to the security of transportation if disclosed."
[New York Observer, 6/20/2004]
Entity Tags: American Airlines, Bush administration (43), Federal Aviation Administration, Rosemary Dillard
Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
A secret military intelligence unit called Able Danger, which is tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda networks around the world, is shut down. Some accounts say the program is shut down in January, some say February, and some say March. [Norristown Times Herald, 6/19/2005; Times Herald (Norristown), 9/12/2005; US Congress, 9/21/2005] The unit has identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as members of an al-Qaeda cell operating in the United States (see January-February 2000). According to James D. Smith, a Pentagon contractor involved with the unit, the inspector general shuts down the operation "because of a claim that we were collecting information on US citizens," and it is illegal for the military to do this. [WTOP Radio 103.5 (Washington), 9/1/2005] Others familiar with the unit later say it is closed down because it might have led to the exposure of another data mining project that was investigating US citizens allegedly illegally transferring sensitive US technology to the Chinese government. [WTOP Radio 103.5 (Washington), 9/1/2005] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer blames the change in leadership brought by the new Bush administration. "Once the four star [General Schoomaker] went away, it was pretty much like the world closing around us [Schoomaker retired in November 2000, but returned as Army Chief of Staff in 2003]. There was no political will to continue this at that point in time. Plus, my direct leadership: Colonel [Jerry] York and General [Bob] Harding had moved on as well. Therefore, I had a new chain of command above me. They were very risk adverse. This [Able Danger] operation, as with other operations which were very high risk / high gain, some of which are still ongoing—seemed to not be appreciated by the incoming leadership." [American Forces Press Service, 6/17/2003; Government Security News, 9/2005] For example, Shaffer will say that Col. Mary Moffitt, who replaces Col. Gerry York around this time ("spring 2001"), "dismantled the Defense [human intelligence] support to Able Danger just months before the 9-11 attacks… [and ] became focused on shutting down our support to Able Danger under the guise of 'reorganization' and in the end, disestablished Stratus Ivy [the unit Shaffer headed] and its cutting edge focus." [US Congress, 2/15/2006 ]
Entity Tags: James D. Smith, Mary Moffitt, Al-Qaeda, Able Danger
In addition to briefings about Able Danger with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (see Early 2001) and other military leaders (see March 2001), Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer claims that there are other briefings about the project in the same early 2001 time frame. In one briefing, Shaffer says CIA Director George Tenet approves "our conduct of this special project—I did specifically mention the Able Danger effort to him regarding the use of its methodology to separate out US Person issues." Shaffer also claims that the National Security Counsel (NSC) is briefed twice on Able Danger around this time. He says, "I cannot recall the specific dates of, or individuals present at, the briefing." [US Congress, 2/15/2006 ]
Entity Tags: National Security Council, Able Danger, George J. Tenet, Anthony Shaffer
The CIA's Counterterrorist Center passes a photo of hijacker Khalid Almihdhar and a photo of hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi taken at al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit (see January 5-8, 2000) to the CIA station in Islamabad, Pakistan. The station is to show the photos to a source, later referred to as "Omar," to see if he can identify Khalid Almihdhar or al-Qaeda manager Khallad bin Attash, as Omar has previously identified bin Attash in another photo (see November 22-December 16, 2000). According to cables drafted at this time, the overseas station requested the photo of Almihdhar because it thinks that Almihdhar and bin Attash might be the same person (see Mid-Late December 2000). It is unclear why the photo of Alhazmi is also passed at the same time. The CIA has numerous other photos taken at the Malaysia summit as well as video (see January 5, 2000), but these are not passed. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 269-270 ]
Entity Tags: Khallad bin Attash, Nawaf Alhazmi, Counterterrorist Center, CIA Islamabad Station, Khalid Almihdhar, "Omar", Central Intelligence Agency
Joel Rosenberg. [Source: Publicity photo]Joel Rosenberg, a communications strategist, writes a novel based around an attempt by suicide terrorists to crash a plane into the American president's motorcade, which leads to the United States launching a preemptive war against Iraq, but the book's publication will be delayed due to the similarity of the plot to the 9/11 attacks. [Washington Post, 12/23/2002; World, 10/25/2003; New York Times, 11/15/2003; Washington Times, 7/26/2005; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. x-xi] Rosenberg is president of November Communications, a consulting company he formed to help business and political leaders "discover, develop, and drive their message." [Heritage Foundation, 12/2002; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. 36] He previously worked as research director for conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh, and as chief speechwriter and policy director for publisher and former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes. He has also advised Israeli politicians Benjamin Netanyahu and Natan Sharansky. [Daily Orange, 11/18/2002; New York Times, 11/15/2003; Washington Times, 7/26/2005] Novel Is Almost Complete by 9/11 - Rosenberg starts writing his novel, called The Last Jihad, in January 2001. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. ix] He has never written a novel before or taken any classes in fiction writing. "I had barely even had time to read any fiction over the previous decade," he will later comment. He had been thinking of getting out of politics, though, and decided to spend some time writing a political thriller. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. 36-39] A literary agent reads the first three chapters of The Last Jihad in spring 2001 and, convinced he can get the book published, urges Rosenberg to finish it as soon as possible. On September 11, 2001, Rosenberg is about to start on the book's second-to-last chapter. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. ix] Author Is Influenced by Netanyahu's Warnings about Terrorism - While trying to decide what his novel's storyline should be, he will recall, Rosenberg had thought "about the warnings Netanyahu had given over the past several months—and over the past several decades—that state-sponsored Middle Eastern terrorists were not content to simply target Israel but would target the West as well, and particularly the United States" (see September 1995). He went on to ponder questions like, "What if radical Islamic terrorists pulled off a major attack inside the US, such as hijacking a plane and flying it into an American city?" "Wouldn't an American president have to declare a war on terror that would target both the terrorists themselves and the states that sponsored them?" and, "Wouldn't the president have to conclude that he could no longer in good conscience leave Saddam Hussein in power with the motive, means, and opportunity to equip anti-American terrorists with weapons of mass destruction?" This analysis led him to conceive the storyline for The Last Jihad. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. 41-42] Novel Features a 9/11-Style Attack Leading to a War with Iraq - The Last Jihad begins with radical Islamic terrorists attempting to crash a Gulfstream IV—a twin-jet aircraft, mainly for private or business use—packed with explosives into the presidential motorcade just outside Denver, Colorado. The Secret Service manages to bring the plane down with a Stinger missile, but the president is wounded. The CIA then traces the attack to Iraq. [Heritage Foundation, 12/2002; Washington Post, 12/23/2002; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. ix, 1-18] The book's final chapters are about the US launching a preemptive war against Iraq, to remove its leader, Saddam Hussein, from power. [World, 10/25/2003] Author Temporarily Stops Writing His Book after 9/11 - Rosenberg will stop working on The Last Jihad after September 11, due to the similarities between its storyline and the 9/11 attacks. "No one wanted to read a novel that opened with a kamikaze attack against an American city," he will comment. "It was no longer entertainment. It was too raw, too real." The novel "almost felt that it had been written with 9/11 in mind, even though it hadn't," he will say. However, Rosenberg will resume work on it early in 2002, after Americans have recovered from the initial shock of 9/11 and when President Bush is contemplating launching a preemptive war against Iraq. The novel will require just a small number of minor modifications. For example, Rosenberg will set it a few years in the future and acknowledge in it that the 9/11 attacks have taken place. [Daily Orange, 11/18/2002; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. x-xi] Novel Is an Instant Success - The Last Jihad will be published on November 23, 2002, and be an immediate success. It will spend 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and, by Christmas 2002, will have been reprinted nine times. In the first 60 days following its publication, Rosenberg will be interviewed on more than 160 radio and television talk shows. Interviewers will ask him questions like: "How could [you] possibly have written a book that seemed to foreshadow coming events so closely? Was it a fluke? Did [you] get lucky? Or was there something else going on?" [New York Times, 11/15/2003; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. xi-xii] Rosenberg will be called a "modern-day Nostradamus" by US News and World Report, due to his apparent ability to write books describing events in the Middle East before similar events actually play out. [Florida Times-Union, 12/20/2003; Topeka Capital-Journal, 9/6/2013] World magazine will note that on top of the similarities between the storyline of The Last Jihad and the 9/11 attacks, "Actual war [with Iraq] followed publication of the book"—which ends with the US going to war with Iraq—"by only a few months." [World, 10/25/2003]
Entity Tags: Joel Rosenberg
Dave Frasca, who will later play a key role in the FBI's failure to get a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings before 9/11 (see August 21, 2001 and August 29, 2001), is promoted to chief of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit at the bureau's International Terrorism Operations Section. Frasca had previously worked counterterrorism issues for the FBI's Miami office (see 1998). The Radical Fundamentalist Unit deals with Sunni Muslim terrorist suspects not directly linked to Osama bin Laden. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 123 ]
Entity Tags: David Frasca, Federal Bureau of Investigation, International Terrorism Operations Section, Radical Fundamentalist Unit
Timeline Tags: Misc Entries
Category Tags: Other Pre-9/11 Events, Zacarias Moussaoui
Condoleezza Rice and Philip Zelikow. [Source: Public domain]National Security Adviser Rice decides this day to retain Richard Clarke, counterterrorism "tsar" for the Clinton administration, and his staff. However, she downgrades his official position as National Coordinator for Counterterrorism. While he is still known as the counterterrorism "tsar," he has less power and now reports to deputy secretaries instead of attending Cabinet-level meetings. He no longer is able to send memos directly to the president, or easily interact with Cabinet-level officials. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 227-30; Guardian, 3/25/2004] Clarke will not be able to meet with President Bush even a single time before 9/11 to discuss al-Qaeda (see January 25, 2001-September 10, 2001). In 2004, Rice will reveal that the person she tasks with considering changes to Clarke and his staff is Philip Zelikow, the future Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. Zelikow recuses himself from those parts of the 9/11 Commission's investigation directly relating to his role in this and other matters. However, 9/11 victims' relatives are not satisfied. For instance, one relative says, "Zelikow has conflicts. I'm not sure that his recusal is sufficient. His fingerprints are all over that decision [to demote Clarke]." [United Press International, 4/9/2004]
Entity Tags: Philip Zelikow, Richard A. Clarke, Condoleezza Rice
Category Tags: 9/11 Commission, Role of Philip Zelikow, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Yemeni authorities receive photographs of operatives who attended al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit. The exact number of photographs they receive is not known, but they include three photos, of 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and a man who looks like one of their associates, Fahad al-Quso, that are later shown to the FBI (see June 11, 2001). It is unclear who provides the photos to the Yemenis, but the CIA has them and is interested in the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen (see October 12, 2000), so presumably they come from the CIA. The photos are highly relevant to the FBI, as they connect extremists known to be involved in the Cole attack to Almihdhar and Alhazmi, but even though the FBI is in charge of the Cole investigation, the CIA continues to withhold the information from the FBI for months (see January 5, 2001 and After, February 1, 2001, Late May, 2001 and August 30, 2001). The Yemenis' response to the photographs is unknown. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 293 ] The CIA is aware by June 2001 that Almihdhar is the son-in-law of Ahmed al-Hada, a Yemeni extremist who runs a communications hub for Osama bin Laden (see Late August 1998), but it is not known whether they obtain this information now or at some other time. [Wright, 2006, pp. 343]
Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Central Intelligence Agency, Fahad al-Quso, Khalid Almihdhar, Yemen
Nawaf Alhazmi (left) and Khallad bin Attash (right) are said to have been confused by an informer.
[Source: FBI]A CIA officer in Islamabad, Pakistan, known only as "Chris" shows a source known as "Omar," who provides information on al-Qaeda, photographs of future 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi taken at the al-Qaeda Malaysia summit (see January 5-8, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 537; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 268-271 ] Omar has previously identified a photo of al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash (see November 22-December 16, 2000) and Chris has been told that bin Attash and Almihdhar might be the same person (see Mid-Late December 2000). Omar says that the photo of Alhazmi, who the CIA apparently does not recognize at this time, actually shows bin Attash. As Omar cannot identify Almihdhar, but says he can identify bin Attash, this indicates Almihdhar and bin Attash are not the same person. The identification causes the CIA to believe that bin Attash attended al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit. Although this belief is based on a mistaken identification, it is actually correct, as bin Attash was present at the summit—the CIA has photos of bin Attash there, but fails to show them to Omar. This identification is important because bin Attash is a known bin Laden operative connected to the USS Cole attack and East African embassy bombings. The CIA also knows that Almihdhar and Alhazmi were at the summit, so this could connect them to the Cole attack. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 268-271 ] An FBI official named Michael Dorris is also at the meeting. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 272 ; Soufan, 2011] However, Dorris does not learn of the identification of bin Attash by "Omar." [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 270-274 ]
Entity Tags: Michael Dorris, Nawaf Alhazmi, Khallad bin Attash, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Islamabad Station, Khalid Almihdhar, "Chris", "Omar", Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Key Hijacker Events
Future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta makes a short trip to Spain and Germany. On January 4, 2001, he flies from Miami, Florida, to Madrid, Spain. He has allegedly been in the US since June 3, 2000, learning to fly in Florida with fellow 9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi. [Miami Herald, 9/22/2001] Spanish authorities will later say Atta meets Barakat Yarkas, head of a Spanish al-Qaeda cell, on the trip. After Yarkas is arrested in late 2001, an interview with him by a high court judge will indicate that "numerous lines to Sept. 11 principals passed through [him]." [Boston Globe, 8/4/2002] Atta also makes a brief visit to Hamburg, Germany, at this time. One college student acquiantance of his, an Egyptian named Nader el-Abd, will later recall seeing Atta at this time. "I asked him where he had been," el-Abd will say. "He said he was looking for somewhere to do his PhD." [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 133-134] Atta returns to the US on January 10 (see January 10, 2001). He will make a second trip to Spain in July of this year (see July 8-19, 2001).
Entity Tags: Nader el-Abd, Barakat Yarkas, Mohamed Atta
Category Tags: Mohamed Atta
After an informer later referred to as "Omar" tells the CIA that al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash was at al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit (see January 4, 2001), the CIA fails to communicate this information to the FBI, even though it is important for the FBI's investigation of the USS Cole bombing and connects future 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi to the Cole bombers. Omar is a joint FBI/CIA source, but the FBI assistant legal attaché responsible for him, Michael Dorris, will later say he does not know of this identification, and documentation he drafts at this time indicates he is unaware of it. It is unclear why Dorris is unaware of the identification, although he does not speak Omar's language and may have been out of the room making photocopies when Omar identified bin Attash in a photo of the Malaysia summit for his CIA counterpart. That officer, known only as "Chris," will later say he has no independent recollection of any particular meeting with Omar. Comparison with Previous Meeting - However, when Omar previously identified a photo of bin Attash provided by Yemeni authorities on December 16, 2000 (see November 22-December 16, 2000), Chris had him repeat the identification specifically for the benefit of Dorris, and the cable he drafted about the meeting said this clearly. In addition, Dorris will later say that he recalls the specific circumstances of the previous debriefing and would be able to recount them, including the identification of bin Attash in the photograph provided by the Yemenis. Three Cables Drafted - Chris drafts three cables about the January 4 meeting; one internal cable provides little detail about it, but says bin Attash was identified in one of the photos, a cable to the general US intelligence community fails to mention the identification of bin Attash, as does a third cable, which is sent to the CIA. CIA Later Makes False Claims - However, according to statements made by CIA officials after 9/11, at this time the CIA thinks that the FBI knows that bin Attash has been identified in the photos. For example, Director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center Cofer Black will tell the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, "[O]ur records establish that the special agents from the FBI's New York Field Office who were investigating the USS Cole attack reviewed the information about the Kuala Lumpur photo in late January 2001." However, there is no documentary record of information about the second identification placing bin Attash in Kuala Lumpur with the two hijackers being passed to the FBI at this time. In addition, in July 2001 CIA manager Tom Wilshire will suggest passing this information to the FBI (see July 13, 2001), possibly meaning he thinks it is not passed at this time. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 264-278 ] The CIA will not notify the FBI that Omar identified bin Attash in the photo until August 30, 2001, less than two weeks before 9/11 (see August 30, 2001).
Entity Tags: Michael Dorris, Nawaf Alhazmi, Khallad bin Attash, Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency, Cofer Black, "Chris", "Omar", CIA Islamabad Station, Federal Bureau of Investigation
After an informant identifies a photo of al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash for the CIA, indicating that he was at al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit (see January 4, 2001), the CIA fails to place him on the US watch list. The identification links bin Attash, who was involved in the attack on the USS Cole, to 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. The CIA has already been informed that Alhazmi entered the US in March 2000, yet once again they fail to watchlist either Alhazmi or Almihdhar. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will point out, "In January 2001, Khalid Almihdhar was abroad, his visa had expired, and he would
have to clear a watch list check before obtaining a new visa to re-enter the United States." [Los Angeles Times, 9/22/2002; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 148-150 ] CNN later notes that at this point the CIA, at the very least, "could have put Alhazmi and Almihdhar and all others who attended the [summit] in Malaysia on a watch list to be kept out of this country. It was not done." [CNN, 6/4/2002] One of bin Attash's aliases, Salah Saeed Muhammed bin Yousaf, will be placed on the US watch list on August 23, at the same time as Alhazmi and Almihdhar (see August 23, 2001), but US authorities apparently will not be aware that this is actually one of his aliases at that point. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 152 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 538; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 302 ]
Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency, Khallad bin Attash
Atta's immigration record for his arrival on January 10, 2001, after alteration in early May. [Source: 9/11 Commission]The Miami Herald will report: "INS documents, matched against an FBI alert given to German police, show two men named Mohamed Atta [arrive] in Miami on January 10, each offering different destination addresses to INS agents, one in Nokomis, near Venice, the other at a Coral Springs condo. He (they?) is admitted, despite having overstayed his previous visa by a month. The double entry could be a paperwork error, or confusion over a visa extension. It could be Atta arrived in Miami, flew to another country like the Bahamas, and returned the same day. Or it could be that two men somehow cleared immigration with the same name using the same passport number." [Miami Herald, 9/22/2001] Officials will later call this a bureaucratic snafu, and insist that only one Atta entered the US on this date. [Associated Press, 10/28/2001] In addition, while Atta arrives on a tourist visa, he tells immigration inspectors that he is taking flying lessons in the US, which requires an M-1 student visa. [Washington Post, 10/28/2001] The fact that he had overstayed his visa by over a month on a previous visit also does not cause a problem. [Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2001] The INS will later defend its decision, but "immigration experts outside the agency dispute the INS position vigorously." For instance, Stephen Yale-Loehr, co-author of a 20-volume treatise on immigration law, will assert: "They just don't want to tell you they blew it. They should just admit they made a mistake." [Washington Post, 10/28/2001]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mohamed Atta, Stephen Yale-Loehr
Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Hijacker Contact w Government in US
At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense-designate Donald Rumsfeld warns of the danger of a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor happening again. He testifies, "We all know that history is filled with instances where people were surprised. There were plenty of signals, plenty of warnings, plenty of cautions. But they weren't taken aboard. They didn't register. They weren't sufficient to cause a person to act on those." He continues, "We know that the thing that tends to register on people is fear, and we know that that tends to happen after there's a Pearl Harbor, tends to happen after there's a crisis. And that's too late for us. We've got to be smarter than that. We've got to be wiser than that. We have to be more forward-looking." As ABC News later comments, "eight months to the day after his warning of a surprise attack, Rumsfeld's fears became reality with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks." [CNN, 1/11/2001; Scarborough, 2004, pp. 165-166; ABC News, 3/25/2004] Rumsfeld will again refer to the danger of military surprises four months later, during meetings with the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (see May 23-24, 2001).
Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld
Future 9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi flies from the US to Casablanca, Morocco, and back, for reasons unknown. He is able to reenter the US without trouble, despite having overstayed his previous visa by about five weeks (see January 18, 2001). [Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2001; US Department of Justice, 5/20/2002] Mohamed Atta's cell phone is used on January 2 to call the Moroccan embassy in Washington, DC. Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Hamburg associate, is also in Morocco at the same time as Alshehhi, but there is no documentation of them meeting there. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17]
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Abdelghani Mzoudi, Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, HIjacker Visas and Immigration
Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta uses the name variant Mahmoud Elsayed to wire $1,500 to Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Germany. The money is wired from a Western Union office in Temple Terrace, near Tampa on Florida's Gulf Coast. The 9/11 Commission will comment, "There is no known explanation for this transaction, which seems especially odd because bin al-Shibh had access to [hijacker Marwan] Alshehhi's German account at the time." [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 143 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/3/2006 ]
Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, Possible 9/11 Hijacker Funding
Marwan Alshehhi. [Source: FBI]Future 9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi is able to reenter the US without trouble, after a brief, mysterious trip to Morocco (see January 11-18, 2001), despite having overstayed his previous visa by about five weeks. [Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2001; US Department of Justice, 5/20/2002]
Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hijacker Contact w Government in US
George W. Bush taking the oath of office. [Source: White House/ Wally McNamara]George W. Bush is inaugurated as president, replacing President Bill Clinton. Bush is sworn in after a tumultuous, sharply disputed election that ended with a US Supreme Court decision in his favor (see 9:54 p.m. December 12, 2000). He takes the oath of office on the same Bible his father, George H.W. Bush, used in his own 1989 inauguration; the oath is administered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. In his brief inaugural address, delivered outside the US Capitol, Bush asks Americans to "a commitment to principle with a concern for civility.… Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos." In words apparently chosen to reflect on the criticisms surrounding former President Clinton and his notorious affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Bush says, "I will live and lead by these principles—to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility, and try to live it as well." He continues addressing the American people, saying: "I ask you to be citizens. Citizens, not spectators. Citizens, not subjects. Responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character." At a post-ceremonial luncheon, Bush issues a series of executive orders, some designed to block or roll back several Clinton-era regulations. He also acknowledges that because of the election turmoil, many Americans believe "we can't get anything done… nothing will happen, except for finger-pointing and name-calling and bitterness." He then says: "I'm here to tell the country that things will get done. Republicans and Democrats will come together to do what's right for America." [New York Times, 1/21/2001] Thousands of Protesters - Thousands of protesters line the streets during Bush's ceremonial drive to the Capitol, a fact not heavily reported by many press outlets. Salon reports, "Not since Richard Nixon paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1973 has a presidential inauguration drawn so many protesters—and last time, people were out to protest the Vietnam War." Though Capitol Police refuse to estimate the size of the crowd lining the street, Salon reports that "many thousands of protesters were in evidence." Liz Butler of the Justice Action Movement, the umbrella organization that helped coordinate the protests, says: "The level of people on the streets shows that people are really upset about lack of democratic process. They took it to the streets. We saw tens of thousands. We saw far more protesting Bush than supporting him." Some of the people on the streets are Bush supporters, but many more are not, and carry signs such as "Bush Cheated," "Hail to the Thief," "Bush—Racism," "Bushwhacked by the Supremes," and others. The crowd, though outspoken in its protests and unrestrained in its heckling of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, is generally peaceful, and no serious violence is reported, though a few minor altercations do take place, and large contingents of police in riot gear—including personnel from every police department in the District of Columbia as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and from departments in Maryland and Virginia—are on hand. At least one protester throws an egg at the limousine transporting Bush, Cheney, and their families to the inaugural ceremonies; perhaps in response to the protests, Bush breaks with tradition laid down by earlier presidents and does not walk any large portion of the parade route. Nine people are arrested for disorderly conduct, most for allegedly throwing bottles and other debris. Bulter says: "Of course, we're ashamed that Bush has decided to be a 'uniter' by uniting people against him. They all chose to come out in the freezing rain—even the weather couldn't stop these people." Protester Mary Anne Cummings tells a reporter: "I think it's important to remind the incoming administration the country does not want a right-wing mandate. They did not vote for a right-wing mandate." [Salon, 1/20/2001; CNN, 1/20/2001; New York Times, 1/21/2001] Thousands of protesters march in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities as well. [CNN, 1/20/2001]
Entity Tags: William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, William Rehnquist, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salon (.com), Justice Action Movement, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, George W. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, Richard M. Nixon, Liz Butler, Mary Anne Cummings
Timeline Tags: Hurricane Katrina, 2000 Elections, Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network, Civil Liberties, Neoconservative Influence
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice later testifies to the 9/11 Commission that in the first eight months of Bush's presidency before 9/11, "the president receive[s] at these [Presidential Daily Briefings] more than 40 briefing items on al-Qaeda, and 13 of those [are] in response to questions he or his top advisers posed." [Washington Post, 4/8/2004] The content of the warnings in these briefings are unknown. However, CIA Director George Tenet claims that none of the warnings specifically indicates terrorists plan to fly hijacked commercial aircraft into buildings in the US. [New York Times, 4/4/2004] Counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke will later emphasize, "Tenet on 40 occasions in… morning meetings mentioned al-Qaeda to the president. Forty times, many of them in a very alarmed way, about a pending attack." [Vanity Fair, 11/2004] These briefings are normally given in person by CIA Director George Tenet, and are usually attended by Vice President Cheney and National Security Adviser Rice. In the Clinton administration, up to 25 officials recieved the PDB. But in the Bush adminisration before 9/11, this was sharply reduced to only six people (see After January 20, 2001). Other top officials have to make due with an Senior Executive Intelligence Brief generally released one day later, which is similar to the PDB but often contains less information (see August 7, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 256, 533]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Al-Qaeda, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, George J. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice
Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Bush's Aug. 6, 2001 PDB, Key Warnings, Presidential Level Warnings
In 2003, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta will later be asked by the 9/11 Commission, "Did this higher level of [terrorist] chatter [before 9/11]… result in any action across the government? I take it your answer is no." He will reply, "That's correct." [Associated Press, 5/23/2003]
Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Norman Mineta
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah takes a trip to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stays for three days at the Ramada Inn. The purpose of this trip is not known, although he will return again one month later (see February 25-March 4, 2001). It is unclear how he arrives in Jacksonville, as there is no record of him taking a flight there. However, he is known to have arrived in Newark from Tampa on January 16, and to have bought a ticket on January 15 for a flight from Newark to Tampa on January 22, the day he arrives in Jacksonville. He departs the US on January 26, flying from Jacksonville to Newark and then to Dusseldorf, Germany. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 120-121 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 5-6, 22 ] Marwan Alshehhi, and possibly Mohamed Atta, stopped in Jacksonville around October 2000 (see (October 2000)).
A CIA officer in Islamabad, Pakistan, asks Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit, to "touch base" with FBI agents investigating the bombing of the USS Cole who are preparing to come to Islamabad to interview a joint FBI/CIA source about the identification of one of the Cole bombers, but the suggested briefing is either never given or lacks a crucial detail. Alec Station is aware that the source, referred to later as "Omar," has identified al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash as being present at al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit (see January 4, 2001) and that the FBI agents are going to Islamabad specifically to document another identification of bin Attash by Omar (see November 22-December 16, 2000). The cable from the officer in Islamabad, known only as "Chris," even notes that Omar is "currently of very high interest to our [FBI] colleagues," but Alec Station fails to notify the Cole investigators that bin Attash attended the summit in Malaysia. This is important because it connects bin Attash to future 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who also attended the summit (see January 5-8, 2000). [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 275-8 ] Chris will meet the FBI agents in Pakistan, but will also fail to mention the identification of bin Attash at the Malaysia summit to them (see February 1, 2001).
Entity Tags: Khallad bin Attash, Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, "Omar", Central Intelligence Agency, "Chris", Alec Station, CIA Islamabad Station, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Following a series of bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines at the end of the previous year (see December 24-30, 2000), Southeast Asian authorities begin to investigate the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) with more urgency (see January 2001 and after). One of the prime suspects in the bombings is Hambali, a JI leader, and his name appears in the media. Initially, Hambali is thought to have fled to Saudi Arabia. [New Straits Times, 1/25/2001; New Straits Times, 1/27/2001; Jakarta Post, 2/7/2001; Jakarta Post, 2/9/2001] The Malaysian government finds more information out about him in the spring and puts out an all points bulletin for him (see April-May 2001). The FBI had previously connected Hambali to the Bojinka plot (see May 23, 1999) of Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Hambali attended the Malaysia summit in January 2000 at which al-Qaeda apparently planned various attacks, including 9/11. The summit was monitored by Malaysian intelligence, which recognized Hambali as an attendee (see Shortly After January 8, 2000) and a report on the summit was passed on to the CIA (see January 5-8, 2000). However, the publicity Hambali receives at this point apparently does not lead to a re-examination of the Malaysia summit.
Entity Tags: Jemaah Islamiyah, Hambali
Italian intelligence hears an interesting wiretapped conversation eerily similar to one from August 12, 2000 (see August 12, 2000). This conversation occurs between al-Qaeda operatives Mahmoud Es Sayed (see Summer 2000) and Ben Soltane Adel, two members of al-Qaeda's Milan cell. Adel asks, in reference to fake documents, "Will these work for the brothers who are going to the United States?" Sayed responds angrily, saying: "[D]on't ever say those words again, not even joking!… If it's necessary… whatever place we may be, come up and talk in my ear, because these are very important things. You must know… that this plan is very, very secret, as if you were protecting the security of the state." This will be one of many clues found from the Italian wiretaps and passed on to US intelligence in March 2001 (see March 2001). However, they apparently will not be properly understood until after 9/11. Adel will later be arrested and convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell, and Es Sayed will flee to Afghanistan in July 2001. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/2002; Guardian, 5/30/2002]
Entity Tags: Mahmoud Es Sayed, Ben Soltane Adel, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Warning Signs, Foreign Intelligence Warnings
Frank De Martini. [Source: New York Times]Frank De Martini, an architect who works as the World Trade Center's construction manager, is interviewed for a History Channel documentary about the WTC towers. He says, "I believe the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door, this intense grid, and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing the screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting." [Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 149] De Martini will be in his office on the 88th floor of the North Tower when it is hit on 9/11. He will die when the tower collapses, after helping more than 50 people escape. [Associated Press, 8/29/2003; New York Times, 8/29/2003]
Entity Tags: Frank De Martini, World Trade Center
Category Tags: WTC Investigation, 9/11 Investigations
Counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke submits a comprehensive plan to deal with al-Qaeda within days of President Bush's inauguration (see January 25, 2001). He wants to meet with Bush directly to discuss it with him, but he is unable to do so before 9/11. Clarke will later recall, "I asked for a meeting with the president several times beginning, in fact, before [National Security Adviser] Rice even took office in the transition briefing. I said I have given this briefing to the vice president, I've given it to the secretary of state, I've given it now to you, I would like to give it to the president. And what I was told was I could brief the president on terrorism after the policy development process had been completed." He does have one meeting with Bush before 9/11, but only to discuss cyber security because Clarke is planning to quit his current job to focus on that issue instead (see June 2001). When asked why he didn't bring up al-Qaeda at that meeting, Clarke will reply, "Because I had been told by Dr. Rice and her deputy that this was a briefing on countering the cyber threats and not on al-Qaeda and that I would have my opportunity on al-Qaeda if I just held on, eventually they would get to it, probably in September." [ABC News, 4/8/2004] The Bush administration had downgraded Clarke's position in early January 2001 and he was no longer able to send memos directly to the president as he could during the Clinton administration (see January 3, 2001).
Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice
Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Presidential Level Warnings
According to the FBI and 9/11 Commission, 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi move temporarily to Georgia on January 25, 2001, staying briefly in Norcross and Decatur, near Atlanta. The FBI will later say the hijackers remain in the Atlanta area during February and March. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 229] According to several news reports, between late February and early March, Atta and Alshehhi twice visit the Advanced Aviation Flight Training School in nearby Lawrenceville. They pay $171 in total and on both occasions rent a small Piper Warrior plane for an hour. They are accompanied by an instructor on the first occasion, but fly alone the second time. According to the school's owner Bruce Buell, the two are "well-dressed, polite and friendly." Two days after 9/11 Chrissy Ross, a flight dispatcher at the school, will recognize Atta's name when the identities of the suspected hijackers are made public. She calls the FBI, whose agents then come and take all the school's records. [CNN, 9/26/2001; Associated Press, 10/19/2001; Associated Press, 10/19/2001] However, the FBI claims Atta and Alshehhi visit Advanced Aviation about a month earlier than news reports suggest, on January 31 and February 6. [US Congress, 9/26/2002]
Entity Tags: Advanced Aviation Flight Training School, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training
Hijackers Hamza Alghamdi and Mohamed Alshehri rent a post office box in Delray Beach, Florida. The timing is uncertain. Some reports indicate this occurs in January, which would be several months before they arrive in the US according to the FBI and 9/11 Commission (see April 23-June 29, 2001). [Washington Post, 9/30/2001; US Congress, 9/26/2002; Minneapolis St. Paul City Pages, 6/30/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 528] However, a document used as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui will say the mailbox is actually rented on July 28, 2001. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 7 ]
Entity Tags: Hamza Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri
Future 9/11 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah is questioned at Dubai airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over suspected radical Islamist links in January of 2000 or 2001. Initial accounts will place the stop in 2001, after Jarrah has received flight training in the US. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002; Corbin, 2003] However, other accounts will place it a year earlier (see January 30, 2000 and January 30-31, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496; Vanity Fair, 11/2004; McDermott, 2005, pp. 186-7; Chicago Tribune, 9/28/2005] In the 2001 version, Jarrah has already started flight training and has a US visa, whereas in the 2000 version he merely tells UAE officials of his plans to get a US visa and receive flight training there. [Corbin, 2003; History Channel, 2004] There is evidence to suggest Jarrah is not in Dubai on January 30, 2001 (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). In addition, there is evidence to suggest Jarrah was in Afghanistan in January 2000 (see January 18, 2000). After 9/11, there will be a prolonged debate about the details of Jarrah's questioning in Dubai (see December 14, 2001-September 28, 2005).
Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, United Arab Emirates, Central Intelligence Agency
A. Q. Khan receiving a medal. [Source: Associated Press]The BBC later reports, "After the elections, [US intelligence] agencies [are] told to 'back off' investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that anger[s] agents." This follows previous orders to abandon an investigation of bin Laden relatives in 1996 (see February-September 11, 1996), and difficulties in investigating Saudi royalty. [BBC, 11/6/2001] An unnamed "top-level CIA operative" says there is a "major policy shift" at the National Security Agency at this time. Bin Laden could still be investigated, but agents could not look too closely at how he got his money. One specific CIA investigation hampered by this new policy is an investigation in Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and his Khan Laboratories. Khan is considered the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability. But since the funding for this nuclear program gets traced back to Saudi Arabia, restrictions are placed on the inquiry. [Palast, 2002, pp. 99-100] Also in early 2001, FBI agent Robert Wright, attempting to pursue an investigation into Saudi multimillionaire Yassin al-Qadi, is told by FBI superiors, "it's just better to let sleeping dogs lie"(see January-March 2001). Reporter Greg Palast notes that President Clinton was already hindering investigations by protecting Saudi interests. However, as he puts it, "Where Clinton said, 'Go slow,' Bush policymakers said, 'No go.' The difference is between closing one eye and closing them both." [Palast, 2002, pp. 102]
Entity Tags: Yassin al-Qadi, Osama bin Laden, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Abdul Qadeer Khan, Bin Laden Family, Central Intelligence Agency, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, National Security Agency
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network
Gary Hart (left) and Warren Rudman (right) testify before a Senate committee in 2002. [Source: Reuters / Win McNamee]The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH), is issued. The bipartisan panel was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Hart and Rudman personally brief National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell on their findings. The report has 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, but all of them are ignored by the Bush administration. Shelved by White House - According to Hart, Congress will begin to take the commission's suggestions seriously in March and April, and legislation is introduced to implement some of the recommendations. Then, "Frankly, the White House shut it down.… The president said, 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president'… and so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day." The White House will announce in May that it will have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years. Interestingly, both this commission and the Bush administration were already assuming a new cabinet level National Homeland Security Agency would be enacted eventually, even as the public remained unaware of the term and the concept. [Salon, 9/12/2001; Salon, 4/2/2004] Cannot Get Meeting with Bush - At the meeting with Rice, Rudman says he wants to see President Bush, and is planning to deliver a "blunt and very direct" warning to him that he needs to deal early in his presidency with the question of domestic terror threats. Rice initially agrees to pass on Rudman's request for a meeting with Bush, but nothing happens. Rudman will contact Rice's office several times, but still no meeting is arranged. Rudman will later say he is "disappointed" by this, adding, "There's no question in my mind that somebody at the White House dropped the ball on this." [Shenon, 2008, pp. 56-57] Ignored by 9/11 Commission - Hart will be incredulous that neither he nor any of the other members of this commission are ever asked to testify before the 9/11 Commission. [Salon, 4/6/2004] The 9/11 Commission will later make many of the same recommendations as this commission. However, it will barely mention the Hart/Rudman Commission in its final report, except to note that Congress appointed it and failed to follow through on implementing its recommendations. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 107, 479]
Entity Tags: US Congress, Newt Gingrich, Warren Rudman, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Gary Hart, Commission on National Security/21st Century, Bush administration (43), 9/11 Commission, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell
The BlackBerry 850. [Source: Research In Motion]White House staffers are prohibited from using BlackBerry e-mail pagers, but this rule will hinder them on September 11, when phone systems suffer serious problems but BlackBerrys work normally. At some point after George W. Bush takes over as president (see January 20, 2001) but before September 11, the new administration makes "a judgment call… that people in the White House could not use a BlackBerry," according to Joseph Hagin, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations. The BlackBerry is a handheld device used mainly for sending and receiving short e-mail messages. [New York Times, 9/20/2001; PC World, 12/9/2008] The decision against using BlackBerrys is reportedly made for security reasons. "The security agencies had decided they were too vulnerable," Hagin will later say. [IT Business Edge, 2/12/2009] White House Staffers Have Trouble Communicating on 9/11 - However, on September 11, while BlackBerrys continue to work normally, many people will have difficulty making phone calls. [New York Times, 9/20/2001] White House staffers will be badly affected by the communication problems. Hagin will describe: "On September 11, 2001, when we had so much trouble in the executive branch communicating during the emergency, when commercial phones and cell phones went down to a large extent because the system overloaded, there was a lot of difficulty at the White House because the president was in Florida, I was in New York City, and everyone else was in Washington. With everyone spread so thinly, we had trouble figuring out who was okay, the status of things, and so on." [Computerworld, 2/3/2009] Rove Is the Only White House Staff Member with a BlackBerry - Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, will be the only member of the White House staff with a BlackBerry on September 11. Rove will write that, while he is traveling with the president on Air Force One that day, because all the phones are tied up, several other White House staff members "took turns using my BlackBerry to queue up e-mails to their families that would be sent when we passed over a cell network." [Rove, 2010, pp. 257-258; Hill, 3/17/2010] BlackBerrys Permitted after 9/11 - The White House will reverse its decision to prohibit BlackBerrys after September 11. According to Hagin, "In the weeks that followed [9/11], when talking to some of our friends on [Capitol Hill], we found that they had stayed in pretty good touch through BlackBerry technology." Therefore, Hagin will say: "I made the decision that we couldn't operate without [BlackBerrys]. We bought 200, then 400, and finally about 600." [PC World, 12/9/2008; Computerworld, 2/3/2009] BlackBerry Works Well on 9/11 due to Simplicity of Its Network - The reason why, unlike phones, BlackBerrys work as usual on September 11, according to the New York Times, is that instead of relying on "cellular telephone systems or the local telephone network, which were damaged and inundated with traffic, the BlackBerry functions on a data system that held up remarkably well. The network not only escaped damage but also avoided bottlenecks because of its relative simplicity." The BlackBerry network "in a way resembles the on-ramp of a freeway. It transmits data in small packets of information that can simply wait for a small amount of space on the system to be freed up to be sent or received." [New York Times, 9/20/2001]
Entity Tags: White House, Karl C. Rove, Joseph W. Hagin
Category Tags: Other Pre-9/11 Events
At least six people with no connections to one another later claim they recognize 9/11 hijackers Satam Al Suqami and Salem Alhazmi living in San Antonio, Texas, until this month. The management of an apartment building says the two men abandoned their leases at about this time, and some apartment residents recognize them. However, all the witnesses say that Suqami was going by Alhazmi's name, and vice versa. [KENS 5 Eyewitness News (San Antonio), 10/1/2001] One pilot shop employee recognizes Alhazmi as a frequent visitor to the store and interested in a 757 or 767 handbook, though he also says Alhazmi used Suqami's name. [KENS 5 Eyewitness News (San Antonio), 10/3/2001] The apartment-leasing agent also recalls a Ziad Jarrah who once lived there in June 2001 and looked the same as the hijacker. [San Antonio Express-News, 9/22/2001; Associated Press, 9/22/2001] Local FBI confirm that a Salem Alhazmi attended the nearby Alpha Tango Flight School and lived in that apartment building, but they say he is a different Salem Alhazmi who is still alive and living in Saudi Arabia. [KENS 5 Eyewitness News (San Antonio), 10/4/2001] However, that "Salem Alhazmi" says he has never been to the US and has proven to the authorities that he did not leave Saudi Arabia in the two years prior to 9/11. [Washington Post, 9/20/2001] The FBI does not explain Satam Al Suqami's presence. Neither hijacker is supposed to have arrived in the US before April 2001.
Entity Tags: Salem Alhazmi, Satam Al Suqami, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ziad Jarrah
The location of the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. [Source: Space Imaging]Joseph Hagin, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations, runs a training exercise for a number of senior White House staffers in which the staffers are made aware of and shown to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the White House where numerous government officials will go on September 11 to respond to the terrorist attacks. Josh Bolten, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, will later recall that at some time before September 11, "the other deputy chief of staff [i.e. Hagin] had run an exercise for a bunch of us on the senior staff of what happens in a crisis." In the exercise, the senior staffers find out "who was supposed to go to the bunker [i.e. the PEOC]" in a crisis and they also visit the PEOC. Bolten will not say which staffers, other than him, take part in the exercise. [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] Exercise Possibly Held Shortly before 9/11 - He will also not say when the exercise is held, but presumably it takes place sometime after George W. Bush is inaugurated as president, near the end of January this year (see January 20, 2001). [BBC, 1/20/2001; CNN, 1/20/2001] It is possible it takes place just two weeks before 9/11: Mary Matalin, a counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, will write that "a couple [of] weeks [before September 11], I had visited this underground dungeon [i.e. the PEOC] for my top-level security clearance training." It is unclear, however, if she is referring to the exercise Bolten describes. [Carville and Matalin, 2014, pp. 140-141] PEOC Is a 'Nerve Center' on September 11 - It is apparently fortunate that Hagin runs the exercise for the senior White House staffers, since numerous government officials, including Bolten and Matalin, will go to the PEOC on September 11 to respond to the terrorist attacks. [CNN, 9/11/2002; Mother Jones, 5/24/2009] That day, the PEOC will be "the nerve center for America's response to the unprecedented attacks," according to the London Telegraph. [Daily Telegraph, 9/10/2011] As a result of the "pretty casual training" that Hagin conducts, Bolten will say, "I did know the bunker and knew where to go" on September 11. White House Staffers Were Often Unaware of the PEOC - It is also apparently quite unusual for White House staffers to know about the existence of the PEOC. Steve Ricchetti, who served as deputy White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, will tell Bolten that during the Clinton administration, "it had been in some cases months and years before people were briefed on the existence of [the PEOC]… because nobody ever thought the US itself would be under attack." The PEOC, Bolten will comment, "was kind of an artifact of the bygone Cold War era and of no particular use to a current White House." [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] Its use by government officials on September 11 will in fact be its "first test in an actual emergency," according to CNN. [CNN, 9/11/2002] "[N]o one alive remembers using it for its intended purpose," Matalin will write, "which only drew our attention to the fact… that [9/11] was a unique event in our nation's history." [Carville and Matalin, 2014, pp. 141]
Entity Tags: Joshua Bolten, Mary Matalin, Joseph W. Hagin, Steve Ricchetti
According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Almihdhar may take a flight from Syria to Iran and continue from there to a point near the Afghan border. The 9/11 Commission will mention this flight in a section dealing with possible co-operation between Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda on travel issues—Iran was allegedly allowing al-Qaeda operatives to pass through it on their way to and from Afghanistan without stamping their passports (see October 8-13, 2000, After October 12, 2000, and Mid-November, 2000)—but there are no direct links between this flight and Iranian operatives. The 9/11 Commission's statement that Almihdhar entered Iran at this time will be based on intelligence reports from the NSA, mostly drafted shortly after 9/11. The NSA has been intercepting Almihdhar's calls for some time, so it may have obtained this information from these intercepts (see and Late August 1998 and Early 2000-Summer 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 241, 529; Shenon, 2008, pp. 370-3] Almihdhar was at the Yemen hub earlier in February, which is closely monitored by US intelligence at the time, so the NSA would have had a good opportunity to track his movements from there (see February 2001).
Entity Tags: National Security Agency, Khalid Almihdhar
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Yemen Hub
Future 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar stays at al-Qaeda's communications hub in Yemen again. His father-in-law Ahmed al-Hada runs the hub in Sana'a, Yemen, where Almihdhar's wife and other family live. Almihdhar stayed at the hub for around a month in June 2000 (see (Mid-June-Mid-July 2000)) and then traveled around Asia until returning to it now. It is unclear how long he stays, except he goes to Afghanistan for an unknown amount of time and then is in the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia in June 2001. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 237] He may travel to Afghanistan via Iran later in February (see February 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 241, 529; Shenon, 2008, pp. 370-3] He will fly from Sana'a to Saudi Arabia on May 26, 2001, and probably stays at the hub again while in Sana'a (see (May 26, 2001)). The CIA and NSA have been closely monitoring the hub for years. Phone calls to and from it, including ones made by Almihdhar and other 9/11 hijackers, are intercepted, rooms in the building are bugged, and spy satellites record visitors (see Late August 1998, Late 1998-Early 2002, and Early 2000-Summer 2001). Based on information gained from monitoring this house, the CIA and local intelligence services mounted a major operation against Almihdhar, other 9/11 hijackers, and several more al-Qaeda operatives in December 1999 and January 2000, when they were followed around the Middle East and South Asia and monitored during an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia (see December 29, 1999, January 2-5, 2000, and January 5-8, 2000). So presumably US intelligence should be aware of this visit to the hub and who Almihdhar is, but what exactly is known and who may know it will not be made public.
Entity Tags: Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency, Ahmed al-Hada, National Security Agency
Category Tags: CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Yemen Hub
Amanda Keller. [Source: Unknown]A man, possibly Mohamed Atta, stays for a time at the apartment of a 21-year-old blonde-haired pizza restaurant manager named Amanda Keller. Keller lives in the Sandpiper Apartments in Venice, Florida, the same complex in which Atta reportedly shared a (presumably) separate apartment with Marwan Alshehhi and four others months earlier (see (Mid-July 2000 - Early January 2001)). Stephanie Frederickson, a resident at the Sandpiper Apartments, later remembers Keller and Atta. She claims Keller moved in next door to her. She goes on to say, "Then one day in the middle of March she brought home Atta." Her recollection of Atta mirrors that of others. She will call him "a really nasty guy," and say that he "had no patience, and seemed mad at the world." Charles Grapentine, the manager of the Sandpiper Apartments, later recalls seeing Atta at the complex for about three weeks in April, and confirms that he was living with Keller. Keller's mother, Susan Payne, also meets Atta and later says, "I didn't like him; he just seemed strange." As well as his stay at the Sandpiper Apartments, the man, possibly Atta, briefly rents a home in North Port. Its owners, Tony and Vonnie LaConca, know him only as "Mohamed." They will be questioned in the days after 9/11 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and describe him as 25 years old, "very polite," "very handsome," and with "beautiful, unblemished skin." From talking with "Mohamed" and Keller, the couple learns he is training for a commercial pilot's license at Huffman Aviation, the Venice flight school attended by Atta in 2000 (see July 6-December 19, 2000). The Sarasota Herald-Tribune will claim that Keller's companion is not Mohamed Atta, but another man of Middle Eastern descent who also took flying lessons in Venice. But authorities will refuse to reveal the full name of this "unidentified fifth man," and investigators are reportedly unable to find him. [Charlotte Sun, 9/14/2001; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/23/2001; Hopsicker, 2004, pp. 57, 60-65 and 76] According to official accounts, plus the testimony of Huffman Aviation's owner Rudi Dekkers, Atta left the Venice flight school around the end of 2000, months before "Mohamed" stays in the apartment of Keller. [US Congress, 3/19/2002; US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 17 ] Investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker later locates and interviews Amanda Keller, and she claims that the Middle Eastern man who was briefly her boyfriend was indeed Mohamed Atta (see March 2004). However, in 2006 she will retract this claim and say she lied to Hopsicker. She will say, "It was my bad for lying. I really didn't think about it until after I did it." [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2006] Keller, Charles Grapentine, and Stephanie Frederickson will all later allege that the FBI intimidated them after 9/11, and told them to keep quiet about what they knew (see (September 12, 2001-2002)).
Entity Tags: Stephanie Frederickson, Tony LaConca, Vonnie LaConca, Susan Payne, Daniel Hopsicker, Mohamed Atta, Amanda Keller, Charles Grapentine
Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Mohamed Atta
A trial is held in New York City for four defendants charged with involvement in the 1998 US African embassy bombings. All are ultimately convicted. Testimony reveals that two bin Laden operatives had received pilot training in Texas and Oklahoma and another had been asked to take lessons. One bin Laden aide becomes a government witness and gives the FBI detailed information about a pilot training scheme. This new information does not lead to any new FBI investigations into the matter. [Washington Post, 9/23/2001]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Maj. Gen. Rod Isler.
[Source: US Defense Department]The new Director of Operations for the DIA, General Ron Isler, has Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer brief him on a series of operations. According to Shaffer, Isler strongly objects to Shaffer assisting Able Danger. "I said, 'Well, sir, with all due respect, this is an important operation focused on the global al-Qaeda target,' and he said, 'You're not hearing me, Tony. This is not your job.'" After further disagreement, Shaffer recalls the argument ending, "'Tony, I'm the two star here. I'm the two star. I'm telling you I don't want you doing anything with Able Danger.' 'Sir, if not us then who?' 'I don't know, but it's not your job.' And that effectively ended my direct support and my unit's [Stratus Ivy] support to Able Danger." Recalling how this helped end Able Danger, Shaffer says, "I remember the last conversation I had with Captain Scott Phillpott on this was a desperate call from him asking me to try to help use one of my operational facilities to at least try to exploit the information [Able Danger had collected] before it got lost." However, Isler says he cannot recall any discussion with Shaffer about Able Danger. [Government Security News, 9/2005]
Entity Tags: Anthony Shaffer, Able Danger, Scott Phillpott, Ron Isler
Key Events
Day of 9/11
The Alleged 9/11 Hijackers
Alhazmi and Almihdhar: Specific Cases
Projects and Programs
Before 9/11
Warning Signs: Specific Cases
The Post-9/11 World
Investigations: Specific Cases
Other Al-Qaeda-Linked Figures
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