The September 11 attacks were carried out by 19 hijackers affiliated with al-Qaeda. The hijackers were organized into four teams, each led by a pilot-trained hijacker with four "muscle hijackers", who were trained to help subdue the pilots, passengers, and crew.
The first hijackers to arrive in the United States were Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who settled in the San Diego area in January 2000. They were followed by three hijacker-pilots, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah early in the summer of 2000 to undertake flight training in south Florida. The fourth hijacker-pilot, Hani Hanjour, arrived in San Diego in December 2000. The rest of the "muscle hijackers" arrived in the spring and early summer of 2001.
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The 2001 attacks were preceded by the less well known Bojinka plot which was planned in the Philippines by Ramzi Yousef (of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Its objective was to blow up twelve airliners[1] and their approximately 4,000 passengers as they flew from Asia to the United States. The plan included crashing a plane into the CIA headquarters, leading credence that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed evolved this plot into the September 11 attacks[2] The plot was disrupted in January 1995 after a chemical fire drew the Filipino police and investigation authorities' attention, resulting in the arrest of one terrorist and seizure of a laptop containing the plans. One person was killed in the course of the plot — a Japanese passenger seated near a nitroglycerin bomb on Philippine Airlines Flight 434.[3] The money handed down to the plotters originated from Al-Qaeda, the international Islamic jihadi organization then based in Sudan.
Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were both experienced and respected jihadists in the eyes of al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. Mihdhar and Hazmi both had prior experience fighting in Bosnia, and had trained during the 1990s at camps in Afghanistan.[4] When Bin Laden committed to the September 11 attacks plot idea, he assigned both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the plot.[5] Both were so eager to participate in operations within the United States, that they obtained visas in April 1999.[6] Once selected, Mihdhar and Hazmi were sent to the Mes Aynak training camp in Afghanistan. In late 1999, Hazmi, Attash, and Yemeni went to Karachi, Pakistan to see Mohammed, who instructed them on Western culture and travel; however, Mihdhar did not go to Karachi, instead returning to Yemen.[5]
Mihdhar and Hazmi were also potential pilot hijackers, but did not do well in their initial pilot lessons in San Diego. Both were kept on as "muscle" hijackers, who would help overpower the passengers and crew, and allow the pilot hijackers to take control of the flights. In addition to Mihdhar and Hazmi, thirteen other muscle hijackers were selected in late 2000 or early 2001. All were from Saudi Arabia, with the exception of Fayez Banihammad, who was from the United Arab Emirates.
Hijackers: Mohamed Atta (Egyptian), Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian), Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian).[7]
Two flight attendants called the American Airlines reservation desk during the hijacking. Betty Ong reported that "the four hijackers had come from first-class seats: 2A, 2B, 9A, and 9B."[8] Flight attendant Amy Sweeney called a flight services manager at Logan Airport in Boston and described them as Middle Eastern.[8] She gave the staff the seat numbers and they pulled up the ticket and credit card information of the hijackers, identifying Mohamed Atta.[9]
Mohamed Atta was heard speaking over the air traffic control system, broadcasting messages he intended for the passengers.[10]
| “ | We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport.
Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves. |
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Hijackers: Marwan al-Shehhi (United Arab Emirati), Fayez Banihammad (United Arab Emirati), Mohand al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Hamza al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian).[7]
A United Airlines mechanic was called by a flight attendant who stated the crew had been murdered and the plane hijacked.[11]
Hijackers: Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian), Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian), Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian), Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian), Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian).[7]
Two hijackers, Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed were identified by clerks as having bought single, first-class tickets for Flight 77 from Advance Travel Service in Totowa, New Jersey with $1,842.25 in cash.[8] Renee May, a flight attendant on Flight 77, used a cell phone to call her mother in Las Vegas. She said her flight was being hijacked by six individuals who had moved them to the rear of the plane. Unlike the other flights, there was no report of stabbings or bomb threats. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, it is possible that pilots were not killed and were sent to the rear of the plane.[12] Passenger Barbara Olson called her husband, Theodore Olson, the Solicitor General of the United States, stating the flight had been hijacked and the hijackers had knives and box cutters.[13] Two of the passengers had been on the FBI's terrorist-alert list: Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
Hijackers: Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese), Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi Arabian), Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian).[7]
Passenger Jeremy Glick stated that the hijackers were Arabic-looking, wearing red headbands, and carrying knives.[15][16]
Hijacker Ziad Jarrah also mistakenly broadcast messages intended for passengers over the air traffic control system:
| “ | Ladies and gentlemen. This is the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board. So sit.
[...] Uh, this is the captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb aboard and are going back to the airport, and to have our demands met. Please remain quiet.[17] |
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Jarrah is also heard on the cockpit voice recorder.[18] In addition, DNA samples submitted by his girlfriend were matched to remains recovered in Shanksville.[19]
| "we've got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clearly are bad. One of them, at least, has a multiple-entry visa to the U.S. We've got to tell the FBI." . . . And then [the CIA official] said to me, "No, it's not the FBI's case, not the FBI's jurisdiction." - Mark Rossini, PBS Frontline interview[20] |
Before the attacks, FBI agent Robert Wright, Jr. had written vigorous criticisms of FBI's alleged incompetence in investigating terrorists residing within the United States. Wright was part of the Bureau's Chicago counter-terrorism task force and involved in project Vulgar Betrayal which was linked to Yasin al-Qadi.[21]
According to James Bamford, the NSA had picked up communications of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi back in 1999, but had been hampered by internal bureaucratic conflicts between itself and the CIA, and did not do a full analysis of the information it passed on to the agency. For example; it only passed the first names on, Nawaf and Khalid.[22]
Bamford also claims that the CIA's Alec Station (a unit assigned to bin Laden) knew that al-Mihdhar was planning to come to New York as far back as January 2000. Doug Miller, one of 3 FBI agents working inside the CIA station, tried to send a message (a CIR) to the FBI to alert them about this, so they could put al-Mihdhar on a watch list. His CIA boss, Tom Wilshire, deputy station chief, allegedly denied permission to Miller. Miller asked his associate Mark Rossini for advice; Rossini pressed Wilshire's deputy but was again rebuffed.[23][24]
Bamford also claims that al-Mihdhar and Hazmi wound up living with Abdussattar Shaikh for a time to save money. Shaikh was, coincidentally, an FBI informant, but since they never acted suspiciously around him, he never reported them. The CIA Bangkok station told Alec Station that Hazmi had gone to Los Angeles. None of this information made it back to the FBI headquarters.[25]
Within minutes of the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened the largest FBI investigation in United States history, operation PENTTBOM. The suspects were identified within 72 hours because few made any attempt to disguise their names on flight and credit card records. They were also among the few non-U.S. citizens and nearly the only passengers with Arabic names on their flights, enabling the FBI to identify them and in many cases such details as dates of birth, known or possible residences, visa status, and specific identification of the suspected pilots.[26] On September 27, 2001 the FBI released photos of the 19 hijackers, along with information about many of their possible nationalities and aliases.[27] All the suspected hijackers were from Saudi Arabia (fifteen hijackers), United Arab Emirates (two hijackers), Lebanon (one hijacker) and Egypt (one hijacker).
The passport of Satam al-Suqami was reportedly recovered "a few blocks from where the World Trade Center's twin towers once stood";[28][29] a passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the towers collapsed. The passports of two other hijackers, Ziad Jarrah and Saeed al-Ghamdi, were recovered from the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and a fourth passport, that of Abdulaziz al-Omari was recovered from luggage that did not make it onto American Airlines Flight 11.[30]
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, 26 al-Qaeda terrorist conspirators sought to enter the United States to carry out a suicide mission. In the end, the FBI reported that there were 19 hijackers in all: five on three of the flights, and four on the fourth. On September 14, three days after the attacks, the FBI announced the names of 19 persons.[26] After a controversy about an earlier remark, U.S. Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano stated in May 2009 that the 9/11 Commission found that none of the hijackers entered the United States through Canada.[31]
Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, attended the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia in early April 2001 where radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki preached. Through interviews with the FBI, it was discovered that Awlaki had previously met Nawaf al-Hazmi several times while the two lived in San Diego. At the time, Hazmi was living with Khalid al-Mihdhar, another 9/11 hijacker.[32]
Shortly after the attacks and before the FBI had released the pictures of all the hijackers, several reports appeared claiming that some of the men named as hijackers on 9/11 were alive, and were feared to have been victims of identity theft.[33][34][35] However, these cases turned out to be instances of mistaken identity.[36][37]
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