Complete 911 Timeline

The French intelligence agency, the DGSE, publishes a 13-page classified report entitled “The Networks of Osama bin Laden.” According to a 2007 article, the report describes the “context, the anecdotal details, and all the strategic aspects relative to al-Qaeda” in “black and white” terms. It mentions a payment of $4.5 million from the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) to in Laden. The US will not go after the IIRO even years after 9/11 because of the organization’s close ties to the Saudi government (see October 12, 2001 and August 3, 2006). The report also doubts Osama bin Laden’s purported estrangement from the bin Laden family: “It seems more and more likely that bin Laden has maintained contacts with certain members of his family, although the family, which directs one of the largest groups of public works in the world, has officially renounced him. One of his brothers apparently plays a role as intermediary in its professional contacts or the monitoring of its business.” French officials will later claim they regularly passed on their intelligence on al-Qaeda to the CIA. [Le Monde (Paris), 4/15/2007]

Entity Tags: Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Osama bin Laden, International Islamic Relief Organization

Category Tags: Saudi Arabia, Terrorism Financing, Bin Laden Family

Terry Turchie. [Source: FBI]Freeh’s FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Terry Turchie, testifying before a classified meeting of a House of Representatives committee, says, “FBI investigation and analysis indicates that the threat of terrorism in the United States is low.” Summarizing the terrorist threat, he fails to mention al-Qaeda or Islamic militants of any kind, and instead considers the “serious terrorist threat” to be coming from “animal-rights and environmental extremists” and “right-wing groups.” In December 2000, the FBI will tell Congress that the threat of terrorists targeting US aviation is low (see December 2000). In contradiction to this, Louis Freeh, FBI Director from 1993 to early 2001, will testify after 9/11 that “Before the end of 1999, the FBI and the intelligence community clearly understood the foreign-based al-Qaeda threat regarding targets within the United States. Congress and the Executive were fully briefed as to this threat analysis…” [US Congress, 7/26/2000; US Congress, 10/8/2002]

Entity Tags: US Congress, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Terry Turchie, Al-Qaeda

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11

Aquilino Pimentel. [Source: Publicity photo from Aquilino Pimentel website.]Senator Aquilino Pimentel, president of the Philippines Senate, accuses the Philippine government of collusion with the Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf. He cites research that names two high police officers, Leandro Mendoza and Rodolfo Mendoza, as handlers for Abu Sayyaf informants. He also names Brig. Gen. Guillermo Ruiz, commanding general of the Filipino Marines in the early 1990s, as someone who colluded with the group, even splitting profits from illegal logging with them. Pimentel says, “My information is that the Abu Sayyaf partisans were given military intelligence services IDs, safe-houses, safe-conduct passes, firearms, cell phones and various sorts of financial support.” He accuses officials of manipulating the Abu Sayyaf “in the game of divide and rule as far as the Muslim insurgency is concerned.” He also accuses the CIA of helping to create the Abu Sayyaf, saying, “For what the Abu Sayyaf has become, the CIA must merit our people’s condemnation. The CIA has sired a monster that has caused a lot problems for the country…” He says Abu Sayyaf’s handlers “passed on military equipment and funds from the CIA and its support network…” He claims witnesses have come to him with evidence but are afraid of speaking out publicly. He concludes that “any Filipino who had a hand in the creation, training and equipping of the Abu Sayyaf should be held to account for high treason and other crimes.” [Senator Aquilino Q. Pimentel website, 7/31/2000]

Entity Tags: Guillermo Ruiz, Abu Sayyaf, Aquilino Pimentel, Central Intelligence Agency, Rodolfo Mendoza, Leandro Mendoza, Philippines

Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks

Category Tags: Philippine Militant Collusion, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia

Frances Townsend. [Source: White House]Vulgar Betrayal, the most significant US government investigation into terrorist financing before 9/11, shuts down. FBI agent Robert Wright launched the investigation in 1996 (see 1996) and was removed from the investigation in late 1999 (see August 3, 1999). Apparently the investigation accomplished little after Wright’s departure. [LA Weekly, 8/25/2004; Judicial Watch, 12/15/2004; Robert G. Wright, Jr., v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 5/16/2005] A March 2000 affidavit named Yassin al-Qadi as a source of terrorist funds in Chicago, but no charges are brought against him. [ABC News, 12/19/2002] Mark Flessner, an assistant US attorney assigned to Vulgar Betrayal in 1996, later will recall, “Vulgar Betrayal was a case where the FBI’s intelligence agents would not cooperate with the criminal agents trying to put these guys in jail. They refused to let us arrest them. They only wanted to watch them conduct their business.” He will also claim that Frances Townsend, a Justice Department official working a variety of posts, helps close down the investigation. He will say Townsend did not share information but “deliberately obstructed it. And I found that very disconcerting.” He will claim that she completely supports FBI intelligence agents and refuses to share their information with the Vulgar Betrayal investigation. A federal grand jury was impaneled in 1996 to support Vulgar Betrayal, but without the information from FBI intelligence, Flessner did not have enough evidence to return indictments. “I couldn’t even get permission to do the basic things you do, such as collecting phone numbers from their targets’ incoming and outgoing calls, and addresses from their mail.” With the shut down of the investigation in 2000, Flessner will resign from the Justice Department in frustration. After 9/11, Townsend will be appointed President Bush’s Homeland Security Adviser and counterterrorism director for the National Security Council. [LA Weekly, 8/25/2004]

Entity Tags: Mark Flessner, Frances Townsend, Vulgar Betrayal, Federal Bureau of Investigation, International Terrorism Unit, US Department of Justice

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Robert Wright and Vulgar Betrayal, Terrorism Financing

After a successful test, the FAA makes an enhancement to the Global Positioning System (GPS) called Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) available to some aviation users. WAAS improves the accuracy of GPS data by correcting some known measuring errors. “The system demonstrated one to two meters horizontal accuracy and two to three meters vertical accuracy throughout the contiguous United States,” says the FAA. The system will be operated by Raytheon. [Federal Aviation Administration, 8/24/2000] The deployment of WAAS is only one of many technological advances that could lead to pilotless aircraft navigation, including takeoff and landing. Tests have shown that landing by autopilot is possible (see also August 25, 2001). [Spinoff, 1998; Federal Aviation Administration, 8/13/1999; Rockwell Collins, 10/5/1999] WAAS also has non-aviation uses. It will be used during the rescue effort at Ground Zero. “[A]t the World Trade Center, rescue teams used WAAS to survey the site during the recovery program,” according to Avionics Magazine. [Avionics Magazine, 2/1/2002] After 9/11 there will be some speculation that the hijackers used GPS to navigate to their targets (see (September 12-17, 2001)). Some press reports will claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta was at the WTC the day before the attacks to gather GPS data (see September 10, 2001).

Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Raytheon

Category Tags: Other Pre-9/11 Events

The US intelligence community has been monitoring al-Qaeda telephone communications to and from a communications hub in Yemen since the late 1990s (see Late August 1998). The CIA intercepts an al-Qaeda operative say in a monitored phone call that bin Laden is planning a “Hiroshima-type event” against the US. Failed millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam, who is arrested in late 1999 (see December 14, 1999), confirms at the time that al-Qaeda is preparing such an attack. [New York Times, 10/14/2001; PBS, 10/3/2002] This sets off an immediate but unsuccessful search for further evidence. Shortly after 9/11, the New York Times will report that “intelligence officials now acknowledge that they never imagined that Mr. bin Laden’s organization had the ability to kill thousands of people in coordinated attacks on the American homeland. Looking back through the prism of Sept. 11, officials now say that the intercepted message was a telling sign of a drastic shift in the ambitions and global reach of al-Qaeda during the last three years.” [New York Times, 10/14/2001] There apparently is another intercepted message talking about a “Hiroshima” event in the summer of 2001 (see Summer 2001).

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Ahmed Ressam, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Warning Signs, Millennium Bomb Plots, 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Yemen Hub

In August 2000, Nabil al-Marabh moves to Detroit, Michigan, to enroll in a truck driving course in nearby Dearborn. [Knight Ridder, 5/23/2003] According to an informant who will claim that al-Marabh confided to him in 2002, al-Marabh is taking instructions from a mystery figure in Chicago known only as “al Mosul”, which means “boss” or “person in charge” in Arabic. Al Mosul asks al-Marabh to attend the driving school to get a commercial truck driver’s license. Also according to this informant, al-Marabh and Raed Hijazi have plans to steal a fuel truck from a rest stop in New York or New Jersey and detonate it in the heavily traveled Lincoln or Holland tunnels leading into New York City, but the plan is foiled when Hijazi is arrested in October 2000 (see October 2000) for an attempted bombing in Jordan (see November 30, 1999). [Knight Ridder, 5/23/2003] Al-Marabh may have moved to Detroit to avoid government scrutiny in Boston after stabbing a roommate in May 2000 (see May 30, 2000-March 2001). His wife and son apparently continue to live at his long-time Boston address until September 2000 and then move to elsewhere in the city without leaving a forwarding address. [New York Times, 9/18/2001; Boston Herald, 9/19/2001; New York Times, 9/21/2001] Al-Marabh continues to live in Detroit until January 2001. The Washington Post will note that al-Marabh “appears to [move] every few months or continually [change] his residence on official documents � at one point listing an address in Dearborn, Michigan, that is a truck stop.” [Washington Post, 9/21/2001; Knight Ridder, 5/23/2003] He repeatedly claims to Michigan state officials that he lost his license, and secures temporary driver’s licenses without photographs. [Washington Post, 9/21/2001] He receives five driver’s licenses in Michigan over a period of 13 months in addition to carrying driver’s licenses from Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, and Ontario, Canada. [Toronto Star, 10/26/2001] He moves to Toronto, Canada in January 2001 (see January 2001-Summer 2001), but will return to Detroit in August 2001 and will still be getting duplicate Michigan licenses and looking for a tractor-trailer driving job in the week after 9/11. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/2001; ABC News 7 (Chicago), 1/31/2002]

Entity Tags: Nabil al-Marabh, Al Mosul

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Nabil Al-Marabh

The bombing of the Jakarta residence of Philippine ambassador Leonides Caday. [Source: CNN]The Jakarta residence of Leonides Caday, the Philippine ambassador to Indonesia, is bombed. Caday is seriously injured and two people are killed. The bombing is later blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), al-Qaeda’s main affiliate in Southeast Asia. In 2003, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, on trial for the 2002 Bali bombings (see October 12, 2002), will admit that he bought the bomb-making materials and built the bomb that targeted Caday. He will also admit to buying materials for the Christmas Eve bombings later in 2000 and the 2002 Bali bombings. [Associated Press, 6/12/2003] Also in 2003, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, an Indonesian imprisoned in the Philippines and linked to both al-Qaeda and JI, will admit to taking part in the attack on Caday as well. He will further say that the attack was ordered by Hambali, a key leader of both al-Qaeda and JI, and that Hambali ordered it in retaliation for the Philippine government attacking Camp Abubakar in the Southern Philippines earlier in the year. The camp is run by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a Philippine militant group, but is allegedly used by other groups, including JI. [Associated Press, 6/10/2003] This is possibly the first violent attack attributed to JI, even though the group has been in existence since about 1992 (see 1992).

Entity Tags: Leonides Caday, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, Jemaah Islamiyah, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Hambali

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks

A former member of the militant group Abu Sayyaf claims that the group is still being funded by a Saudi charity tied to bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. The Philippine branch of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) was founded in 1991 by Khalifa. This former member, who uses the alias “Abu Anzar,” says the IIRO continues to fund the Abu Sayyaf after Khalifa’s arrest in the US in late 1994 (see December 16, 1994-May 1995). Anzar says, “Only 10 to 30 percent of the foreign funding goes to the legitimate relief and livelihood projects and the rest go to terrorist operations.” Anzar is said to be recruited by Edwin Angeles and his right hand man; since Angeles has been revealed as a deep undercover operative (see 1991-Early February 1995), it is speculated Anzar may have been working undercover too. [Philippine Daily Inquirer, 8/9/2000] A 1994 Philippine intelligence report listed a Gemma Cruz as the treasurer and board member of the IIRO. In 1998, Gemma Cruz-Araneta became the tourism secretary in the cabinet of new president Joseph Estrada. Anzar claims that in 1993 and 1994 he toured IIRO projects with Khalifa and Cruz-Araneta and identifies her as the same person who is now tourism secretary. Cruz-Araneta denies all the charges as a case of mistaken identity and retains her position in the cabinet. [Philippine Daily Inquirer, 8/11/2000; Philippine Daily Inquirer, 8/12/2000] In 2006, the US government will officially list the Philippine IIRO branch as a terrorism financier and state that it is still being run by one of Khalifa’s associates (see August 3, 2006).

Entity Tags: Gemma Cruz-Araneta, Abu Sayyaf, Abu Anzar, Edwin Angeles, Joseph Estrada, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa

Category Tags: Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Philippine Militant Collusion, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism Financing, Bin Laden Family, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia

Italian intelligence successfully wiretaps an al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy, starting in late 1999. [Boston Globe, 8/4/2002] In a wiretapped conversation from this day, Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman, a section chief in Yemen’s Political Security Organization (PSO - roughly the equivalent to the FBI in the US) traveling on a diplomatic passport (see Spring-Summer 1998), talks about a massive strike against the enemies of Islam involving aircraft and the sky. The conversation takes place in a car on the way to a terrorist summit near Bologna (see August 12, 2000 and Shortly After), and the person Abdulrahman talks to is Mahmoud Es Sayed, a close associate of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri (see Before Spring 2000). There are several significant aspects to the conversation:
Abdulrahman makes comments indicating he has foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. He says that he is “studying airlines,” comments, “Our focus is only on the air,” and tells Es Sayed to remember the words “above the head.” He also says that next time they meet he hopes to bring Es Sayed “a window or piece of the airplane,” and that the security on Alitalia and at Rome airport is poor. The name of the operation is given as “Jihadia,” and Abdulrahman says, “the big blow will come from the other country: one of those blows no one can ever forget.” He adds: “[It is] moving from south to north, from east to west: whoever created this plan is crazy, but he’s also a genius. It will leave them speechless.” He also says: “We can fight any power using candles and airplanes: they will not be able to stop us with even their most powerful weapons. We must hit them. And keep your head up.… Remember, the danger in the airports.… If it happens the newspapers from all over the world will write about it.”
Es Sayed remarks, “I know brothers who went to America with the trick of the wedding publications.” The phrase “Big wedding” is sometimes used by al-Qaeda as code for a bombing or attack, including 9/11 (see November 30, 1999 and Late Summer 2001), so, taken together with Abdulrahman’s remarks, this indicates an unconventional attack in the US using aircraft;
The two discuss training camps in Yemen, which are “proceeding on a world scale.” They also mention youth in Italy, and presumably the youth are training;
Es Sayed says, “my dream is building an Islamic state,” and Abdulrahman replies that this is possible because the Yemeni government is weak and “sooner or later we will dominate it;”
Es Sayed asks after a person named Ayman, evidently al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri;
Abdulrahman twice mentions the name of Abdul Mejid, apparently a reference to Abdul Mejid al-Zindani, a radical leader in Yemen and associate of Osama bin Laden (see January-August 1998);
Es Sayed makes the cryptic comment, “One must be cautious, like in Iran; not a single photo.”
Beginning in October 2000, FBI experts will help Italian police analyze the intercepts and warnings. Related conversations are overheard early the next year (see January 24, 2001 and February 2001). Neither Italy nor the FBI will fully understand their meaning until after 9/11, but apparently the Italians will understand enough to give the US an attack warning in March 2001 (see March 2001). After 9/11, this conversation and others like it will cause US intelligence to think there may be a link between the 9/11 plot and Yemen’s PSO. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/2002; Guardian, 5/30/2002; Washington Post, 5/31/2002; Wall Street Journal, 12/20/2002; Vidino, 2006, pp. 224-5] Author Lorenzo Vidino will later comment: “The chilling conversation alarmed officials before 9/11, but it took on a completely different resonance after the attacks had taken place. [Abdulrahman], who had close connections to the highest ranks of al-Qaeda, likely knew about the plan in advance and had told Es Sayed about it.” [Vidino, 2006, pp. 226]

Entity Tags: Mahmoud Es Sayed, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Al-Qaeda, Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Warning Signs, Foreign Intelligence Warnings, Al-Qaeda in Italy

Italian counterterrorist authorities monitor a summit of leading terrorist operatives near Bologna. Attendees at the meeting, which is arranged through an extremist mosque in Milan called the Islamic Cultural Institute, include:
Mahmoud Es Sayed, a close associate of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri (see Before Spring 2000);
Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman, a section chief with Yemen’s Political Security Organization (PSO—roughly equivalent to the FBI). Es Sayed and Abdulrahman are overheard discussing an attack using aircraft on their way to the summit, indicating they have foreknowledge of 9/11 (see August 12, 2000);
Ayub Usama Saddiq Ali, another close associate of al-Zawahiri’s; and
Mohammed Fazazi, the spiritual leader of the Moroccan group Salafia Jihadia, which is responsible for a 2003 attack in Casablanca (see May 16, 2003). Fazazi is also an imam at Hamburg’s al Quds mosque, which is attended by the core cell of 9/11 pilots (see Early 1996 and April 1, 1999). Fazazi’s presence indicates a further connection between the cell in Milan, which is under heavy surveillance by Italian authorities (see 2000), but this link is not exploited to prevent 9/11. [Vidino, 2006, pp. 230]

Entity Tags: Mahmoud Es Sayed, Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman, Islamic Cultural Institute, Mohammed Fazazi, Ayub Usama Saddiq Ali, Salafia Jihadia

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Germany, Al-Qaeda in Italy, Remote Surveillance, Yemeni Militant Collusion

Marwan Alshehhi. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division]At Huffman Aviation flying school, 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi pass various pilots’ tests. On August 14, 2000, according to the 9/11 Commission, they pass their private pilot airplane tests, with Atta scoring 97 out of 100 and Alshehhi scoring 83. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 12 ] However, Huffman’s owner Rudi Dekkers will later testify before Congress that Atta already had a private pilot’s license when he first arrived at the school, six weeks previously (see July 1-3, 2000). [US Congress, 3/19/2002] Despite having failed their Stage I exam for instruments rating at nearby Jones Aviation a month earlier (see Late September-Early October 2000), on November 6 Atta and Alshehhi pass their instrument rating airplane tests at Huffman, scoring 90 and 75 respectively. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 15 ] On December 19 they pass their commercial pilot license tests, thus completing their training, with Atta scoring 93 and Alshehhi scoring 73. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 17 ] (According to a 2005 Federal Aviation Administration factsheet, the passing score for all the pilot tests Atta and Alshehhi take is 70. Presumably this is also the case in 2000. [Administration, 3/2005 ] ) Yet one fellow student who witnesses the pair at Huffman on an almost daily basis later states that, while he always accompanied Atta during his flying lessons, she never saw Alshehhi at the controls of the training aircraft. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/18/2001] Rudi Dekkers will state, “I have heard from the instructors that they were average students, the examiner told me the same.” [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/21/2001] The local FAA designated examiner Dave Whitman is responsible for testing Atta and Alshehhi. He issues them temporary 120-day licenses allowing them to fly small, twin-engine planes. He will later say he assumes the FAA made their licenses permanent, as he was not notified otherwise. He says, “I don’t even remember them, specifically. They were foreign students, and foreign students often tend to keep to themselves.” [USA Today, 9/13/2001; Chicago Sun-Times, 9/16/2001; US Congress, 3/19/2002]

Entity Tags: Huffman Aviation, Marwan Alshehhi, Dave Whitman, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

The FBI and other US intelligence agencies have been monitoring an al-Qaeda communications hub in Sana’a, Yemen, since the attacks on US embassies in East Africa, and have used it to map al-Qaeda’s global network (see Late August 1998 and Late 1998-Early 2002). In the run-up to the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, the FBI notices that there is increased telephone activity to and from the Sana’a hub. One of the messages says that bin Laden is planning a “Hiroshima-type event” (see (August 2000)). [PBS, 10/3/2002]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Yemen Hub, Remote Surveillance

According to PBS, an Egyptian informant warns US intelligence that al-Qaeda will attack an American warship. [PBS, 10/3/2002] The FBI also notices increased telephone activity by al-Qaeda in Yemen around the same time (see August-Early October 2000). The USS Cole is attacked in the autumn of this year (see October 12, 2000).

Entity Tags: US intelligence, Ahmed Nasrallah

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Other Possible Moles or Informants

An internal FBI memo warns that the agency lacks a coherent strategy to prevent terrorist attacks. The memo is sent from Dale Watson, head of the FBI’s counterterrorism program, to interim FBI Director Tom Pickard. The memo reads, “While the FBI has traditionally relied on an approach that focused generally on the identification, penetration and neutralization of terrorist organizations, the [FBI] has not developed a ‘grand strategy’ in which resources and programs are systematically directed toward progressively reducing and neutralizing and ultimately eliminating the terrorist threat to US interests.” After 9/11, a former top FBI official will claim, “The counterterrorism guys never arrested anyone, never stopped anything.” Senior FBI officials will later acknowledge “that [the FBI’s] counterterrorism program was deeply troubled and largely ineffective.” The New York Times will also later claim that the FBI’s “internal affairs unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility, became a much-feared inquisitor, sometimes damaging careers over minor offenses like using a bureau car for personal matters.” [New York Times, 6/2/2002]

Entity Tags: Dale Watson, Thomas Pickard, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11

Midhat Mursi. [Source: Washington Post]Agents of the DGSE, the French intelligence agency, examine an aerial photo and spot al-Qaeda leader Midhat Mursi (a.k.a. Abu Khabab al-Masri) standing close to bin Laden. Mursi is considered al-Qaeda’s chief bomb maker and chemical weapons expert (he will apparently be killed in 2006 (see January 13, 2006). French intelligence reports from before 9/11 show that Mursi is being closely watched by intelligence agencies, with the French exchanging information about him with the Mossad, CIA, and Egyptian intelligence. [Le Monde (Paris), 4/15/2007] The quality of the aerial photo must have been extremely high in order for Mursi and bin Laden to be recognized, but it has not been explained how such a photo was obtained or what other photos of bin Laden or other al-Qaeda leaders may have been taken before 9/11. Less than two weeks later, the US begins flying Predator drones over Afghanistan to track bin Laden (see September 7-October 2000).

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Midhat Mursi, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure

Category Tags: Remote Surveillance

In order to enter a professional flight training program, hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi are required to apply for student visas. They are currently in the US on tourist visas, attending Huffman Aviation flight school in Venice, Florida (see July 6-December 19, 2000). On August 29, 2000, according to the school’s owner Rudi Dekkers, Huffman’s student coordinator Nicole Antini sends I-20M forms demonstrating Atta and Alshehhi’s enrollment at the school to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She also sends copies of their passports. Their forms state, “The student is expected to report to the school not later than Sept. 1, 2000, and complete studies not later than Sept. 1, 2001.” [Charlotte Sun, 3/13/2002; US Congress, 3/19/2002] However, the 9/11 Commission claims that the forms are filled out later, on September 15. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 13 ] Interestingly, considering these contradictory dates, Antini later tells the FBI that on “one occasion, Atta was very upset with the date of his visa and wanted it changed,” though he did not say what upset him about the date or why he wanted it changed. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 38 ] Huffman only receives notification that the INS has approved the visa applications 18 months later, well after 9/11 (see March 11, 2002). Atta and Alshehhi will be cleared to stay in the US until October 1, 2001. [Charlotte Sun, 3/13/2002]

Entity Tags: Nicole Antini, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

The Boston Globe will later report that in late August 2000, Nabl al-Marabh moves from Boston to Detroit, leaving his estranged wife behind. “Before he left, however, he told cabdriver friends that the FBI had approached him and was asking him questions about bin Laden’s operation, and that he was considering cooperating. The friends said that al-Marabh did not say why the FBI had approached him about bin Laden but that it may have been prompted by the Customs Service investigation that found that he had wired money to [al-Qaeda operative Raed] Hijazi. By this time, Hijazi was in jail in Jordan.” [Boston Globe, 10/15/2001] In a 2003 interview, al-Marabh will claim that in the early 1990s, while working as a taxi driver in Boston, he had a run-in with a fellow taxi driver “who he thinks falsely accused him of planning to bomb a car. He said he spoke freely with the FBI agents, who concluded that the allegations were false. From then on, he said, the FBI tried to recruit him to become an informant, and he refused.” He will also claim that in the early 1990s he had a roommate who both worked for the FBI and fought in Afghanistan (see 1989-1994). [Knight Ridder, 5/23/2003] But it is possible that al-Marabh accepts the FBI offer, because while in a Canadian prison in July 2001, he will boast to fellow prisoners that he remains in contact with the FBI (see June 27, 2001-July 11, 2001). Around this time, September 2000, it appears that the Jordanian government tells the US that Hijazi, al-Marabh, and 9/11 hijacker Hamza Alghamdi are connected through telephone numbers (see September 2000). Hijazi had already worked as an FBI informant while he was roommates with al-Marabh in Boston (see Early 1997-Late 1998). In the spring of 2001, al-Marabh will be investigated for links to three 9/11 hijackers (see Spring 2001), but he will nonetheless go on to have an important role in the 9/11 plot.

Entity Tags: Raed Hijazi, Nabil al-Marabh, Hamza Alghamdi, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Nabil Al-Marabh

According to an anonymous Able Danger official speaking to the Bergen Record, a US Army intelligence unit tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda networks worldwide discovers that several of the 9/11 hijackers are taking rooms at motels in New Jersey and meeting together there. The intelligence unit, called Able Danger, which uses high-speed computers to analyze vast amounts of data, notices that Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi take a room at the Wayne Inn (see (Before September 2000-12 Months Later)). After the existence of the Able Danger unit comes to light in 2005, Bergen Record columnist and reporter Mike Kelly says, “The connect-the-dots tracking by the team was so good that it even knew Atta conducted meetings with the three future hijackers. One of those meetings took place at the Wayne Inn. That’s how close all this was—to us and to being solved, if only the information had been passed up the line to FBI agents or even to local cops. This new piece of 9/11 history, revealed only last week by a Pennsylvania congressman and confirmed by two former members of the intelligence team, could turn out to be one of the most explosive revelations since the publication last summer of the 9/11 commission report.” [Bergen Record, 8/14/2005] The other two hijackers said to be present at the meetings, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, periodically live in the town of Paterson, only one mile away from Wayne (see March 2001-September 1, 2001). However, contradicting this account, a lawyer representing members of Able Danger later testifies, “At no time did Able Danger identify Mohamed Atta as being physically present in the United States.” [CNN, 9/21/2005; US Congress, 9/21/2005] Some media accounts have stated that the Able Danger program determined Atta was in the US before 9/11. For instance, Fox News reported in August 2005, “[Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer] is standing by his claim that he told them that the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks had been identified in the summer of 2000 as an al-Qaeda operative living in the United States.” [Fox News, 8/17/2005]

Entity Tags: Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer, Khalid Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda, Nawaf Alhazmi, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Able Danger, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Key Hijacker Events

In 2003, New Jersey state police officials say Mohamed Atta lived in the Wayne Inn, in Wayne, New Jersey, for an unspecified 12-month period prior to 9/11. He lives with one other hijacker who is presumably his usual partner Marwan Alshehhi (Alshehhi is seen eating in nearby restaurants with Atta). [Bergen Record, 6/20/2003] In 2004, an unnamed whistleblower involved in the Able Danger program will claim that prior to 9/11, Able Danger discovered that Atta and Alshehhi were renting a room at the Wayne Inn, and occasionally meeting with Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar at the inn or near it (see (Before September 2000)). From March 2001 onwards, other hijackers, including Alhazmi and Almihdhar, live in Paterson, New Jersey, only one mile away from Wayne (see March 2001-September 1, 2001). Nawaf Alhazmi and Salem Alhazmi rent mailboxes in Wayne at some unknown point before 9/11. Nawaf Alhazmi and Hani Hanjour rent cars from a Wayne car dealership between June and August 2001. There is also evidence Nawaf Alhazmi and Marwan Alshehhi shop in Wayne. [CNN, 9/26/2001; New York Times, 9/27/2001] The 9/11 Commission does not mention any hijacker connection to Wayne. This long-term stay in Wayne is surprising because Atta and Alshehhi have generally been placed in Florida most of the time from July 2000 until shortly before 9/11. However, this discrepancy may be explained by one account which states Atta had “two places he lived and 10 safe houses” in the US (see Mid-September 2001).

Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Able Danger, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Alhazmi and Almihdhar

Sam’s Star Mart gas station. [Source: Daniel Hopsicker]Hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi works at a gas station while living in San Diego. This is the only apparent instance of any of the hijackers having a job while in the US. He and hijacker Khalid Almihdhar also frequently socialize at the gas station and Alhazmi works there on and off for about a month at some point after Almihdhar has gone overseas. [Washington Post, 12/29/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 ] The Texaco gas station, Sam’s Star Mart, is owned by Osama “Sam” Mustafa. [San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/25/2003] Mustafa was first investigated by the FBI in 1991 after he tells a police officer that the US needs another Pan Am 103 attack and that he could be the one to carry out the attack. He also says all Americans should be killed because of the 1991 Iraq War. In 1994, he was investigated for being a member of the Palestinian organizations PFLP and PLO and for threatening to kill an Israeli intelligence officer living in San Diego. The investigation was closed, but reopened again in 1997 when he was tied to a possible plot in North Carolina. Apparently, it is closed again before 9/11. He also associates with Osama Basnan and others who have contacts with the hijackers. Witnesses later claim he cheers when first told of the 9/11 attacks. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 ] The gas station is managed by Ed Salamah. [Washington Post, 12/29/2001; San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/25/2003] In January 2000, the brother of a known al-Qaeda operative is under surveillance and is seen chatting with Salamah. The Los Angeles FBI office is investigating this operative, and it calls Salamah about it. Salamah refuses to come to Los Angeles for an interview, and refuses to give his home address to be interviewed there. Faced with a reluctant witness, the FBI drops the matter. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 ; Newsweek, 7/28/2003] The hijackers are living with an FBI asset who is aware of their contact with at least Mustafa, and that asset has given reports about Mustafa to the FBI in the past. However, the asset fails to tell the FBI about their contacts with him. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry strongly implies that Salamah and Mustafa assisted the hijackers with the 9/11 plot, but the FBI appears uninterested in them and maintains that the hijackers received no assistance from anyone. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 ]

Entity Tags: Osama (“Sam”) Mustafa, Osama Basnan, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, Ed Salamah, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Key Hijacker Events, Bayoumi and Basnan Saudi Connection

Writing in 2004, veteran British intelligence officer Colonel John Hughes-Wilson will note that, at the same time as hijacker pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi are learning to fly at Huffmann Aviation in Venice, Florida (see July 6-December 19, 2000), “A CIA front company called Air Caribe was also operating out of the very same hangar at Venice airport.” He will go on to comment that “this highly curious coincidence must inevitably raise some suspicions of just how much the CIA really did know before 9/11. Was the CIA trying to infiltrate and ‘double’ the US-based al-Qaeda cell, in the hope of using it against Osama bin Laden’s organization in the future?” [Hughes-Wilson, 2004, pp. 391] The Air Caribe story is originally broken by investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who will publish a book about Atta’s time in Florida in 2004 (see March 2004).

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Central Intelligence Agency, John Hughes-Wilson, Air Caribe, Marwan Alshehhi, Daniel Hopsicker

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

People involved in the 2000 PNAC report (from top left): Vice President Cheney, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim, and author Eliot Cohen. [Source: Public domain]The neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century writes a “blueprint” for the “creation of a ‘global Pax Americana’” (see June 3, 1997). The document, titled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, was written for the George W. Bush team even before the 2000 presidential election. It was written for future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor and Bush’s brother Jeb Bush, and Cheney’s future chief of staff Lewis Libby. [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000, pp. iv and 51 ]
Plans to Overthrow Iraqi Government - The report calls itself a “blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” The plan shows that the Bush team intends to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power and should retain control of the region even if there is no threat. It says: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The report calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the internet, the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and other countries. It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool” (see February 7, 2003). [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000 ; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002]
Greater Need for US Role in Persian Gulf - PNAC states further: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
'US Space Forces,' Control of Internet, Subversion of Allies - PNAC calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the Internet, and the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, and other countries.
Bioweapons Targeting Specific Genotypes 'Useful' - It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”
'A New Pearl Harbor' - However, PNAC complains that thes changes are likely to take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/12/2003]
Bush Will Claim a 'Humble' Foreign Policy Stance - One month later during a presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush will assert that he wants a “humble” foreign policy in the Middle East and says he is against toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq because it smacks of “nation building” (see October 11, 2000). Around the same time, Cheney will similarly defend Bush’s position of maintaining President Clinton’s policy not to attack Iraq, asserting that the US should not act as though “we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.” [Washington Post, 1/12/2002] Author Craig Unger will later comment, “Only a few people who had read the papers put forth by the Project for a New American Century might have guessed a far more radical policy had been developed.” [Salon, 3/15/2004] A British member of Parliament will later say of the PNAC report, “This is a blueprint for US world domination—a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world.” [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002] Both PNAC and its strategy plan for Bush are almost virtually ignored by the media until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).

Entity Tags: Robert Kagan, Robert Martinage, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Robert Killebrew, Peter Rodman, Project for the New American Century, Roger Barnett, Paula J. Dobriansky, Saddam Hussein, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Steve Forbes, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William J. Bennett, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Vin Weber, Stephen A. Cambone, Steve Rosen, Thomas Donnelly, Norman Podhoretz, Phil Meilinger, Midge Decter, Donald Kagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Dov S. Zakheim, Devon Gaffney Cross, Aaron Friedberg, Abram Shulsky, Michael Vickers, Dan Quayle, Eliot A. Cohen, Dan Goure, Alvin Bernstein, Barry Watts, David Epstein, Elliott Abrams, Frank Gaffney, John Ellis (“Jeb”) Bush, James Lasswell, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Mark P. Lagon, Mackubin Owens, Francis Fukuyama, Henry S. Rowen, Gary Schmitt, Fred C. Ikle, Fred Kagan, David Fautua, Hasam Amin, George Weigel

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: US Dominance

Hamza Alghamdi. [Source: FBI]Raed Hijazi, Nabil al-Marabh’s former Boston roommate, is tried and convicted in Jordan for his role in planned millennium bombings in that country. (Hijazi is tried in absentia since he has yet to be arrested, but will later be retried in person and reconvicted.) In the wake of the trial, Jordanian officials send information to US investigators that shows Nabil al-Marabh and future 9/11 hijacker Hamza Alghamdi are associates of Hijazi. The Washington Post will report, “An FBI document circulated among law enforcement agencies [just after 9/11] noted that Hijazi, who is in a Jordanian jail, had shared a telephone number with [9/11] hijacker, Hamza Alghamdi.” Apparently this document is created when Jordan sends the US this information in late 2000. [Washington Post, 9/21/2001] The Boston Globe will later report that an FBI investigation found that “al-Marabh had, in the report’s language, a ‘telephone connection’ with one of the suspected hijackers, according to a federal source involved in the investigation. However, the source was uncertain whether the connection involved telephone conversations between al-Marabh and the unidentified suspect, or whether it involved their sharing a telephone number.” This is a probable reference to the same FBI report mentioning the Alghamdi-Hijazi phone link, especially since the same Globe article mentions that around the this time al-Marabh tells his coworkers that the FBI has been asking him about his links to bin Laden (see Late August 2000). [Boston Globe, 10/15/2001] It appears that Alghamdi is not put on any kind of watch list and will not be stopped when he will arrive in the US by January 2001 (see January or July 28, 2001) nor again on May 23, 2001 (see April 23-June 29, 2001). The 9/11 Commission Final Report will fail to mention any investigation into Alghamdi and will give no hint that his name was known to US authorities before 9/11.

Entity Tags: Nabil al-Marabh, Jordan, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Raed Hijazi, Hamza Alghamdi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Warnings, Warning Signs, Other 9/11 Hijackers, Nabil Al-Marabh, Millennium Bomb Plots, Key Hijacker Events

The French intelligence agency, DGSE, publishes nine intelligence reports between these dates on the subject of al-Qaeda threats against the US. Over three hundred pages of classified DGSE reports on al-Qaeda from July 2000 to October 2001 will be leaked to a French reporter in 2007. One of the nine reports on attacks against the US, dated January 5, 2001, will be detailed in a 2007 French newspaper article (see January 5, 2001), but the contents of the other eight remain unknown. DGSE officials will later claim that such reports would have certainly been passed on to the CIA. None of the contents of any of these French reports will be mentioned in the 2004 9/11 Commission report. [Le Monde (Paris), 4/15/2007]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure

Category Tags: Warning Signs

General Tommy Franks. [Source: US Army]US General Tommy Franks tours Central Asia in an attempt to build military aid relationships with nations there, but finds no takers. Russia’s power in the region appears to be on the upswing instead. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev writes, “The actions of Islamic extremists in Central Asia give Russia the chance to strengthen its position in the region.” However, shortly after 9/11, Russia and China agree to allow the US to establish temporary US military bases in Central Asia to prosecute the Afghanistan war. The bases become permanent, and the Guardian will write in early 2002, “Both countries increasingly have good reasons to regret their accommodating stand. Having pushed, cajoled, and bribed its way into their Central Asian backyard, the US clearly has no intention of leaving any time soon.” [Guardian, 1/10/2002]

Entity Tags: Igor Sergeyev, Thomas Franks, China, Russia

Category Tags: US Dominance

The Taliban take the Northern Alliance stronghold of Taloqan after a month-long seige. The battle is unusual, because, for the first time, a large portion of the Taliban’s force—about one-third of the 15,000 force besieging Taloqan—is made up of non-Afghans loosely allied to al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda had been organizing a special unit known as the 055 Brigade, and this is one of the unit’s first battles. Furthermore, the Pakistani ISI provides more than 100 Pakistani military officials to manage artillery and communications, and the ISI generally directs the Taliban offensive. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid writes at the time about the role of foreigners and the ISI in the Taliban offensive, after interviewing Western intelligence figures, UN diplomats, and Afghans. He will later write that this battle marked “the first time people in the United States and Europe began to take notice” of these ISI and al-Qaeda roles in the Taliban offensives. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 17, 409]

Entity Tags: Taliban, 055 Brigade, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Northern Alliance, Al-Qaeda

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert. [Source: Special Forces Command]Members of a US Army intelligence unit tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda have prepared a chart that includes the names and photographs of four future hijackers, who they have identified as members of an al-Qaeda cell based in Brooklyn, New York. The four hijackers in the cell are Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Nawaf Alhazmi. The members of the intelligence unit, called Able Danger, present their chart at the headquarters of the US military’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Florida, with the recommendation that the FBI should be called in to take out the al-Qaeda cell. Lawyers working for SOCOM argue that anyone with a green card has to be granted the same legal protections as any US citizen, so the information about the al-Qaeda cell cannot be shared with the FBI. The legal team directs them to put yellow stickers over the photographs of Mohamed Atta and the other cell members, to symbolize that they are off limits. [Norristown Times Herald, 6/19/2005; Government Security News, 8/2005; New York Times, 8/9/2005; St. Petersburg Times, 8/10/2005; New York Times, 8/17/2005; Government Security News, 9/2005] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer later says that an unnamed two-star general above him is “very adamant” about not looking further at Atta. “I was directed several times [to ignore Atta], to the point where he had to remind me he was a general and I was not… [and] I would essentially be fired.” [Fox News, 8/19/2005] Military leaders at the meeting take the side of the lawyers and prohibit any sharing of information about the al-Qaeda cell. Shaffer believes that the decision to side with the lawyers is made by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert (who had previously expressed distress when Able Danger data was destroyed without his prior notification (see May-June 2000)). He also believes that Gen. Peter Schoomaker, head of SOCOM, is not aware of the decision. [Government Security News, 9/2005]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Special Operations Command, Marwan Alshehhi, Al-Qaeda, Nawaf Alhazmi, Peter J. Schoomaker, Khalid Almihdhar, Anthony Shaffer, Able Danger, Geoffrey Lambert

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Able Danger, Key Hijacker Events

George W. Bush, campaigning for president, writes in an article, “There is more to be done preparing here at home. I will put a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil.” [National Guard Magazine, 9/2000] This repeats verbatim comments made in a speech a year before at the start of the presidential campaign [Citadel, 9/23/1999] , and in both cases the context is about weapons of mass destruction. However, after 9/11, now President Bush will say of bin Laden: “I knew he was a menace and I knew he was a problem. I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him to justice, and would have given the order to do that. I have no hesitancy about going after him. But I didn’t feel that sense of urgency.” [Washington Post, 5/17/2002]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

On three occasions, military lawyers force members of Able Danger to cancel scheduled meetings with the FBI at the last minute. Able Danger officials want to share information about the Brooklyn al-Qaeda cell they believe they’ve discovered which includes Mohamed Atta and other hijackers (see January-February 2000). The exact timing of these meetings remains unclear, but they appear to happen around the time military lawyers tell Able Danger they are not allowed to pursue Mohamed Atta and other figures (see September 2000) . [Government Security News, 9/2005] In 2005, it will be reported that Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer contacted FBI agent Xanthig Magnum in attempts to set up these meetings. Magnum is willing to testify about her communications with Shaffer, but apparently she has not yet been able to do so. [Fox News, 8/28/2005] Shaffer will later elaborate that the meetings were set up around early summer. Col. Worthington, then head of Able Danger, is one of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) officials scheduled to meet with FBI Counterterrorism agents. Shaffer ater claims the meetings were cancelled because “SOCOM lawyers would not permit the sharing of the US person information regarding terrorists located domestically due to ‘fear of potential blowback’ should the FBI do something with the information and something should go wrong. The lawyers were worried about another ‘Waco’ situation. The critical counterterrorism information is never passed from SOCOM to the FBI before 9-11; this information did include the original data regarding Atta and the terrorist cells in New York and the DC area.” [US Congress, 2/15/2006] Rep. Curt Weldon (R), who in 2005 helps bring to light the existence of the program, says, “Obviously, if we had taken out that cell, 9/11 would not have occurred and, certainly, taking out those three principal players in that cell would have severely crippled, if not totally stopped, the operation that killed 3,000 people in America.” [Government Security News, 8/2005]

Entity Tags: Xanthig Magnum, Special Operations Command, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Anthony Shaffer, Curt Weldon, Able Danger, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Able Danger

Over the 12 months preceding September 11, the Army’s DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic (DTHC) at the Pentagon works to develop its mass casualty (MASCAL) plan. This work will significantly and fortuitously help the clinic when it has to implement the plan in response to the Pentagon attack on 9/11. Major Lorie Brown, the chief nurse at the DTHC, is the chairperson for the DiLorenzo Action Response Team (DART). As she will later recall, over this 12-month period, the DART team works “on developing that [MASCAL] plan, really creating a whole new plan. We sat down and met on numerous occasions with the Air Force clinic [also based in the Pentagon], civilian EMS [Emergency Medical Services], Pentagon and [Department of Defense] hierarchy, DPS [the Defense Protective Service], and with the other civilian medical agencies.” They work through various issues, such as “what would happen in the event of a MASCAL, what each of our roles would be.” The DART team, Brown says, participates “in several large tabletop exercises with these external bodies, to include FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and the others I just mentioned. We even did our own internal exercise where we made up the scenario of a plane crashing into the building.” [Office of Medical History, 9/2004, pp. 7] This “internal exercise” is likely a reference to an exercise held by the DTHC in May 2001 (see May 2001). [US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. B17] Another exercise Brown participates in over this period is the Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise in October 2000 (see October 24-26, 2000), which also includes a scenario of a plane hitting the Pentagon. [MDW News Service, 11/3/2000] Brown will later credit this work developing the MASCAL plan as being of great benefit when the Pentagon is hit on 9/11, and the plan is initiated (see Soon after 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). She will say: “[O]ur planning truly made such a huge difference on that day. Our commander had the foresight to focus on MASCAL prep and gave us the time and budget to really revamp our old MASCAL plan. I can’t say enough about how critical this was to our success.” [Office of Medical History, 9/2004, pp. 7]

Entity Tags: Lorie Brown, DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic, DiLorenzo Action Response Team

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Military Exercises

Courtroom drawing of L’Houssaine Kherchtou. [Source: C. Cornell/ CNN]Al-Qaeda defector L’Houssaine Kherchtou (see Summer 2000) tells the FBI that between 1992 and 1995 he trained in Nairobi, Kenya, to be a pilot for al-Qaeda. His training ended when he began to drift away from al-Qaeda in 1995. Kherchtou, who began working with MI6 before the African embassy bombings (see Mid-Summer 1998), is a key prosecution witness at the bombing trial in early 2001, where he repeats the information in public. He will later go into the witness protection program. [Washington File, 2/22/2001; American Prospect, 6/19/2005]

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, L’Houssaine Kherchtou

Category Tags: Warning Signs, 1998 US Embassy Bombings, Other Possible Moles or Informants

At the trial of al-Qaeda operatives accused of participating in the 1998 US African embassy bombings, it is disclosed that an unnamed al-Qaeda operative had requested information about air traffic control procedures. This information is provided to the FBI by a co-operating witness, L’Houssaine Kherchtou (see Summer 2000), and is mentioned by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who says that Kherchtou “observed an Egyptian person who was not a pilot debriefing a friend of his, Ihab Ali [Nawawi], about how air traffic control works and what people say over the air traffic control system, and it was his belief that there might have been a plan to send a pilot to Saudi Arabia or someone familiar with that to monitor the air traffic communications so they could possibly attack an airplane.” Nawawi is a Florida-based al-Qaeda operative and pilot who is arrested in 1999 (see May 18, 1999). The identity of the Egyptian is not disclosed, although both Kherchtou and Nawawi are associates of former Egyptian army officer Ali Mohamed, who used Kherchtou’s apartment to plot the Nairobi embassy bombing (see Late 1993-Late 1994 and January 1998). [United States of America v. Usama bin Laden, et al., Day 8, 2/21/2001] Mohamed also conducted surveillance of airports in the early 1980s with a view to hijacking an airliner, and subsequently worked as a security adviser to Egyptair, where he had access to the latest anti-hijacking measures. [Lance, 2006, pp. 11-12] Jack Cloonan, one of the FBI agents who debriefed Kherchtou, will later receive the Phoenix Memo (see July 27, 2001 or Shortly After), which states that an inordinate amount of bin Laden-related individuals are learning to fly in the US (see July 10, 2001). [American Prospect, 6/19/2005] However, he will not apparently make the connection between the memo’s premise and the information from Kherchtou.

Entity Tags: Patrick Fitzgerald, L’Houssaine Kherchtou, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jack Cloonan

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Warning Signs, 1998 US Embassy Bombings, Ali Mohamed, Other Possible Moles or Informants

Yazid Sufaat (left), and his wife, Sejarahtul Dursina (right). [Source: Associated Press]Zacarias Moussaoui visits Malaysia twice, and stays at the very same condominium where the January al-Qaeda summit (see January 5-8, 2000) was held. [Los Angeles Times, 2/2/2002; Washington Post, 2/3/2002; CNN, 8/30/2002] After that summit, Malaysian intelligence kept watch on the condominium at the request of the CIA. However, the CIA stopped the surveillance before Moussaoui arrived, spoiling a chance to expose the 9/11 plot by monitoring Moussaoui’s later travels. The Malaysians later say they were surprised by the CIA’s lack of interest. “We couldn’t fathom it, really,” Rais Yatim, Malaysia’s Legal Affairs minister, will tell Newsweek. “There was no show of concern.” [Newsweek, 6/2/2002] During his stay in Malaysia, Moussaoui tells Jemaah Islamiyah operative Faiz abu Baker Bafana, at whose apartment he stays for one night, that he had had a dream about flying an airplane into the White House, and that when he told bin Laden about this, bin Laden told him to go ahead. They also discuss purchasing ammonium nitrate, and Moussaoui says that Malaysia and Indonesia should be used as a base for financing jihad, but that attacks should be focused against the US. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006] While Moussaoui is in Malaysia, Yazid Sufaat, the owner of the condominium, signs letters falsely identifying Moussaoui as a representative of his wife’s company. [Washington Post, 2/3/2002; Reuters, 9/20/2002] When Moussaoui is later arrested in the US about one month before the 9/11 attacks, this letter in his possession could have led investigators back to the condominium and the connections with the January 2000 meeting attended by two of the hijackers. [USA Today, 1/30/2002] Moussaoui’s belongings also contained phone numbers that could have linked him to Ramzi bin al-Shibh (and his roommate, Mohamed Atta), another participant in the Malaysian meeting (see August 16, 2001). [Associated Press, 12/12/2001]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Malaysian Secret Service, Faiz abu Baker Bafana, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Yazid Sufaat, Osama bin Laden, Central Intelligence Agency, Rais Yatim, Zacarias Moussaoui

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia

It is reported that the US Secret Service is using an “air surveillance system” called Tigerwall. This serves to “ensure enhanced physical security at a high-value asset location by providing early warning of airborne threats.” Tigerwall “provides the Secret Service with a geographic display of aircraft activity and provides security personnel long-range camera systems to classify and identify aircraft. Sensor data from several sources are fused to provide a unified sensor display.” [US Department of Defense, 2000; US Department of the Navy, 9/2000, pp. 28 ] Among its responsibilities, the Secret Service protects America’s highest elected officials, including the president and vice president, and also provides security for the White House complex. [US Congress, 5/1/2003] Its largest field office with over 200 employees is in New York, in Building 7 of the World Trade Center. [Tech TV, 7/23/2002] Whether the Secret Service, in New York or Washington, will make use of Tigerwall on 9/11 is unknown. Furthermore, in New York the Secret Service has a Stinger missile secretly stored in the WTC, to be used to protect the president if the city were attacked when he visited. Presumably it keeps this is in Building 7, where its field office is. [Weiss, 2003, pp. 379] As well as Tigerwall, the Secret Service appears to have other air surveillance capabilities. Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will describe that on 9/11, the Secret Service had “a system that allowed them to see what FAA’s radar was seeing.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 7] Barbara Riggs, a future deputy director of the Secret Service who is in its Washington, DC headquarters on 9/11, will describe the Secret Service “monitoring radar” during the attacks. [PCCW Newsletter, 3/2006; Star-Gazette (Elmira), 6/5/2006] Furthermore, since 1974 the Secret Service operations center has possessed a special communications line from the control tower of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. This hotline allows air traffic controllers monitoring local radar to inform agents at the White House of any planes that are off course or appear to be on a “threatening vector.” [Time, 9/26/1994]

Entity Tags: Secret Service

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, US Air Security

While in Malaysia (see September-October 2000), Zacarias Moussaoui visits the Royal Selangor Flying Club at a Malaysian Air Force base near Kuala Lumpur to inquire about learning to fly there, but decides not to pursue lessons after learning the cost. Moussaoui is driven to the club by Jemaah Islamiyah operative Faiz abu Baker Bafana, who had previously taken another al-Qaeda trainee pilot, Zaini Zakaria, to the same flying club (see (Spring 2000)). Moussaoui will eventually begin his training in the US (see February 23-June 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006]

Entity Tags: Faiz abu Baker Bafana, Zacarias Moussaoui, Royal Selangor Flying Club

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui

Jose Padilla, an American Muslim who has recently become interested in becoming an al-Qaeda fighter, attends an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He goes under the name Abdullah al-Espani. [Associated Press, 6/2004]

Entity Tags: Jose Padilla, Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere

Category Tags: Other Pre-9/11 Events

A consular official who issues the hijackers with at least 11 US visas probably begins working at the American consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, before this date. The 9/11 hijackers will obtain at least 15 visas from this consulate, three in April 1999 (see April 3-7, 1999), seven in the fall of 2000 (see September 3, 2000, September 4, 2000, September 25, 2000, October 24, 2000, October 28, 2000, November 12, 2000), and five in the spring of 2001 (see April 23, 2001, May 2001, June 12, 2001, June 18, 2001, June 13, 2001, and June 20, 2001). At least 11 of these visas are issued by the same consular official. It is possible that the visa issued to Ahmed Alghamdi on September 3, 2000 is the first he issues to any of the hijackers. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 33 ] This consular official will not be named after 9/11 and it is not clear exactly which visas he issues, although the visas issued to Nawaf Alhazmi in April 1999 and Hani Hanjour in September 2000 are issued by different officials, who are interviewed after 9/11, so they cannot both be from him. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 36-7 ] It is possible that he issues the six visas given to the “muscle” hijackers in the fall of 2000 and the five more issued to them in the spring of 2001. In any case, the official(s) who issue these visas will apparently not be interviewed by the 9/11 Commission, which does, however, cite interviews with 14 other consular officials in its Terrorist Travel monograph. For example, interviews with the officers who issued non-Jeddah visas to Hamza Alghamdi, Satam al Suqami, Mohand Alshehri (all Riyadh), Marwan Alshehhi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad (both United Arab Emirates), Mohamed Atta, and Ziad Jarrah (both Berlin) are cited in the monograph. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 10-11, 14, 16, 25, 36-38, 41, 62, 145-7 ] During the Soviet-Afghan war, CIA officers posing as consular officers at the US consulate in Jeddah issued visas to unqualified applicants who appear to have been radical Islamist fighters (see September 1987-March 1989). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004 ]

Entity Tags: US Consulate, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Office

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Key Hijacker Events

Hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi is helped by his landlord, FBI counterterrorism informant Abdussattar Shaikh, with whom he has been living for some time (see Mid-May-December 2000 and May 10-Mid-December 2000), to open an account with the Lemon Grove branch of the Bank of America. Alhazmi deposits $3,000 to open the account. The origin of the $3,000 is unclear, as the last known cash injection Alhazmi received was five months earlier and totalled only $5,000 (see April 16-18, 2000). [Associated Press, 9/21/2001; CBS News, 9/27/2001] Hijacker Khalid Almihdhar had previously opened and closed a bank account in San Diego (see February 4, 2000)

Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Abdussattar Shaikh

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar

9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alghamdi obtains a visa from the US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, using a passport that is only 13 days old. It appears he is not interviewed. However, most young male Saudi visa applicants are interviewed around this time, because, according to a consular official who served there in late 1998, officials “[know] who Osama bin Laden is, they [know] he is dangerous, and they [are] concerned about the possibility that Saudi visa applicants might be intending to go to the United States to participate in terrorist attacks.” [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 13, 124 ] The visa may be issued by a consular official who issues the 9/11 hijackers with at least 11 US visas, although this is not certain (see Before September 3, 2000).

Entity Tags: Ahmed Alghamdi, US Consulate, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Office

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

9/11 hijacker Saeed Alghamdi obtains a visa from the US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is likely that his visa is issued by the same consular official that issues at least 11 of the 15 visas issued to the hijackers in Jeddah (see Before September 3, 2000). However, Alghamdi will later get another visa using a different passport (see June 12, 2001). The 9/11 Commission will say that one or possibly both of his passports may have fraudulent features, presumably related to travel stamps, although it is not certain of this. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 525, 564; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 24 ]

Entity Tags: Saeed Alghamdi, US Consulate, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Office

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

Yazeed al-Salmi. [Source: Channel 10 News]A total of $1,900 is deposited in Nawaf Alhazmi’s Bank of America account from a set of traveler’s checks worth $4,000 that were issued in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on July 16, 2000 to a man named Yazeed al-Salmi. The same day, Alhazmi withdraws $1,900. US investigators will therefore later hypothesise that Alhazmi is just helping al-Salmi cash the checks, since al-Salmi does not open a US bank account of his own until September 11, 2000. Al-Salmi arrived in San Diego on a student visa on August 7, 2000 and moved in with Alhazmi and FBI counterterrorism informant Abdussattar Shaikh three days later, staying for about one month (see Mid-May-December 2000). Hijacker associate Omar al-Bayoumi, who nominally reports to al-Salmi’s uncle, Mohammed Ahmed al-Salmi of the Saudi Civil Aviation ministry, found him the accommodation (see September 1998-July 1999). After 9/11, the FBI will detain al-Salmi as a material witness and question him because of his contacts with Alhazmi, and he will testify before a grand jury before being deported to Saudi Arabia. However, al-Salmi does not mention the traveler’s checks in the interrogation and the FBI will not find out about them until after he is deported. Also, another associate of the hijackers, Mohdar Abdullah, will later claim that al-Salmi tells him he previously knew hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour as a child in Saudi Arabia (see (Early 2000-November 2000)). When the FBI interviews al-Salmi again, in Saudi Arabia in 2004, he will claim he no longer remembers the $1,900 transaction and the FBI will fail to ask him about his alleged childhood ties to Hanjour. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 222, 518; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 139 ; Time, 8/22/2004] There are later indications that al-Salmi and some of his associates have some foreknowledge of 9/11 (see Late August-September 10, 2001).

Entity Tags: Omar al-Bayoumi, Yazeed al-Salmi, Nawaf Alhazmi, Mohdar Abdullah, Mohammed Ahmed al-Salmi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hani Hanjour, Abdussattar Shaikh

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Hani Hanjour, Bayoumi and Basnan Saudi Connection

The first Predator flight over Afghanistan on September 7, 2000 captures bin Laden circled by security in his Tarnak Farms complex. [Source: CBC]An unmanned spy plane called the Predator begins flying over Afghanistan, showing incomparably detailed real-time video and photographs of the movements of what appears to be bin Laden and his aides. It flies successfully over Afghanistan 16 times. [9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004] President Clinton is impressed by a two-minute video of bin Laden crossing a street heading toward a mosque inside his Tarnak Farms complex. Bin Laden is surrounded by a team of a dozen armed men creating a professional forward security perimeter as he moves. The Predator has been used since 1996, in the Balkans and Iraq. One Predator crashes on takeoff and another is chased by a fighter, but it apparently identifies bin Laden on three occasions. Its use is stopped in Afghanistan after a few trials, mostly because seasonal winds are picking up. It is agreed to resume the flights in the spring, but the Predator fails to fly over Afghanistan again until after 9/11. [Washington Post, 12/19/2001; Clarke, 2004, pp. 220-21] On September 15, 2001, CIA Director Tenet apparently inaccurately tells President Bush, “The unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft that was now armed with Hellfire missiles had been operating for more than a year out of Uzbekistan to provide real-time video of Afghanistan.” [Washington Post, 1/29/2002]

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, George J. Tenet, Central Intelligence Agency, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, George W. Bush

Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden, Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11

Hani Hanjour’s September 10 US visa application, which was rejected. The fact he requested permission to stay in the US for three years is highlighted on the right. [Source: National Review] (click image to enlarge)9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour applies for a US visa at the US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Hanjour, who has already spent a good deal of time in the US (see October 3, 1991-February 1992, Spring 1996, October 1996-December 1997, and 1998), uses a passport issued on July 24, 2000. His application is incomplete, as he says he is a student, but fails to give his school’s name and address. His application is denied as he says he wants to stay for three years, raising concerns he might become an immigrant. After his application is screened, he is referred to a consular officer for an interview. Hanjour says he wants to attend flight school in the US, changing his status from “student” to “tourist” after arrival. However, the officer denies the visa application “because he has been in the States long enough to decide what he wanted.” Hanjour will return to the consulate two weeks later and successfully obtain a visa with a different application (see September 25, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 13, 174-5 ] The consular officer who denies this visa will later give mistaken testimony about it to the House Committee on Government Reform. He will claim that the application was made under the Visa Express program, and that he refused to issue the visa immediately because Hanjour applied for a tourist visa, but wanted to go to the US to study. He will say that the denial is “for administrative reasons” so that Hanjour has to come in for an interview. However, the 9/11 Commission will find that the date the application is made is the same date that it is rejected, so this consular officer must be mistaken about the application being made under the Visa Express program, which will not start until 2001 (see May 2001), as well as the reason for the denial. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 37-38 ]

Entity Tags: US Consulate, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Office, Hani Hanjour

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Hani Hanjour

Smoke rising from the bombed Jakarta stock exchange. [Source: RTV]A bombing at the stock exchange in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city, kills 15. It is the fourth bombing in Jakarta since July, and the most deadly. Later the same month, two Indonesian soldiers are arrested and the Indonesian government claims they were the ones who planted the bomb. One of the soldiers belongs to Kopassus, Indonesia’s notorious special forces unit, and the other belongs to a different elite unit. The two men will later be sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the bombing, but one will escape from prison before being sentenced. One of them will say his next targets include the US embassy and a Jakarta department store. The government says the two soldiers were rogues acting by themselves and hints that Islamist rebels from the province of Aceh are behind the bombing. However, little evidence of this is presented in court, and many analysts suspect elements in the military were involved as part of high-level political intrigues. The bombing takes place two days before the resumption of the corruption trial of Suharto, president of Indonesia until 1998, and there is strong speculation that the Suharto family is behind the bombing and the other recent Jakarta bombings to pressure the current Indonesian government not to act against Suharto. One of Suharto’s sons is arrested for an alleged role in a bombing earlier that year, and then released. [BBC, 9/13/2000; Asian Political News, 8/27/2001] In 2002, the Age, a major Australian newspaper, will comment about the stock exchange bombing, “Indonesian military elements were prepared to cause massive casualties and huge economic disruption in their own capital for the purposes of elite-level politics.” [Age (Melbourne), 10/17/2002]

Entity Tags: Tentara Nasional Indonesia

Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, Indonesian Militant Collusion

Hassan Almrei. [Source: Darren Ell]On January 2, 1999, Hassan Almrei entered Canada and applied for political refugee status. He claimed his passport from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been destroyed. He was given refugee status in June 2000. However, for unknown reasons Canadian officials begin investigating him. Immigration officials search his Toronto apartment on September 13, 2000. They discover the UAE passport that Almrei had claimed was destroyed, and determine it is fradulent. [Canadian Security Intelligence Service, 2/22/2008 ] Almrei and al-Marabh are roommates at some point, probably in early 2001 (see January 2001-Summer 2001). It is probable that Canadian officials increase their interest in Almrei in the months before 9/11. A top Canadian intelligence (CSIS) official will later claim that Canadian authorities grew increasingly worried that a group of eight terrorists would attack Toronto around the time of 9/11. But there was not enough evidence to arrest them, so different means were used in an attempt to disrupt the plot. While these eight suspected terrorists have not been publicly named, it is likely one of them is Almrei. In 2008, Canadian intelligence officials will reveal that at some point they learned that in September 1999 Almrei and five others gained access to a restricted area at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Almrei and the others appeared to have access cards and codes for restricted areas. Furthermore, Almrei will be arrested one month after 9/11 (see October 19, 2001) and photos of a security badge and airplane cockpit will be found on his computer. [Canadian Security Intelligence Service, 2/22/2008 ] Almrei will later admit to significant ties to militants and militant training camps (see October 19, 2001).

Entity Tags: Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Nabil al-Marabh, Hassan Almrei

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Nabil Al-Marabh

Olympics officials later reveal, “A fully loaded, fueled airliner crashing into the opening ceremony before a worldwide television audience at the Sydney Olympics is one of the greatest security fears for the Games.” During the Olympics, Australia has six planes in the sky at all times ready to intercept any wayward aircraft. In fact, “IOC officials [say] the scenario of a plane crash during the opening ceremony was uppermost in their security planning at every Olympics since terrorists struck in Munich in 1972.” bin Laden is considered the number-one threat. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/20/2001] These security measures are similar to those used in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and other events, including Clinton’s second inauguration. Similar planning is already underway before 9/11 for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. [Wall Street Journal, 4/1/2004]

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden

Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Before the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, Ramzi bin al-Shibh makes two trips to Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, and will later be said to play a role in the attack. Although bin al-Shibh is never named as a certain participant in the operation, he travels to Yemen from Germany a month before the attack, and again one day before the bombing (see October 12, 2000). [Los Angeles Times, 10/24/2001; Khan, 8/11/2002 ; Australian, 12/24/2002; McDermott, 2005, pp. 209] He apparently attended an al-Qaeda summit with the other commanders of the ship-bombing operation (see January 5-8, 2000) and some media reports indicate an application for a US visa he makes after the attack is rejected due to concerns about his involvement in the bombing. For example, the Los Angeles Times, based on conversations with law enforcement officials, will report that bin al-Shibh is “linked to the terrorist attack in Yemen on the US Navy destroyer Cole.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/21/2001] Newsweek, the BBC, and Al Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda will also report similar statements by law enforcement officials (see May 17, 2000-May 2001). [Newsweek, 11/26/2001; BBC, 9/14/2002; TBS Journal, 10/2002] One of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar, may also be involved in the bombing (see Around October 12, 2000).

Entity Tags: Ramzi bin al-Shibh

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Al-Qaeda in Germany

A videotape message featuring bin Laden calling for more attacks on the US is aired on Al Jazeera. The video ends with al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri saying, “Enough of words, it is time to take action against this iniquitous and faithless force [the United States], which has spread troops through Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.” [CNN, 10/20/2000; Washington Times, 8/26/2002] Further, bin Laden is wearing a distinctive, curved Yemeni dagger. Lawrence Wright will later mention in the book The Looming Tower that this was a “teasing clue” similar to other clues he had left before other attacks. [Wright, 2006, pp. 318] DIA analyst Kie Fallis later recalls, “Every time he put out one of these videotapes, it was a signal that action was coming.” He claims that after hearing of the video, he “knew then it would be within a month or two.” But nonetheless, his suggestion to put out a general attack warning will go unheeded (see May 2000-Late September 2000). An al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole follows less than a month later (see October 12, 2000). [Washington Times, 8/26/2002]

Entity Tags: Kie Fallis, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden, United States

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Able Danger, Osama Bin Laden, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements

Ayman al-Zawahiri (left), Ahmed Refai Taha (center), and Osama bin Laden (right) on Al Jazeera. [Source: Al Jazeera]Al Jazeera broadcasts a video featuring Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Ahmed Refai Taha, head of the Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya militant group formerly led by the “Blind Sheikh,” Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. In the video, filmed in Afghanistan several months earlier, bin Laden promises “to do all we can” to liberate Abdul-Rahman from his imprisonment in the US. Al-Zawahiri says that he is “talking business” about helping to free Abdul-Rahman. “I’m talking jihad.” Additionally, Mohammed Omar Abdul-Rahman, one of the Blind Sheikh’s sons, is heard on the tape saying, “O brothers, everywhere, avenge your leaders, avenge your sheik. Let’s go to the grounds of jihad. Let us spill blood. Let’s go spill blood.” [New York Times, 9/8/2004] In July 2001, the FBI will overhear an Arabic translator tell the Blind Sheikh that the October 2000 bombing of the USS ‘Cole’ was done for him “so he could be released.” The translator is also overheard saying that if he is not released, the bombers are prepared to “execute another operation.” [New York Times, 6/6/2002]

Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Ahmed Refai Taha, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Mohammed Omar Abdul-Rahman, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdul-Rahman

Category Tags: Warning Signs, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden, 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements

In September 2000, Luai Sakra enters Germany seeking asylum, using the name “Louia Sakka” (one of several ways his name is transliterated). He moves with his wife and two children to a government asylum dormitory in a small town in central Germany while waiting for a verdict. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 8/15/2005; Agence France-Presse, 10/27/2005] After his 2005 arrest in Turkey, Sakra will confess to helping some of the 9/11 hijackers. He will claim to have helped some of the 9/11 hijackers while in Bursa, a city in Turkey 60 miles south of Istanbul (see Late 1999-2000). [Washington Post, 2/20/2006] But he will also say that he knew Mohamed Atta, which presumably would take place during Sakra’s time in Germany (see Early August 2005). He will warn the Syrian government about the 9/11 attacks one day before they happen (see September 10, 2001) and evidence will suggest he was an informant working for the CIA and other governments (see 2000). He will later admit meeting Asaf Shawkat, head of Syrian intelligence, in Germany, but it is not known when this meeting took place. [BBC, 11/10/2005] Apparently while still living in Germany, Sakra is indicted in Jordan for allegedly supporting planned attacks around the turn of the millennium (see November 30, 1999). His 2001 Jordanian indictment reads, “Current residence: Germany, on the run.” It is not clear if Jordan communicated with the German government about his whereabouts at this time. He will be convicted in absentia in Jordan in early 2002 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Meanwhile, in Germany he loses his asylum appeal and leaves the country on July 24, 2001. His family flies to Syria around the same time. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 8/15/2005]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Central Intelligence Agency, Asaf Shawkat, Luai Sakra

Category Tags: Luai Sakra, Al-Qaeda in Germany

According to his passport records, on September 24, 2000, hijacker Satam Al Suqami enters Turkey, via Istanbul. He leaves on November 2, 2000, stopping by Qatar, Bahrain, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, and then returns to Istanbul, Turkey, on November 26. He leaves Turkey again on April 1, 2001, traveling to Malaysia. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 91, 100, 104 ; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 106-107, 131 ] Al-Qaeda leader Luai Sakra will later allege that Al Suqami received extensive al-Qaeda training in Turkey, near Istanbul, around this time with five other hijackers. He will say Al Suqami and hijacker Majed Moqed arrive later than another four of the hijackers, but overlap with them (see Late 1999-2000). An FBI document detailing Al Suqami’s travels will be released in 2008, several months after Sakra makes his claims, thus helping to corroborate them. [London Times, 11/25/2007]

Entity Tags: Majed Moqed, Satam Al Suqami, Luai Sakra

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour again applies for a US visa. An application two weeks earlier was rejected (see September 10, 2000), but he is successful this time. Hanjour apparently applies for a student visa, not a tourist visa, as he had done previously, saying he wishes to attend a language school in California. The consulate notes that Hanjour had previously been denied a visa, and the application is forwarded to the officer who issued the denial. The officer will later recall that Hanjour, or someone acting on his behalf, submits an I-20 INS school enrollment form, the documentation required for the visa: “It came to me, you know, at the end of the day to look at it. I saw he had an I-20 and it [his visa] was issued.” This allows Hanjour to overcome his previous rejection, as the two applications are treated as one case. The INS had approved a change of status for Hanjour to attend the same school in 1996, but the officer does not know of this. The officer will later say that, if he had known, he might have denied the visa. For some reason, the visa is incorrectly entered in the State Department’s records as a business/tourist visa, although a student visa is printed in Hanjour’s passport. Some change appears to be made in regard of the records upon Hanjour’s entry to the US later in the year (see December 8, 2000), and 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. 13-14, 38 ]

Entity Tags: Hani Hanjour, US Consulate, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Office

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Hani Hanjour

A classified State Department cable observes that “while Pakistani support for the Taliban has been long-standing, the magnitude of recent support is unprecedented.” The US has “seen reports that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance, and military advisers. We also understand that large numbers of Pakistani nationals have recently moved into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban, apparently with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani government.” Direct Pakistani involvement in Taliban military operations has increased. In response, the US Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, is ordered to confront Pakistani officials on the issue and make clear that the US will not accept a Taliban military victory in Afghanistan. [US Department of State, 9/26/2000 ]

Entity Tags: US Department of State, Pakistan, Taliban

Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI

A Tunisian militant based in Italy named Sekseka Habib Waddani confesses to Italian police that he has helped run an elaborate arms smuggling ring, but it is unclear whether Italy or the US does anything to stop him. Waddani will be placed on the US Treasury Department’s list of most-wanted militants on August 29, 2002, but this “prompts questions about when the United States learned of Waddani, and whether any action was taken by Italian or US officials after Waddani’s claim that large amounts of weapons were being sold to Islamic terrorists.” When the CIA is asked in 2002 whether it did anything about Waddani, the agency will decline to comment.
Walk In - Waddani just walks in to a police station in Milan in 2000 and discloses the information, which he learned because he was involved when the weapons transited Italy and Switzerland. He approaches the police because he is being blackmailed and needs protection. The weapons smuggling scheme Waddani reports to the Italians initially involved smuggling the arms from Russia to Italy by sea, then to Croatia and on to Bosnia during the war there from 1992 to 1995. Weapons were also supplied to Albanian fighters in Kosovo in 1998. The deals were brokered by Italian and Muslim lawyers in Switzerland, who found buyers there. However, this system is abandoned as too difficult and the weapons—pistols, machine guns, missiles, and grenades—are then shipped through Uzbekistan to Pakistan for use at terrorist training camps in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Companies Involved - Several European companies are involved in moving the arms, including one that handled transactions in Switzerland and is owned by a Pakistani named Haji Agka and two Swiss-based Tunisians, Ahmed and Shoyab Sharifi, and a front named the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Center of Lucerne. The two Tunisians are friends of Ahmad Huber, who reportedly facilitates “periodic and regular” weapons shipments and is accused of moving money for Osama bin Laden through the suspect Al Taqwa bank (see November 7, 2001). Huber denies the charges and, although the Italians passed the information on to Switzerland, says neither he nor any of his associates were ever even questioned about it. Waddani will be indicted in October 2001 in Italy, for trafficking in arms, explosives, chemical weapons, identity papers, receiving stolen goods, and illegal immigration. The Treasury Department will also say he is a member of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). [MSNBC, 9/16/2002]

Entity Tags: Mother Teresa of Calcutta Center of Lucerne, Ahmed Sharifi, Ahmad Huber, Central Intelligence Agency, Haji Agka, Shoyab Sharifi, Guardia di Finanza, Sekseka Habib Waddani

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Italy

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer will later claim that Capt. Scott Phillpott, leader of the Able Danger program, briefs Gen. Peter Schoomaker, head of Special Operations Command (SOCOM), that Able Danger has uncovered information of increased al-Qaeda “activity” in Aden harbor, Yemen. Shaffer, plus two other officials familiar with Able Danger later tell the New York Post that this warning was gleaned through a search of bin Laden’s business ties. Shaffer later recalls, “Yemen was elevated by Able Danger to be one of the top three hot spots for al-Qaeda in the entire world.” This warning, plus another possibly connected warning from Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst Kie Fallis (see May 2000-Late September 2000), go unheeded and no official warning is issued. The USS Cole is attacked by al-Qaeda terrorists in Aden harbor in October 2000 (see October 12, 2000). Shaffer later claims that Phillpott tells the 9/11 Commission about this warning in 2004 to show that Able Danger could have had a significant impact, but the Commission’s findings fail to mention the warning, or in fact anything else about Able Danger (see July 12, 2004). [New York Post, 9/17/2005; Jerry Doyle Show, 9/20/2005] Rep. Curt Weldon (R) will similarly tell Fox News,“[T]wo weeks before the attack on the Cole, in fact, two days before the attack on the Cole, [Able Danger] saw an increase of activity that led them to say to the senior leadership in the Pentagon at that time, in the Clinton administration, there’s something going to happen in Yemen and we better be on high alert, but it was discounted. That story has yet to be told to the American people.” [Fox News, 10/8/2005]

Entity Tags: Scott Phillpott, Peter J. Schoomaker, Curt Weldon, Al-Qaeda, Able Danger, Clinton administration, Osama bin Laden

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Able Danger

The Able Danger data collection program—which lost the support of the US Army’s Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) unit last April (see April 2000)—is reconstituted and moved to a private intelligence research center run by Raytheon in Garland, Texas. While the program worked only with unclassified data under LIWA, the new Able Danger, referred to by some as “Able Danger II,” has permission to mine classified information as well. [US Congress, 9/21/2005; US Congress, 9/21/2005] SOCOM apparently believes that this new arrangement will allow Able Danger to do its work free of some of the political interference that had hobbled the earlier effort. Other data mining teams at LIWA work on non-al-Qaeda related projects while Able Danger continue to focus on al-Qaeda. [National Journal, 12/3/2005] Most accounts have the first version of Able Danger in early 2000 being the version that identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers. However, according to Rep. Curt Weldon (R), a Raytheon employee named Bob Johnson will later claim that Atta is independently identified by this second version of Able Danger as well (see November 11, 2005).

Entity Tags: Able Danger, Land Information Warfare Activity

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Able Danger, Key Warnings, Warning Signs

After 9/11 it will be claimed that a suspicious activity report was filed about one of the money transfers made to the hijackers. The report is sometimes associated with a transfer of around $70,000 made from the United Arab Emirates to the joint SunTrust Bank account of Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta. This transaction is one of several transfers totaling about $100,000 that are made to Alshehhi and Atta in 2000 (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). [Washington Post, 10/7/2001; Financial Times, 11/29/2001; Law and Policy in International Business, 9/2002] The claim will also be made in a UN report, but will be denied by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The FinCEN will state no report was filed before 9/11 “on terrorist Mohamed Atta.” However, the transfer was allegedly made to a joint account of which Alshehhi was the primary holder. [Associated Press, 5/24/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 528] If filed, it is not clear what impact such report would have, as Law and Policy in International Business comments, “most of these reports are stashed away in basements and remain unread by overworked and under-resourced government employees.” [Law and Policy in International Business, 9/2002] In addition, the Wall Street Journal will comment that the bank that handled Atta’s “transaction was sufficiently suspicious that some crime was involved that it alerted authorities last year… But the first time [FinCEN], which is the chief reviewer of [SARs], became aware of the document in its own file was after Mr. Atta is believed to have flown a plane into the side of the World Trade Center… James Sloan, director of FinCEN, declined comment on the report filed about Mr. Atta, citing legal constraints.” [Wall Street Journal, 10/10/2001] United Arab Emirates Central Bank governor Sultan Nasser al-Suwaidi will also claim that the $70,000 transfer was reported to US officials, but will apparently later back away from this statement in discussions with the FBI. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 135 ]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Sultan Nasser al-Suwaidi, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

Jones Aviation [Source: Jones Aviation] (click image to enlarge)Having attended Huffman Aviation flight school in Venice, Florida since early July, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi move to Jones Aviation in Sarasota, about 20 miles north of Venice, to continue their training. However, their instructor finds them rude and aggressive, and claims they sometimes fight with him to take over the controls of the training plane. The instructor later says that when he talks to Atta, “he could not look you in the eye. His attention span was very short.… [T]hey didn’t live up to our standards.” Atta and Alshehhi each complete about 20 hours of flying time in single-engine planes, but early in October fail their Stage I exam for instruments rating. Gary Jones, the vice president of the school, later states, “We told them we wouldn’t teach them anymore. We told them, one, they couldn’t speak English and, two, they had bad attitudes. They wouldn’t listen to what the instructors had to instruct.” The two then return to Huffman Aviation to continue their training. [Chicago Tribune, 9/16/2001; Washington Post, 9/19/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224]

Entity Tags: Jones Aviation, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court implements new rules requiring any FBI employee who sees FISA-obtained materials or other FISA-derived intelligence to sign a certification acknowledging that the court’s approval is needed before the information is disseminated to criminal investigators. This comes after the FISA Court was informed that approximately 100 FISA applications submitted by the FBI had misrepresented how criminal and intelligence agents were working together in the Catcher’s Mitt program (see Summer 2000-September 11, 2001 and Summer-October 2000). The new rules also require that the CIA and NSA place a caveat on all FISA-derived intelligence sent to the bureau. In an effort to speed up inter-agency reporting, the NSA will reportedly go a step further, placing caveats on all information it sends to the FBI. The caveats warn that the information being sent might be FISA-derived and that an intelligence agent wishing to pass it to a criminal agent must first obtain assurance from the NSA that the intelligence is not FISA-derived. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 37-38 ]

Entity Tags: National Security Agency, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Remote Surveillance, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Raed Hijazi. [Source: Associated Press]Raed Hijazi participated in a failed attempt to bomb a hotel in Jordan at the start of the millennium (see November 30, 1999) and helped plan the USS Cole bombing in early October 2000 (see October 12, 2000). Hijazi knew Nabil al-Marabh in Boston, where they were roommates and drove taxis for the same company. In May 1999, the FBI had already approached al-Marabh looking for Hijazi, but al-Marabh will later claim he lied and said he did not know him. [Washington Post, 9/4/2002] Hijazi is arrested in Syria this month and imprisoned in Jordan, where he has just been convicted for his failed bomb attempt there. He quickly begins to cooperate with investigators, identifies himself as an al-Qaeda operative, and also identifies al-Marabh as an al-Qaeda operative still living in the US. Customs agents soon discover that al-Marabh had on at least one occasion wired money to Hijazi that was used to fund the failed millennium plot. These agents will eventually learn that al-Marabh repeatedly sent money overseas to Hijazi. Ahmed Ressam, arrested in late 1999 for attempting to bomb the Los Angeles airport, helps confirm the connection between al-Marabh and Hijazi. Ressam will start cooperating with US investigators in early 2001, but it is not clear if he gave this information before 9/11 or just after it. [New York Times, 9/18/2001; New York Times, 10/14/2001; New York Times, 10/14/2001; Toronto Sun, 11/16/2001; ABC News 7 (Chicago), 1/31/2002] Yet, the New York Times will note, “For months after the CIA learned of his ties to the bin Laden network, Mr. Marabh moved about unfettered—traveling around the [US], moving large amounts of money, getting duplicate driver’s licenses, and forging immigration documents.” [New York Times, 10/14/2001]

Entity Tags: Raed Hijazi, Nabil al-Marabh, US Customs Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jordan

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Millennium Bomb Plots, Nabil Al-Marabh

Able Danger member Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer meets with the DIA deputy director and offers him a computer disc with information about al-Qaeda (including Mohamed Atta), but the DIA official declines to accept the disc. [Sacramento Bee, 11/24/2005]

Entity Tags: Anthony Shaffer, Al-Qaeda, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Able Danger

Faiz abu Baker Bafana, an operative of al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, receives an Arab visitor and they discuss attacks on US interests in Singapore. Bafana knows the Arab as “Bandar,” but this is not his real name and it appears that “Bandar” is an alias for 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar. Almihdhar again stays in Yazid Sufaat’s apartment and travels to Afghanistan after the meeting. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006] The apartment is also used by Zacarias Moussaoui at around the same time (see September-October 2000), and Almihdhar and several other al-Qaeda commanders had used it for a summit at the start of the year (see January 5-8, 2000). Malaysian intelligence had been monitoring the apartment and passing the results on to the US, but the CIA did not ask for the surveillance to continue and it ended, apparently before this visit. Malaysian Legal Affairs minister Rais Yatim will express puzzlement over the CIA’s lack of interest in the apartment: “We couldn’t fathom it, really. There was no show of concern.” [Newsweek, 6/2/2002] Almihdhar will return to Malaysia to continue the planning for the Singapore attack in the middle of 2001 (see June 2001).

Entity Tags: Jemaah Islamiyah, Faiz abu Baker Bafana, Khalid Almihdhar, Yazid Sufaat

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar

In a January 2002 letter to Swiss authorities, a senior Treasury Department official will claim that the Al Taqwa Bank in Switzerland had set up a highly secretive line of credit for al-Qaeda, and that it is still in use in October 2000. (Apparently its status is unknown after this time.) It states that Al Taqwa “appeared to be providing a clandestine line of credit for a close associate of bin Laden.… This bin Laden lieutenant had a line of credit with a Middle East financial institution that drew on an identical account number at Bank Al Taqwa. Unlike other accounts—even accounts of private banking customers—this account was blocked by the computer system and special privileges were required to access it.” The letter calls the circumstances surrounding the account “highly unusual” and suggests that they were created “to conceal the association of the bin Laden organization with Bank Al Taqwa.” Another document reveals that the account was originally set up for Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim, an al-Qaeda leader who was arrested in Germany in late 1998 (see September 20, 1998). It is believed that other al-Qaeda figures continued to access the account after Salim’s arrest. [US Department of the Treasury, 8/29/2002; Newsweek, 4/12/2004] The US will declare Al Taqwa Bank a terrorist financier in November 2001 (see November 7, 2001).

Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, US Department of the Treasury, Al Taqwa Bank, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim

Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Al Taqwa Bank

Bin Laden has personally approves an al-Qaeda plan to hijack a US airplane. A French intelligence report in January 2001 will describe an al-Qaeda plot to hijack aircraft, possibly one flying from Frankfurt to the US (see January 5, 2001). The report notes that, “In October 2000 bin Laden attended a meeting in Afghanistan at which the decision to mount this action was upheld.” [Le Monde (Paris), 4/17/2007] At the meeting, bin Laden also decides that his next action against the US will involve a hijacking. However, there is still disagreement among al-Qaeda leaders over how the plot would work. [Agence France-Presse, 4/16/2007] The French report also claims that in early 2000, bin Laden met with Chechen rebels, the Taliban, and other al-Qaeda leaders to begin planning this hijacking (see Early 2000). The Chechens are likely connected to Chechen leader Ibn Khattab, who has a long history of collaboration with bin Laden (see 1986-March 19, 2002) and is said to be planning an attack against the US with him around this time (see Before April 13, 2001). The French will apparently pass all this information to the CIA in early 2001 (see January 5, 2001).

Entity Tags: Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Ibn Khattab

Category Tags: Warning Signs

9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshhehi and another man, apparently hijacker Mohamed Atta, stop in Jacksonville, Florida. They land at an airfield in a small plane, and Alshehhi purchases about 11 liters of fuel with a credit card belonging to Huffman Aviation, a flight school he studies at around this time. Alshehhi leaves the airport in a courtesy car and then comes back in “an hour or two.” When this story is first reported in late 2004, the FBI will not say why Atta and Alshehhi landed here or where they went, although another of the hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, will stay in Jacksonville twice in 2001 (see January 22-26, 2001 and February 25-March 4, 2001). In 2004, Florida Senator Bill Nelson (D) will say that the hijackers’ time in Jacksonville never came up during the 9/11 Commission hearings, adding: “I want to know… why didn’t the September 11 Commission know about this. [The Commission] was given carte blanche authority to get any piece of intelligence to put together this jigsaw puzzle.” [First Coast News, 11/10/2004]

Entity Tags: William Nelson, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

Parlindungan Siregar. [Source: El Pais]Parlindungan Siregar, an Indonesian, has been studying in Spain since 1987, and has begun working with Barakat Yarkas, head of the al-Qaeda cell in Madrid. In October 2000, he returns to Indonesia, but remains in constant phone contact with Yarkas. Spanish intelligence has been monitoring Yarkas’s phone calls for years (see 1995 and After). Linking with Indonesian militants, Siregar begins organizing an al-Qaeda training camp near the town of Poso, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. [Conboy, 2003, pp. 224-225] Soon thereafter, Madrid cell member Yusuf Galan is monitored as he receives e-mails from Siregar assessing the situation in Indonesia. For instance, one e-mail says, “You can do many things here. With only five million pesetas ($50,000 dollars), we can buy an island of 200 hectares that would be very useful. But our main need now is the weapons. Remember that everything we do should approach toward jihad.” [El Pais, 7/15/2007] In May 2001, Yarkas travels to Indonesia to assess the new camp, called Camp Mujahidin. By the time he arrives, there already are some recruits being trained, including an Australian citizen. Impressed, Yarkas returns to Spain and makes arrangements for al-Qaeda to properly fund the camp. Galan brings the money to Siregar at the camp in July 2001. However, the Spanish government does not share any of what it learned with the Indonesian government until November 2001, when the allegations are made public as part of some Spanish indictments (see November 13, 2001). But the camp is shut down shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and by November, Siregar and other operatives cannot be found. [Conboy, 2003, pp. 224-225] Siregar will later be linked to the 2002 Bali bombings (see October 12, 2002). In 2007, it will be reported that he is one of the most wanted al-Qaeda figures world-wide and on many wanted lists. [El Pais, 7/15/2007]

Entity Tags: Parlindungan Siregar, Barakat Yarkas, Al-Qaeda, Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, Yusuf Galan

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2002 Bali Bombings, Remote Surveillance

In October 2000, Congress authorizes a new unit within the Treasury Department called the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center. Its task is to blend the expertise of the Treasury Department, CIA, FBI, and NSA in tracking and disrupting the finances of US-designated terrorist groups. Similar efforts had been tried twice before and fizzled out (see October 21, 1995; Late 1998). However, the unit is still getting organized at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Spurred by the attacks, the unit gets up and running on September 14, 2001. A Treasury spokesperson cites the logistical difficulties of bringing together representatives from different agencies in explaining the delay. [Los Angeles Times, 10/15/2001]

Entity Tags: US Congress, Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of the Treasury

Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Mohammed Belfas, mentor of lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and a former roommate of his associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Belfas’ companion Agus Budiman travel to the US. Belfas, who led an Islamic study group that Atta attended in Hamburg (see 1999) and also worked in a computer warehouse with Atta, bin al-Shibh, and Marwan Alshehhi, obtains an ID card in the same fraudulent way as the 9/11 hijackers later will. After 9/11, investigators will suspect the trip was related to the attacks, as Belfas and Budiman meet a bin Laden associate in the US (see October-November 2000). Belfas and Budiman stay with Budiman’s brother, who lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC, and Budiman takes a job as a night driver for a restaurant delivery service. Belfas often accompanies him to work and offers to help drive the delivery car if Budiman helps him get a US driver’s license, which he does not need to drive the delivery route, but merely claims to want as a souvenir. On November 4 they go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and Belfas gets a Virginia ID card, after Budiman affirms he lives in Arlington. Two days later Belfas uses the ID card to get a Virginia driver’s license. He returns to Germany soon after and has an alleged chance meeting on a train with bin al-Shibh, whom he tells about the trip and the driver’s license. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 57-8] Several of the 9/11 hijackers will fraudulently obtain Virginia IDs in 2001 (see August 1-2, 2001). Bin al-Shibh will also explain his and Atta’s travel to Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda to another chance meeting on a train. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 165]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Agus Budiman, Mohammed bin Nasser Belfas

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Germany

Agus Budiman. [Source: Der Spiegel]Mohammed bin Nasser Belfas and Agus Budiman, two Muslims living in Hamburg, Germany, travel to the US where they stay for two months. During this period, they meet with Abdurahman Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim activist whom the US has linked to Osama bin Laden. [Newsweek, 10/1/2003] In 1994, the FBI learned that bin Laden sent Alamoudi money, which he then passed on to Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, known as the “blind sheikh” (see Shortly After March 1994). [MSNBC, 10/23/2003] Belfas will later say the purpose behind their meetings with Alamoudi was to request some favors. For instance, at Belfas’s request, Alamoudi writes a letter of recommendation for him. But after 9/11, investigators will suspect that the two were part of the Hamburg cell and that their trip to the US was related to the 9/11 attacks, for both Belfas and Budiman have connections to Mohamed Atta and other al-Qaeda operatives. [Newsweek, 10/1/2003] In 1998, Belfas shared an apartment with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, led a prayer group attended by Atta and others (see 1999), and worked in a computer warehouse packing boxes with Atta, bin al-Shibh, and Marwan Alshehhi. [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002]

Entity Tags: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mohammed bin Nasser Belfas, Marwan Alshehhi, Agus Budiman, Abdurahman Alamoudi, Mohamed Atta

Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Germany, Terrorism Financing

Zacarias Moussaoui had been staying in Malaysia so that he could take flight training classes at the Malaysian Flying Academy in Malacca. However, he is unhappy with the quality of training there. He takes the $35,000 given to him by his hosts, Yazid Sufaat and Hambali, and spends it to buy fertilizer to construct bombs. Then he gives up and travels to London in early December (see Mid-2000-December 9, 2000), where he meets with Ramzi bin al-Shibh (who stays in London from December 2 to 9). Hambali sends a messenger to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Afghanistan to complain about Moussaoui’s attitude. On December 9, Moussaoui leaves London. He makes his way to Afghanistan and meets with Mohammed. Mohammed decides to send him to take flight training classes in the US instead. He is given $35,000 in cash to pay for flying lessons by someone in Pakistan. After he enters the US in February, bin al-Shibh wires him another $14,000 from Germany. [Knight Ridder, 9/9/2002; Washington Post, 3/28/2003; US Congress, 7/24/2003 ]

Entity Tags: Hambali, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Yazid Sufaat, Zacarias Moussaoui

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Hambali, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

Anne Greaves. [Source: History Channel]While they attend Huffman Aviation flying school in Venice, Florida, hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi use the same training airplane as Anne Greaves, a 56-year-old former osteopath from England. Later interviewed for Australian television, Greaves says she saw Atta and Alshehhi on an almost daily basis over roughly six weeks, although earlier reports claim she attended the school with them for as long as six months. [BBC, 9/24/2001; Daily Telegraph, 9/25/2001; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/18/2001] Her instructor tells her that Atta is an Arab prince and Alshehhi is his bodyguard. [Associated Press, 9/24/2001] Yet Rudi Dekkers, the school’s owner, later claims the two only said they were cousins from Germany. [USA Today, 9/13/2001] (Atta and Alshehhi are in fact unrelated. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 160-162] ) Greaves says, “I was really a little bit jealous in that they were always given preference with one of the Warriors which was a much newer, much neater aircraft,” and comments that for Atta “to have progressed as rapidly as he seemed to have done at Huffman he must have had flying skills before he came to Huffman Aviation.” (This fits with claims made by Rudi Dekkers, that Atta already had a private pilot’s license when he first arrived at the school (see July 6-December 19, 2000).) However, though the pair always flies together, she says, “I never saw Alshehhi take the controls of the aircraft. It was always Mohamed Atta.” [Associated Press, 9/24/2001; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/18/2001; US Congress, 3/19/2002] Whereas Alshehhi dresses casually, Greaves sees Atta “always very formally dressed… always neatly pressed trousers of a wool type. A shirt and a waistcoat to match the trousers.” This is in spite of the “extremely hot” weather. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/18/2001] She says Atta never shows any emotion and appears hypnotized. [BBC, 9/24/2001; Associated Press, 9/24/2001] The only time she sees him and Alshehhi show any enthusiasm is around the “middle end of October” or “possibly early in November,” when they have been busy on the Internet in the school’s computer room. She sees them “hugging each other with joy and almost dancing in the room.” Several reports later speculate that this celebrating is in response to the al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen (see October 12, 2000), though Greaves is unsure. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/18/2001; BBC, 12/12/2001; PBS, 1/17/2002] She later says, “I couldn’t help but be suspicious as to why [Atta] was there [at Huffman]. There was no love of flying in him.” Although she never considers terrorism, she thinks at the time that there is “an ulterior motive, maybe drug smuggling.” After the 9/11 attacks, due to her suspicion of the pair, she will contact the FBI with her concerns before the names of the suspected hijackers are made public. [Daily Telegraph, 9/25/2001; BBC, 12/12/2001; Guardian, 7/5/2002]

Entity Tags: Huffman Aviation, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Anne Greaves

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

The book Study of Revenge. [Source: Public domain]Laurie Mylroie, a researcher who held faculty positions at Harvard and the US Naval War College, publishes the book Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America. She argues that the Iraqi government was behind the 1993 WTC bombing. The book is published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a prominent neoconservative think tank, and her book has strong support from many important neoconservatives.
Lauded by Neoconservatives - Richard Perle calls the book “splendid and wholly convincing,” while Paul Wolfowitz calls it a “provocative and disturbing book.” Former CIA Director James Woolsey says, “Anyone who wishes to continue to deal with Saddam [Hussein] by ignoring his role in international terrorism…and by giving only office furniture to the Iraqi resistance now has the staggering task of trying to refute this superb work.” In her acknowledgements, she thanks John Bolton, I. Lewis Libby, and Wolfowitz for their support and help in writing the book. All of them will go on to take prominent positions in the Bush administration.
Mylroie's Theories Discredited - But war correspondent and terrorism expert Peter Bergen will later comment, “Mylroie became enamored of her theory that Saddam was the mastermind of a vast anti-US terrorist conspiracy in the face of virtually all evidence and expert opinion to the contrary. In what amounts to the discovery of a unified field theory of terrorism, Mylroie believes that Saddam was not only behind the ‘93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade…” Bergen will continue, “[B]y the mid-‘90s, the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, the FBI, the US Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, the CIA, the NSC, and the State Department had all found no evidence implicating the Iraqi government in the first Trade Center attack.” Bergen will comment that normally a book like this would not have mattered, except that the neoconservatives “believed her theories, bringing her on as a consultant at the Pentagon, and they seem to continue to entertain her eccentric belief that Saddam is the fount of the entire shadow war against America.” [Washington Monthly, 12/2003; Unger, 2007, pp. 216]
No Credible Evidence of Iraqi Involvement in WTC Bombing - The book will be used as a lodestar of neoconservative thought when terrorists launch the 9/11 attacks, when neoconservatives inside and outside the Bush administration will pin the blame for the attacks on Iraq (see September 13, 2001). [Unger, 2007, pp. 216] In 2004, the 9/11 Commission will conclude, “We have found no credible evidence to support theories of Iraqi government involvement in the 1993 WTC bombing.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 559]

Entity Tags: Paul Wolfowitz, Peter Bergen, Richard Perle, Saddam Hussein, Laurie Mylroie, John R. Bolton, American Enterprise Institute, 9/11 Commission, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, James Woolsey

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: 1993 WTC Bombing, Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

According to US visa application forms later published in the National Review, 9/11 hijackers Waleed and Wail Alshehri are both issued with new passports on this day. [US Department of State, 10/24/2000; US Department of State, 10/24/2000] The Alshehris, who are brothers, have a family member in the Saudi passport office, and he provides them with the documents. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 525] However, the 9/11 Commission will be unable to determine whether the family member issues the passports legitimately or illegitimately. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 33 ] Apparently, the Alshehris are quite well-connected; several of their brothers work for the Saudi armed forces (a large airbase is a major employer in the region where they grew up), and their uncle is a major in the kingdom’s army and a director of logistics. [Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2002] Three weeks later they will use the passports to obtain tourist visas to the US (see October 24, 2000).

Entity Tags: Wail Alshehri, Waleed M. Alshehri

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Saudi Arabia

During the vice presidential debates, both Joseph Lieberman and Dick Cheney advocate a tough stance toward Saddam Hussein. Lieberman says he and Gore would continue to support Iraqi opposition groups “until the Iraqi people rise up and do what the people of Serbia have done in the last few days: get rid of a despot.” Cheney says it might be necessary “to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power.” [CATO Daily Dispatch, 10/6/2000]

Entity Tags: Joseph Lieberman, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

Hamza Alghamdi. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division]Future 9/11 hijacker Hamza Alghamdi flies from Iran to Kuwait on October 8, travels to Qatar the next day, and enters Saudi Arabia on October 13. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 32-33 ] According to the 9/11 Commission, he is accompanied on the flight from Iran to Kuwait by fellow hijacker Mohand Alshehri. The 9/11 Commission will mention this flight in a section of its final report suggesting co-operation on travel between Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda—Iran may have helped al-Qaeda by allowing operatives to transit Iran on their way to and from Afghanistan without stamping their passports (see After October 12, 2000). According to a detainee who may have been tortured, Alghamdi was in Afghanistan in the summer of 2000 (see Summer 2000); according to militant leader Luai Sakra, he was in Turkey at around this time (see Late 1999-2000), so it is unclear where Alghamdi and Alshehri are coming from. In any case, there are no direct links between this flight and actions by Iranian operatives, although the commission will note in this context that a senior Hezbollah operative visited Saudi Arabia around this time, and planned to help people in Saudi Arabia travel to Iran. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 240] The 9/11 Commission’s statement that the hijackers took this flight will be based on intelligence reports from the NSA, mostly drafted shortly after 9/11. Another source for the paragraph that mentions this flight will be “operative’s claimed identification of photos of two Sept. 11 hijackers,” dated August 2002, although it will not be clear if this applies to this trip by Alghamdi and Alshehri. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 529; Shenon, 2008, pp. 370-3]

Entity Tags: Hamza Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Other Government-Militant Collusion

Global Objectives, a British banking compliance company, identifies fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers as high-risk people and establishes profiles for them. The hijackers are regarded as high-risk for loans because they are linked to Osama bin Laden, suspected terrorists, or associates of terrorists. The list of high-risk people maintained by Global Objectives is available to dozens of banks and the hijackers’ files contain their dates and places of birth, aliases, and associates. It is unclear which fifteen hijackers are considered high-risk. It is also unknown if any Western intelligence agencies access this database before 9/11. [Associated Press, 2/21/2002] According to the 9/11 Commission, US intelligence is only aware of three of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi, and Khalid Almihdhar, before the attacks. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 181-2] However, media reports will suggest US intelligence agencies may have been aware of another six: Ziad Jarrah (see January 30, 2000); Marwan Alshhehi (see March 1999 and January-February 2000); Mohamed Atta (see January-May 2000 and January-February 2000); and Ahmed Alghamdi, Satam al Suqami, and Hamza Alghamdi (see September 2000 and Spring 2001).

Entity Tags: Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Wail Alshehri, Waleed M. Alshehri, Ziad Jarrah, Abdulaziz Alomari, Salem Alhazmi, Saeed Alghamdi, Satam Al Suqami, Mohand Alshehri, Nawaf Alhazmi, Hamza Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Almihdhar, Ahmed Alghamdi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Warnings, Warning Signs, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

Special Operations Command official Christopher Chope will later claim that in early October 2000, “one of the intelligence analysts assigned to the Able Danger effort began to get what he calls gut feel that things were going awry in Yemen; he didn’t have any hard intelligence. He asked then Commander Scott Philpott if that could be briefed at a high level briefing.” The briefing takes place on this day during a VIP visit to Garland, Texas, where the Able Danger program is based in late 2000 (see Late September 2000). [US Congress, 2/15/2006] Rep. Curt Weldon (R) will later describe the warning in more serious terms than Chope, saying, “They saw information that led them to unequivocally understand that something was going to happen in the port at Yemen involving an American entity. Two days before the attack, they were jumping up and down because they knew something was going to happen… at the port of Aden.” [Hearst Newspapers, 11/10/2005] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer will also later describe the warning in serious terms, claiming that the Able Danger team he was on determined that Yemen was one of the three most dangerous locations for al-Qaeda activity in the world (see Late September 2000). According to Shaffer, Gen. Pete Schoomaker, commander of Special Operations Command, attends the briefing. Shaffer says that “Philpott requested they do something with it, they take action on it,” but apparently the warning does not reach the military commanders in Yemen before the USS Cole is bombed in Yemen two days later. Rep. Curt Weldon (R) will later say that the commander of the Cole told him in an interview that he “had three options on that day. He could have refueled the ship at sea. He had two other harbors. If he would have had any indication that there was a problem with Aden in Yemen, he would not have gone there. He was never given that information.” [US Congress, 2/15/2006]

Entity Tags: Scott Phillpott, Curt Weldon, Anthony Shaffer, Able Danger, Christopher Chope, Peter J. Schoomaker

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Able Danger

Said Berraj. [Source: Spanish Interior Ministry]Five suspected al-Qaeda operatives, Said Berraj, Amer el-Azizi, Mohamed Haddad, Lahcen Ikassrien, and Salahedin Benyaich, are arrested in Turkey. They are arrested two weeks after arriving in Turkey, apparently for failing to produce identification papers. They are later released, but the reason for releasing them is unknown. Turkey is a transit center and logistics base for al-Qaeda (see November 1996-September 1998 and Mid-1996) and el-Azizi is said to operate there, as well as in Iran and, possibly, Iraq. Berraj, Haddad, and el-Azizi will later be involved in an attack in Madrid, Spain, that kills nearly 200 people (see Before March 11, 2004 and 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004) and Benyaich will later be jailed in Morocco on terrorism charges following a bombing in Casablanca (see May 16, 2003). El-Azizi will also apparently be involved in setting up a meeting where details of the 9/11 plot are finalized (see Before July 8, 2001). [Los Angeles Times, 4/14/2004; New York Times, 4/29/2004; New York Times, 4/30/2004; El Mundo (Madrid), 9/14/2004] Ikassrien will be arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001 and sent to the Guantanamo prison. He will be released back to Spain in 2005, charged for al-Qaeda links, an acquitted. [Associated Press, 10/11/2006]
Possible Informants - Berraj is an informant for Spanish intelligence, regularly meeting with intelligence agents in 2003. It is unknown when he begins informing (see Shortly Before March 11, 2004). Haddad will not be arrested in Morocco after the 2004 train bombings despite strong evidence he was directly involved, leading to suspicions that he has been a government informant (see Shortly After March 18, 2004). El-Azizi also will be suspected of being a government informant because he is tipped off by Spanish intelligence about a police raid (see Shortly After November 21, 2001). He is also arrested in Turkey for passport forgery at one point, and then let go, although it is not clear when. [Wall Street Journal, 3/19/2004] Turkish intelligence is aware of extremists’ use of Turkey as a base (see 1996), but it is unclear whether this is related to the arrest of the three men. El-Azizi will repeatedly evade arrest in Spain after 9/11, apparently with the help of Spanish intelligence (see October 2001 and Shortly After November 21, 2001).

Entity Tags: Lahcen Ikassrien, Said Berraj, Salahedin Benyaich, Mohamed Haddad, Amer el-Azizi

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda in Spain, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings

Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush describes a Middle East foreign policy he would implement that is very different from the policy described in the papers that his advisers have drawn up. On this day, Bush takes part in the second presidential debate with Democratic candidate Al Gore. The topic is foreign policy. Questioned when it would be appropriate to use American military force, especially with regard to the Middle East, Bush responds, “Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power. And that’s why we’ve got to be humble and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom… If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll view us that way, but if we’re a humble nation, they’ll respect us.” Bush dismisses toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq because it smacks of what he calls “nation-building.” He criticizes the Clinton administration for not maintaining the multilateral anti-Iraq coalition Bush Sr. had built in the Gulf War. Author Craig Unger will later comment, “To the tens of millions of voters who had their eyes trained on their televisions, Bush had put forth a moderate foreign policy with regard to the Middle East that was not substantively different from the policy proposed by Al Gore, or, for that matter, from Bill Clinton’s. Only a few people who had read the papers put forth by the Project for a New American Century might have guessed a far more radical policy had been developed.” [Salon, 3/15/2004] Just one month before, the Project for a New American Century released a position paper that went completely unnoticed by the media at the time (see September 2000). Many future Bush administration officials, including Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz are involved with the paper. It articulates a bold new policy to establish a more forceful US military presence in the Middle East. Regarding Iraq, it states, “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” [Salon, 3/15/2004] From Bush’s first cabinet meeting in January 2001, the focus will be on getting rid of Hussein. Secretary of Treasury Paul O’Neill will later recall, “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go… From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime. Day one, these things were laid and sealed” (see January 30, 2001). Cheney similarly misstates his true foreign policy intentions. In an NBC interview during the 2000 presidential campaign, Cheney defends Bush’s position of maintaining Clinton’s policy not to attack Iraq, asserting that the US should not act as though “we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.” [Washington Post, 1/12/2002]

Entity Tags: Al Gore, Project for the New American Century, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush

Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, US Dominance

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an al-Qaeda leader involved in the attack on the USS Cole, is said to meet two associates, Ahmed al-Hada and al-Hada’s nephew Ramzi bin al-Shibh, in Yemen. [Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002; Newsweek, 12/2/2002] Al-Hada, an operative who runs a communications hub for Osama bin Laden, has been under surveillance since 1998, at least (see August 4-25, 1998). The surveillance of al-Hada is reportedly so important that his house is monitored by spy satellites, to visually identify everyone coming and going (see Late August 1998), although it is unclear where the meeting with al-Nashiri takes place. The exact timing of this meeting and that with bin al-Shibh is not known, although bin al-Shibh makes a trip to Yemen a month before the bombing (see Around September 15-16 and October 10-21, 2000). [Newsweek, 12/2/2002] Bin al-Shibh is repeatedly denied a US visa. Although the earlier applications are denied on the grounds he may stay in the US, it will later be suggested that his presumed role in the Cole bombing may have influenced one or more later denials (see May 17, 2000-May 2001).

Entity Tags: Ahmed al-Hada, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Yemen Hub

The NSA issues a top-secret intelligence report warning that terrorists are planning an attack in the Middle East, but the warning is not distributed until several hours after the USS Cole is bombed in Yemen (see October 12, 2000). The warning says that terrorists are involved in the “operational planning” for an attack on US or Israeli targets in the Middle East. It says that members of a group have been tracked to planning activities in Dubai and Beirut, but the names of the operatives and the group remain classified. According to one official, the warning specifies an attack in Yemen, but other officials say it covers the Middle East in general. Typically, the NSA requires one to two days to gather and distribute such highly classified reports. The warning is not reported on the US intelligence community’s worldwide computer network called Intellink. NSA reports often are sent out to a smaller network due to their high classification. [Washington Times, 10/25/2000]

Entity Tags: National Security Agency

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing

Fahad al-Quso. [Source: Khaled Fazaa/AFP/Getty Images]Al-Qaeda operative Fahad al-Quso is supposed to video the attack on the USS Cole that occurs on this day (see October 12, 2000). However, al-Quso sleeps through his alarm and is not able to set his camera up in time. The bombers call him repeatedly on his cell phone until seconds before the crash, but he is in a taxi when the explosion occurs. He immediately goes into hiding and the camera is later found at his sister’s house. Osama bin Laden had specifically asked that the attack be videoed and had allocated funds for this purpose. The CIA will later trace $5,000 sent by bin Laden to the bombers’ cell in Yemen. [Miniter, 2003, pp. 217, 229; New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ]

Entity Tags: Fahad al-Quso

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing

Damage to the USS Cole, shown in dry dock. [Source: US Navy]9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar is in Yemen when the USS Cole is attacked in Aden harbor there (see October 12, 2000), and is reported to have had a role in the bombing. Almihdhar leaves shortly after the attack, together with al-Qaeda operative Khallad bin Attash. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 209] Bin Attash is quickly identified as one of the masterminds of the operation (see Late October-Late November 2000). Almihdhar will subsequently be accused of participating in the operation by the prime ministers of Yemen and Britain (see Early October 2001 and October 4, 2001). The Yemeni militant group Islamic Army of Aden takes credit for the bombing, and a friend of Almihdhar in San Diego will later say that Almihdhar told him he was a member of that group (see ). The Cole attack was a repeat of a failed attempt to bomb the USS The Sullivans (see January 3, 2000), of which Almihdhar had foreknowledge (see Late 1999). Almihdhar, who trained with the Cole bombers (see Late 1999) and attended an apparent planning session for the operation (see January 5-8, 2000), may also be involved in a later ship-bombing operation in Singapore (see June 2001). Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a close associate of the hijackers, also leaves Yemen around this time and is also suspected of involvement in the bombing (see Around September 15-16 and October 10-21, 2000).

Entity Tags: Tawfiq bin Attash, Khalid Almihdhar, Islamic Army of Aden

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar

Damage to the USS Cole. [Source: Department of Defense]The USS Cole is bombed in the Aden, Yemen harbor by two al-Qaeda militants, Hassan al-Khamri and Ibrahim al-Thawar (a.k.a. Nibras). Seventeen US soldiers are killed and 30 are wounded. The CIA will later conclude that with just slightly more skilled execution, the attack would have killed 300 and sunk the ship. [ABC News, 10/13/2000; Coll, 2004, pp. 532; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 191] The Islamic Army of Aden (IAA) immediately takes credit for the attack. This is a Yemen-based Muslim militant group widely believed to have close ties to al-Qaeda (see 1996-1997 and After). [Guardian, 10/14/2000] The IAA statement is released by its spokesman, Abu Hamza al-Masri (see Early 1997, (June 1998), and December 28, 1998 and After). Abu Hamza says that the attack was timed to mark the anniversary of the execution of the IAA’s former commander (see October 17, 1999). [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 184] The prime minister of Yemen at the time of the bombing will say shortly after 9/11, “The Islamic Army was part of al-Qaeda.” [Guardian, 10/13/2001] The US soon learns the names of some al-Qaeda operatives involved in the attack, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Tawfiq bin Attash and Fahad al-Quso (see Early December 2000), and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (see November-December 2000). 9/11 hijackers Ramzi bin al-Shibh (see Around September 15-16 and October 10-21, 2000) and Khalid Almihdhar (see Around October 12, 2000) may also have been involved. This is a repeat of a previously attempted attack, against the USS The Sullivans, which failed and was apparently undetected (see January 3, 2000). [Los Angeles Times, 12/22/2002] The 9/11 Commission will later say the Cole bombing “was a full-fledged al-Qaeda operation, supervised directly by bin Laden. He chose the target and location of the attack, selected the suicide operatives, and provided the money needed to purchase explosives and equipment.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 190]

Entity Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Tawfiq bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Islamic Army of Aden, USS Cole, Osama bin Laden, Ibrahim al-Thawar, Khalid Almihdhar, Fahad al-Quso, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Hassan al-Khamri, Al-Qaeda

Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Hunt for Bin Laden, Pipeline Politics, 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Yemeni Militant Collusion, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks

Hours after the USS Cole is bombed (see October 12, 2000), presidential candidate Governor George W. Bush is asked about the bombing. He replies, “Today, we lost sailors because of what looks like to be a terrorist attack. Terror is the enemy. Uncertainty is what the world is going to be about, and the next president must be able to address uncertainty. And that’s why I want our nation to develop an antiballistic missile system that will have the capacity to bring certainty into this uncertain world.” Author Craig Unger comments, “Bush’s proposal of an antiballistic missile system suggests that he failed to understand that al-Qaeda’s terrorism was fundamentally different from conventional warfare.” [Unger, 2004, pp. 107, 479] Bush will make similar comments on other occasions, causing the 9/11 Commission to later note, “Public references by candidate and then President Bush about terrorism before 9/11 tended to reflect [his] priorities, focusing on state-sponsored terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction] as a reason to mount a missile defense.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 509]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, 9/11 Commission, Craig Unger

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

In a Friday sermon one day after the USS Cole was bombed with the loss of 17 lives (see October 12, 2000), leading radical imam and British intelligence informer (see Early 1997) Abu Hamza al-Masri encourages his followers to wage a global jihad (holy war). The sermon is nominally about the Palestinian intifada, which is in the headlines at this time, but Abu Hamza does not confine himself to this topic.
'If It Is Killing, Do It' - He says: “You must increase your action, you must increase your jihad, because when you wake up you wake the scholars up and when you and the scholars are woken up the tyrants are shaking… It’s time for you and me and everybody to sacrifice, it’s a time to prove that we are not here in the West just for the honey pot, just to take and not to give anything.” He adds: “My dear brothers, if you can go [on jihad] then go. If you can’t go, sponsor. If you can’t sponsor, speak. If you can’t do all of this, do all of that. If you can send your children, send them, you must help, you must have a stand. You must have a stand with your heart, with your tongue, with your money, with your sword, with your Kalashnikov, anything you think will help… don’t ask ‘Shall I do this, shall I do that?’ Just do it. Anything that will help the intifada, just do it. If it is killing, do it. If it is paying, pay, if it is ambushing, ambush, if it is poisoning, poison.”
'They Are All Kuffar' - Authors Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory will comment: “Stop, rewind a second, and listen again. Abu Hamza was not just talking Palestine or the old jihad battlefields of the past. This was eleven months before the World Trade Center would be demolished and three thousand people killed in the worst terrorist atrocity the world had ever seen, and here was one of al-Qaeda’s most potent mouthpieces telling a congregation at Friday prayers in London to help their oppressed brothers, ‘in any way you like and anywhere you like. They are all kuffar [non-believers], and can all be killed. Killing a kuffar who is fighting you is OK. Killing a kuffar for any reason, you can say it is OK, even if there is no reason for it.’” [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 55-57]

Entity Tags: Abu Hamza al-Masri, Daniel McGrory, Sean O’Neill

Category Tags: Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

Under interrogation following his capture, al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash will say that after the bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000), Iran makes a concerted effort to strengthen relations with al-Qaeda. However, Iran is rebuffed because Osama bin Laden does not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia, which has poor relations with Iran. Nevertheless, Iranian officials are apparently willing to assist travel by al-Qaeda members through Iran, on their way to and from Afghanistan, by not placing telltale immigration stamps in their passports. Such arrangements are particularly beneficial to Saudi members of al-Qaeda. However, information such as this obtained from detainees under interrogation is thought to be unreliable due to the questionable methods used to extract it (see June 16, 2004). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 240]

Entity Tags: Iran, Tawfiq bin Attash, Al-Qaeda

Category Tags: Other Government-Militant Collusion

In the months after the USS Cole is bombed in autumn 2000 (see October 12, 2000), the NSA intercepts about half a dozen communications between hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi in the US and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Sana’a, Yemen, run by hijacker Khalid Almihdhar’s father in law, Ahmed al-Hada. [MSNBC, 7/21/2004; Los Angeles Times, 12/21/2005; US President, 12/26/2005 ] The hub and people associated with it are thought to have played a support role in the Cole bombing (see also October 14-Late November, 2000 and October 4, 2001). [CNN, 2/14/2002; MSNBC, 7/21/2004] It was also involved in the bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya (see August 4-25, 1998). The NSA has been monitoring the number for at least two years (see Late August 1998) and the FBI has used it to map al-Qaeda’s global organisation (see Late 1998-Early 2002). The NSA had previously intercepted calls between hijacker Khalid Almihdhar in the US and the hub (see Spring-Summer 2000 and Early 2000-Summer 2001) and also intercepts a call between Alhazmi and the hub a few weeks before 9/11 (see (August 2001)).

Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, National Security Agency, Ahmed al-Hada

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Remote Surveillance, Yemen Hub

Following the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen (see October 12, 2000), the Clinton administration discusses what standard of evidence it needs to launch a counter-strike against al-Qaeda, which it suspects of the bombing. Following the bombing of the US embassies in East Africa (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998), the administration fired a number of cruise missiles at suspected al-Qaeda targets (see August 20, 1998). However, the administration decides it must have evidence that bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s leadership has authority, direction, and control of the attack before initiating a response. CIA Director George Tenet will comment: “This is a high threshold to cross.” Tenet will also say that this threshold was not set by the CIA, but by “policy makers.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 128] Although the bombing is tied to three known leading al-Qaeda operatives, Khallad bin Attash (see November 11, 2000), Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (see November-December 2000), and Ahmed al-Hada (see November 2000 or After), early on in the investigation, no counterstrike is initiated (see Shortly After October 12, 2000 and Late October 2000). Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will express his frustration with the inaction: “[I]n Washington neither CIA nor FBI would state the obvious: al-Qaeda did it. We knew there was a large al-Qaeda cell in Yemen There was also a large cell of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, but that group had now announced its complete merger into al-Qaeda, so what difference did it make which group did the attack? [Counterterrorism staff] had worked around the clock piecing together the evidence and had made a very credible case against al-Qaeda. CIA would agree only months later.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 223] The authors of the 2002 book The Cell will later write: “The links to bin Laden were everywhere. Each of the suspects being held in Yemen had admitted training in the Afghan camps run by bin Laden… neither the FBI nor the CIA was ever able to tell the president that they had direct proof that the Cole was a bin Laden-ordered job, though now, in retrospect, it seems terribly obvious. In any case, even if there had been compelling proof that bin Laden was behind the Cole bombing, there was little chance that the Clinton administration would have launched an attack on any Islamic country while he was trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians to the peace table.” [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 238]

Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Richard A. Clarke, Clinton administration

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Following the attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000), the CIA discusses possible policy changes in the hunt for bin Laden. Disappointed by US inaction, Alec Station chief Rich B decides “we’ve got to change the rules,” because he thinks al-Qaeda is getting stronger and stronger. This entails enhanced support for the Northern Alliance led by Ahmed Shah Massoud, which is the only credible opposition fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Although some CIA officers still think Alec Station’s staff are “over the top,” both the CIA’s Near East Division and Counterterrorism Center chief Cofer Black agree with Rich B, and they decide what is needed is aid to enable Massoud to pressure the Taliban, creating the conditions for CIA operations against bin Laden. The list of assistance includes cash to bribe commanders, trucks, helicopters, light arms, ammunition, uniforms, food and possibly mortars and artillery. The plan will cost between $50 and $150 million, and will include a permanent CIA base in Afghan territory controlled by the Northern Alliance. CIA officers will now be able to accompany Massoud’s men on missions. It takes some time to arrive at these conclusions, which will be formalized into a plan (see December 29, 2000). However, the plan will not be accepted by the outgoing Clinton administration or the incoming Bush administration (see December 20, 2000). [Coll, 2004, pp. 539-541; Washington Post, 2/23/2004]

Entity Tags: Rich B., Osama bin Laden, Cofer Black, Central Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Shah Massoud, Counterterrorist Center, Bush administration

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Hunt for Bin Laden

Author Lawrence Wright will later write about the FBI’s investigation of the USS Cole bombing in Yemen (see October 12, 2000): “The FBI was convinced that the [Cole] bombers had been tipped off about the arrival of the Cole, and they wanted to expand the investigation to include a member of the president’s own family and a colonel in [the Yemeni equivalent of the FBI]. There was scant interest on the part of the Yemen authorities in pursuing such leads.” Wright will also point out: “Yemen was a particularly difficult place to start a terrorist investigation, as it was filled with active al-Qaeda cells and with sympathizers at very high levels of government. On television, Yemeni politicians called for jihad against America. Just getting permission from the Yemeni government to go to the crime scene—the wounded warship in the Aden harbor—required lengthy negotiations with hostile officials.” Cooperation from the Yemen government is erratic at best. For instance, the Yemenis eventually show the FBI a videotape taken by a harborside security camera, but it appears the moment of the explosion has been edited out. [Wright, 2006, pp. 325; New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ] Later, when the FBI is finally allowed to interview Fahad al-Quso, who the FBI believes is one of the main Cole plotters, a Yemeni colonel enters the room and kisses Quso on both cheeks. This is a recognized signal to everyone that al-Quso is protected. [Wright, 2006, pp. 330] Between Yemeni obstructions, infighting between US officials (see October 14-Late November, 2000), and security concerns hindering movement, there will never be the same kind of investigation and trial as there was with the 1998 embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998 and February-July 2001).

Entity Tags: Yemen, Fahad al-Quso, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Yemeni Militant Collusion

Michael Sheehan. [Source: Center on Law and Security]In the wake of the USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000), Clinton administration officials hold a high level meeting to discuss what the US response should be. The meeting attendees include: Counterterrorism “Tsar” Richard Clarke, Defense Secretary William Cohen, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Deputy National Security Adviser Jim Steinberg, and State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Michael Sheehan.
Clarke suggests that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks. There is no hard evidence of this yet but he argues that the attack matches their profile and capabilities. He presents a detailed plan, which he’d been working on before the bombing, to level all the al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan as well as key Taliban buildings in such towns as Kandahar and Kabul.
Reno argues there’s no clear evidence yet who was behind the bombing. If there is such evidence, any US actions should not be for retaliation but only for self-protection against future attacks.
Tenet says that he suspects al-Qaeda is behind the bombing but also wants to wait until an investigation determines that before acting.
Cohen is against any counterattack. Clarke will later recall Cohen saying at the meeting that the Cole bombing “was not sufficient provocation.” Sheehan will later say that the “entire Pentagon” was generally against a counterattack.
Albright is against a counterattack for diplomatic reasons. The Clinton administration is involved in trying to create a peace settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians and bombing Afghanistan could ruin such talks.
Many also argue that if Afghanistan is attacked and bin Laden is not killed, he could emerge a greater hero in the Muslim world, just as he did after a 1998 US missile strike (see Late 1998). Clarke argues that the continual creation of new trained militants in Afghanistan needs to stop, and if bin Laden is killed, that would merely be a “bonus.” At the end of the meeting, the highest-ranking officials cast votes, and seven vote against Clarke’s counterstrike plan, while only Clarke votes in favor of it. After the meeting, Sheehan will meet with Clarke and express frustration with the outcome, saying, “What’s it going to take to get them to hit al-Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al-Qaeda have to hit the Pentagon?” [Miniter, 2003, pp. 222-227]

Entity Tags: William S. Cohen, Richard A. Clarke, Osama bin Laden, Madeleine Albright, Al-Qaeda, Michael Sheehan, George J. Tenet, Jim Steinberg, Janet Reno, Taliban

Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, 2000 USS Cole Bombing

Barbara Bodine at a press conference days after the bombing of the USS Cole. [Source: Reuters]The first FBI agents enter Yemen two days after the bombing of the USS Cole in an attempt to discover who was responsible. However, the main part of the team initially gets stuck in Germany because they do not have permission to enter Yemen and they are then unable to accomplish much due to restrictions placed on them and tensions between lead investigator John O’Neill and US Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine. All but about 50 investigators are forced to leave by the end of October. O’Neill’s boss Barry Mawn visits to assess the situation. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 237; New Yorker, 1/14/2002; Sunday Times (London), 2/3/2002; New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ] Mawn will later comment, “It became clear [Bodine] simply hated his guts.” After a ten day investigation, he concludes O’Neill is doing a fine job, tells Bodine that she is O’Neill’s “only detractor,” and refuses her request to recall him. [Wright, 2006, pp. 32] But O’Neill and much of his team are pressured to leave by late November and Bodine will not give him permission to return any time after that. The investigation stalls without his personal relationships to top Yemeni officials. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 237; New Yorker, 1/14/2002; Sunday Times (London), 2/3/2002] Increased security threats force the reduced FBI team still in Yemen to withdraw altogether in June 2001. [PBS Frontline, 10/3/2002] The prime minister of Yemen at the time later claims (see Early October 2001) that hijacker “Khalid Almihdhar was one of the Cole perpetrators, involved in preparations. He was in Yemen at the time and stayed after the Cole bombing for a while, then he left.” The Sunday Times later notes, “The failure in Yemen may have blocked off lines of investigation that could have led directly to the terrorists preparing for September 11.” [Sunday Times (London), 2/3/2002]

Entity Tags: USS Cole, John O’Neill, Khalid Almihdhar, Barry Mawn, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Barbara Bodine

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Los Angeles FBI agent Pat Patterson is sent to Yemen to assist in the investigation of the USS Cole bombing (see October 14-Late November, 2000). While there, he spends several evenings with John O’Neill, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s National Security Division in New York, who is leading the investigation. O’Neill is the FBI’s top expert on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The two men speculate about what bin Laden’s next target might be, and end up considering the World Trade Center. Patterson later recalls, “I thought it was unlikely they would hit a target a second time, but John was convinced of it. He said, ‘No, they definitely want to bring that building down.’ He just had that sense and was insistent about it.” [New York Magazine, 12/17/2001; Weiss, 2003, pp. 291-292 and 321] After leaving the FBI, John O’Neill will actually start work as director of security for the World Trade Center shortly before 9/11 (see August 23, 2001).

Entity Tags: John O’Neill, Pat Patterson

Category Tags: Warning Signs, 2000 USS Cole Bombing

9/11 hijacker Hamza Alghamdi obtains a US visa in Saudi Arabia. His application is incomplete, as he lists his occupation as student but fails to give his school’s address. It is also possible, but not certain, that he presents a passport containing fraudulent travel stamps associated with al-Qaeda. However, this is not recognized. He is not interviewed. The place in which the visa is issued is uncertain. The 9/11 Commission’s Terrorist Travel monograph will say that the visa was issued in Riyadh, but then say that the consular officer that issued the visa “told us that because of the workload in Jeddah, he rarely had time to thumb through passports.” [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14 ] A stipulation about the hijackers submitted as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui will say that the visa was issued in Jeddah. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 32 ] A General Accountability Office review of the hijackers’ visas will say that the visa was issued in Riyadh. [United States General Accounting Office, 10/21/2002, pp. 46 ] At least 11 other visas issued to the hijackers were issued by a single consular official in Jeddah (see Before September 3, 2000).

Entity Tags: US Consulate, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Office, Hamza Alghamdi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

Ali Mohamed pleads guilty to five counts of conspiracy to kill nationals of the US in connection with the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The charges include plotting to kill US soldiers in Somalia and Saudi Arabia, plotting to murder US ambassadors and other embassy officials, and plotting to kill “United States civilians anywhere in the world.” The nature of the plea agreement is secret. [United States of America v. Ali Mohamed, 10/20/2000; Washington File, 5/15/2001] One newspaper will note, “Mohamed’s relationship with the FBI and intelligence services remains wrapped in secrecy. His plea agreement is sealed, as are many of the court documents and much of the testimony. Mohamed was expected to testify—but did not—at the trial at which the four others were convicted. Mohamed and his lawyer have declined all interview requests.” [Raleigh News and Observer, 10/21/2001]

Entity Tags: Ali Mohamed

Category Tags: Ali Mohamed, 1998 US Embassy Bombings, 1993 Somalia Fighting

9/11 hijacker Mohand Alshehri obtains a US visa from the American embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His application is incomplete, as he claims to be a student, but gives his school’s address as “Riyadh K.S.A.” (which presumably stands for “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”). He also gives his address as “Any hotel,” and changes his desired length of stay from “1 years,” which is crossed out on the application, to “6 months.” He says he will be supporting himself in the US, and is not interviewed. The consular officer that issues the visa will say, “We only interviewed Saudis if there was a previous denial of a visa application or if there was something wrong with the application.” [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14, 178-9 ] The same consular officer will later issue a visa to another of the hijackers (see November 20, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 14, 16, 38 ]

Entity Tags: Mohand Alshehri

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

Using new passports obtained three weeks previously (see October 3, 2000), 9/11 hijackers Waleed and Wail Alshehri obtain tourist visas to the US. It is likely that the visas are issued by the same consular official that issues at least 11 of the 15 visas issued to the hijackers in Jeddah (see Before September 3, 2000). They make several errors in the applications, which should normally lead to them being rejected. They only give their employer’s/school’s address as “South city” and the address they will be staying at is “Wasantwn,” although they do not specify whether this is the city or the state. They also say they will stay for four to six months, although it is unclear how they will support themselves during this time and on Wail’s application form the consular official does not even bother to complete the section on checking the applicant has the necessary funds. In addition, they say they will arrive in the US “after two weeks”—presumably meaning two weeks after the visa’s application was filed. However, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, Waleed will arrive on April 23, 2001 and Wail will arrive on June 8, 2001 (see April 23-June 29, 2001). They appear to receive their visas on the same day they apply for them. [US Department of State, 10/24/2000; US Department of State, 10/24/2000; National Review, 10/9/2002] The 9/11 Commission will say that their passports may have fraudulent features, presumably related to travel stamps, although this is not certain. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 563-4]

Entity Tags: Waleed M. Alshehri, US Consulate, Jedda, Saudi Arabia Office, Wail Alshehri

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

A plane crash is simulated inside the cardboard courtyard of a model Pentagon. [Source: Dennis Ryan, MDW News Service]Pentagon and Arlington County emergency responders assemble in the Office of the Secretary of Defense conference room in the Pentagon for a mass casualty exercise (“MASCAL”). The exercise involves several mock-scenarios. One is of a commercial airliner crashing into the Pentagon and killing 341 people, while two others are a terrorist attack at the Pentagon’s subway stop and a construction accident. The plane crash exercise is conducted using a large-scale model of the Pentagon with a model airplane literally on fire in the central courtyard of the building. An Army medic who participates calls it “a real good scenario and one that could happen easily,” while a fire chief notes: “You have to plan for this. Look at all the air traffic around here.” [MDW News Service, 11/3/2000; Mirror, 5/24/2002; United Press International, 4/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 314]

Entity Tags: Pentagon, US Department of Defense

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Military Exercises