Complete 911 Timeline

Ahmed Alnami. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division]After 9/11, some in Western countries will say that one of the root causes of the attacks is poverty and assume that the hijackers must have been poor. However, most of them are middle class and have relatively comfortable upbringings. The editor of Al Watan, a Saudi Arabian daily, will call them “middle-class adventurers” rather than Islamist fundamentalist ideologues. [Boston Globe, 3/3/2002]
Mohamed Atta grows up in Cairo, Egypt. His father is an attorney, and both Atta and his two sisters attend university. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 10-11]
Marwan Alshehhi is from Ras al-Khaimah Emirate in the United Arab Emirates. His family is not particularly wealthy, but his father is a muezzin and one of his half-brothers a policeman. He attends university in Germany on an UAE army scholarship (see Spring 1996-December 23, 2000). [McDermott, 2005, pp. 55]
Ziad Jarrah is from Beirut, Lebanon. His father is a mid-level bureaucrat and his mother, from a well-off family, is a teacher. The family drives a Mercedes and Jarrah attends private Christian schools before going to study in Germany. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 49-50]
Hani Hanjour is from Taif, near Mecca in Saudi Arabia. His family has a car exporting business and a farm, which he manages for five years in the mid-1990s. [Washington Post, 10/15/2001]
Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi are from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Their father owns a shop and the family is wealthy. [Arab News, 9/20/2001; Wright, 2006, pp. 378]
Abdulaziz Alomari is from south-western Saudi Arabia. He is a university graduate (see Late 1990s). He apparently marries and has a child, a daughter, before 9/11. [Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2002; Saudi Information Agency, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 232]
Mohand Alshehri is from Tanooma in Asir Province, Saudi Arabia. He attends university (see Late 1990s). [Saudi Information Agency, 9/11/2002]
Hamza Alghamdi is from Baha Province, Saudi Arabia. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 231] He works as a stockboy in a housewares shop. [Boston Globe, 3/3/2002]
Fayez Ahmed Banihammad is from the United Arab Emirates. He gives his home address as being in Khor Fakkan, a port and enclave of Sharjah Emirate on the country’s east coast. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] The 9/11 Commission will say he works as an immigration officer at one point. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 20 ]
Maqed Mojed is from Annakhil, near Medina in western Saudi Arabia. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 232] He attends university (see Late 1990s).
Ahmed Alhaznawi is from Hera, Baha Province. His father is an imam at the local mosque and he is reported to attend university (see Late 1990s).
Ahmed Alnami is from Abha, Asir Province. His family is one of government officials and scientists and his father works for the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. He attends university (see Late 1990s). [Daily Telegraph, 9/15/2002]
Wail Alshehi and Waleed Alshehri are from Khamis Mushayt in Asir Province, southwestern Saudi Arabia. Their father is a businessman and builds a mosque as a gift to the town. They both go to college (see Late 1990s). The Alshehris are a military family with three older brothers who hold high rank at the nearby airbase. Their uncle, Major General Faez Alshehri, is the logistical director of Saudi Arabia’s armed forces. [Boston Globe, 3/3/2002] Dr. Ali al-Mosa, a Saudi academic, will later comment: “Most of them were from very rich, top-class Saudi families. The father of the Alshehri boys is one of the richest people in the area and the other families are not far behind him.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 10/5/2002]
The social situation of the families of Satam al Suqami, Ahmed Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, and Khaled Almihdhar is not known. However, Almihdhar is from a distinguished family that traces its lineage back to the prophet Mohammed. [Wright, 2006, pp. 379]

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

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

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

Ziad Jarrah gets down on the dancefloor. [Source: Jarrah family]A man named “Ziad Jarrah” rents an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. [Longman, 2002, pp. 90] The landlords later identify his photograph as being that of the 9/11 hijacker. A Brooklyn apartment lease bears Ziad Jarrah’s name. [Boston Globe, 9/25/2001] The Los Angeles Times reports: “Another man named Ihassan Jarrah lived with Ziad, drove a livery cab and paid the 800-dollar monthly rent. The men were quiet, well-mannered, said hello and good-bye. Ziad Jarrah carried a camera and told his landlords that he was a photographer. He would disappear for a few days on occasion, then reappear. Sometimes a woman who appeared to be a prostitute arrived with one of the men. ‘Me and my brother used to crack jokes that they were terrorists,’ said Jason Matos, a construction worker who lived in a basement there, and whose mother owned the house.” However, another Ziad Jarrah is still in his home country of Lebanon at this time. He is studying in a Catholic school in Beirut, and is in frequent contact with the rest of his family. His parents drive him home to be with the family nearly every weekend, and they are in frequent contact by telephone as well. [Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001] Not until April 1996 does this Ziad Jarrah leave Lebanon for the first time to study in Germany. [Boston Globe, 9/25/2001] His family later believes that the New York lease proves that there were two “Ziad Jarrahs.” [CNN, 9/18/2001] Evidence seems to indicate Jarrah is also in two places at the same time from November 2000 to January 2001 (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001).

Entity Tags: Ihassan Jarrah, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

The Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg was monitored by German authorities. [Source: Knut Muller]Mohamed Atta and other members of the Hamburg cell begin regularly attending the Al Quds mosque and fall under surveillance by the German authorities. Atta becomes a well-known figure both there and at other mosques in the city. He grows a beard at this time, which some commentators interpret as a sign of greater religious devotion. The mosque is home to numerous radicals. For example, one of the preachers, Mohammed Fazazi, advocates killing non-believers and encourages his followers to embrace martyrdom (see Mid-Late 1990s). After a time, Atta begins to teach classes at the mosque; he is stern with his students and criticizes them for wearing their hair in ponytails and gold chains around their necks, as well as for listening to music, which he says is a product of the devil. If a woman shows up, her father is informed she is not welcome and this is one of the reasons that, of the 80 students that start the classes, only a handful are left at the end. One of Atta’s associates, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, also teaches classes and fellow hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Ziad Jarrah attend and possibly first meet Atta there. Other mosque attendees who interact with the future hijackers at the mosque include Said Bahaji, and al-Qaeda operatives Mamoun Darkazanli and Mohammed Haydar Zammar. According to author Terry McDermott, German investigators notice Bahaji meets frequently with Darkazanli and Zammar at the mosque, so they presumably have a source inside it. [PBS Frontline, 1/2002; Burke, 2004, pp. 242; McDermott, 2005, pp. 1-5, 34-37, 72] The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung will later report that there was an informer working for the LfV, the Hamburg state intelligence agency, inside the mosque by 1999 and that he appeared to be interested in Atta, Jarrah, Alshehhi, bin al-Shibh, Bahaji and others (see April 1, 1999). [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Said Bahaji, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mohamed Atta, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mamoun Darkazanli

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Mamoun Darkazanli, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Key Hijacker Events

Ziad Jarrah on a plane. [Source: NDRTV]Within a few months of arriving in Germany, hijacker Ziad Jarrah begins to associate with Abdulrahman al-Makhadi, a local hardline Muslim who raises money for the militant Palestinian group Hamas and is monitored by the German intelligence service BfV. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung will say that al-Makhadi, also known as Abu Mohammed, is “known to the [German security service] BfV as a Hamas activist and ‘instigator,’” and that, “It is therefore difficult to imagine that the 26 year old Lebanese [Jarrah] was not also registered by the machinery of the intelligence services.” Jarrah later travels around Germany with al-Makhadi and meets other radicals. Al-Makhadi runs the local mosque and makes money by selling special Arab food he purchases in Hamburg there. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003; McDermott, 2005, pp. 51]

Entity Tags: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Ziad Jarrah, Abdulrahman al-Makhadi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Key Hijacker Events

Ziad Jarrah. [Source: Reuters]When traveling with a radical associate known to be monitored by German intelligence, Abdulrahman al-Makhadi (see Late 1996 or After), Ziad Jarrah meets another suspicious Islamic radical. The man, a convert, is known in public accounts only as Marcel K and is the vice president of the Islamic center in North-Rhine Westphalia. In March 2001, the Bundeskriminalamt federal criminal service will begin investigating the center’s president with respect to membership in a terrorist organization. Marcel K is apparently a close confidant of Jarrah, because Jarrah always calls him before taking important decisions, for example when he leaves to train in Afghanistan and when he applies for admission to US flight schools. He will also call Marcel K during his pilot training, for the last time shortly before 9/11. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003] Marcel K will be arrested in a Europe-wide sweep of Islamic militants in February 2003. [Deutsche Welle (Bonn), 2/6/2003; Tagesspeigel, 2/7/2003; New York Times News Service, 2/7/2003] It is not known what happens to him after this.

Entity Tags: “Marcel K”, Bundeskriminalamt Germany, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Remote Surveillance, Key Hijacker Events

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. [Source: WDR.de]The 9/11 Commission will later call Mohamedou Ould Slahi “a significant al-Qaeda operative who, even [in late 1999], was well known to US and German intelligence, though neither government apparently knew he was operating in Germany.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 165]
Thinks He Was Monitored - However, while in US custody after 9/11, Slahi will allege that a phone call he received in January 1999 from his cousin Mahfouz Walad Al-Walid, a top al-Qaeda leader living in Afghanistan, was monitored. Slahi will say, “I later learned that my cousin was using Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone that was intercepted.” Another mutual cousin was arrested that month and Slahi says, “I wasn’t captured, but I am sure I was followed by the German police [and/or] German intelligence.” He claims the imam at his mosque told him that German officials had come to ask questions about him and was told Slahi had ties with terrorists. [US Department of Defense, 4/20/2006, pp. 184-216] In 2000, the New York Times will report that German authorities became interested in Slahi “shortly after the bombings of American Embassies in East Africa in 1998. The German authorities learned that [he] might have ties to Islamic extremists in Europe.” [New York Times, 1/29/2000]
Links to 9/11 Hijackers - After Hamburg al-Qaeda cell member Ramzi bin al-Shibh is captured in 2002, he will allegedly claim that Slahi was the one who originally recruited 9/11 hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Ziad Jarrah. [Agence France-Presse, 10/26/2002] After 9/11, another prisoner in US custody will say that Slahi and bin al-Shibh met in Frankfurt in 1999 through an acquaintance. This acquaintance will go further and will claim Slahi knew bin al-Shibh and Jarrah since at least 1998 and that Slahi later lived with them in Hamburg. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496] In October 1999, bin al-Shibh and Alshehhi call Slahi, and he invites them to come to where he lives in Duisburg, Germany. Bin al-Shibh, Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah soon go visit him there. Karim Mehdi, an apparent leader of the al-Qaeda Ruhr Valley cell who will later be sentenced to nine years in prison for a post-9/11 plot, is also at this meeting. Bin al-Shibh, Alsehhi, and Jarrah follow Slahi’s advice to go to Afghanistan instead of Chechnya, and he gives them instructions on how to meet up with al-Qaeda operatives there. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 165; Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), 8/3/2005; Associated Press, 10/26/2006] US investigators later believe Slahi worked closely on al-Qaeda matters with bin al-Shibh and instructed another militant to go to the US and to take part in the 9/11 plot. Additionally, he is believed to have a key role in Ahmed Ressam’s millennium plot (see December 15-31, 1999). [Los Angeles Times, 4/24/2006]
No Action - German authorities are monitoring and wiretapping the phones at bin al-Shibh’s apartment throughout 1999 (see November 1, 1998-February 2001 and 2000), but they apparently do not connect Slahi to the Hamburg militants or do not act on that connection. The Germans will apparently miss another chance to learn of his ties to the Hamburg cell in April 2000, when Slahi is arrested for three weeks in Germany and then let go (see January-April 2000). [US Department of Defense, 4/20/2006, pp. 184-216] Note that the testimonies of detainees such as Slahi and bin al-Shibh are suspect due to widespread allegations that they were tortured into confessions (for instance, see September 27, 2001).

Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Karim Mehdi, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ziad Jarrah, Mahfouz Walad Al-Walid, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Millennium Bomb Plots, Remote Surveillance

The CIA begins an operation to track suspected al-Qaeda operatives as they transit the airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). When it is revealed in 2002 that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah is monitored as a part of this operation (see January 30, 2000), sources from the UAE and Europe describe the operation to CNN, and one of them draws a map of the airport, showing how the operation usually works and how the people wanted for questioning are intercepted. UAE officials are often told in advance of who is coming in and who should be questioned. [CNN, 8/1/2002] Almost all the hijackers pass through Dubai at some point in the months before 9/11, some repeatedly (see December 8, 2000, April 11-June 28, 2001, and June 2001). One of them, Khalid Almihdhar, has his passport photocopied in Dubai by local authorities and the CIA (see January 2-5, 2000). Also, three of the hijackers, Satam al Suqami, Ahmed Alghamdi and Hamza Alghamdi, are the subject a US customs investigation at the time they pass through Dubai (see September 2000 and Spring 2001), but it is unknown if there is any attempt to track them through Dubai.

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

Friends of Ziad Jarrah taken on April 1, 1999. Third from left in back row is Abdelghani Mzoudi; fifth is Mounir El Motassadeq; seventh is Ramzi bin al-Shibh; Mohamed Atta is on middle row far right; Atta rests his hands on Mohammed Raji. [Source: DDP/ AFP] (click image to enlarge)Ziad Jarrah has an unofficial wedding with his girlfriend, Aysel Senguen. Interestingly, a photo apparently taken by Jarrah at the wedding is found by German intelligence several days after 9/11. An undercover agent will be able immediately to identify 10 of the 18 men in the photo, as well as where it was taken: the prayer room of Hamburg’s Al-Quds mosque. He is also able to identify which of them attended Mohamed Atta’s study group. He knows even “seemingly trivial details” of some of the men, showing that “probably almost all members of the Hamburg terror cell” have been watched by German state intelligence since this time, if not before. The head of the state intelligence had previously maintained that they knew nothing of any of these men. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda in Germany

According to German investigations, by at least this time, the Hamburg cell including Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh has come up with the idea of attacking the United States using airplanes. This theory is based on witness statements and the discovery by the German police of a flight simulator file on a computer used by the Hamburg cell that was downloaded by this time. [Washington Post, 9/11/2002; Burke, 2004, pp. 244] Both Atta and Alshhehi start taking lessons on ultralight aircraft this year (see April 1999, October 1999, and December 1999). Some suggest they first joined the 9/11 plot in early 1999 (see Early 1999). However, the 9/11 Commission claims that the 9/11 plot was hatched by al-Qaeda’s leadership and was communicated to the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell in Afghanistan in December 1999. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 165-169]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ziad Jarrah, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

Video footage of Said Bahaji’s wedding in October 1999. Clockwise from top left: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Said Bahaji, Mamoun Darkazanli, Ziad Jarrah, and Marwan Alshehhi. [Source: Agence France-Presse]Mamoun Darkazanli, along with most of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell, attends the wedding of Said Bahaji. Bahaji is one of Mohamed Atta’s roommates and believed to be a core member of the cell. The wedding takes place at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg. A videotape of the wedding is discovered by German investigators shortly after 9/11, and eventually more than 20 men are identified from the video. Other attendees include: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Mounir el Motassadeq, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, and Abdelghani Mzoudi. [New York Times, 9/10/2002; CBS News, 5/7/2003; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 345, 561; Vanity Fair, 11/2004] Zammar is Bahaji’s best man in the wedding. [New York Times, 6/20/2002] The video first shows Bahaji’s nuptial ceremony, followed by a series of radical militant speeches and songs. The songs celebrate violent holy war and martyrdom. The New York Times will later report, “The presence of all of these men at the wedding of Mr. Bahaji has led investigators to believe that the plan to attack the United States had essentially been formed by then… .” [New York Times, 9/10/2002]

Entity Tags: Mounir El Motassadeq, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ziad Jarrah, Said Bahaji

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Mamoun Darkazanli

Mohamed Atta filmed in Afghanistan in January 2000. [Source: London Times]Hamburg cell members Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and possibly Said Bahaji travel to Afghanistan via Turkey and Karachi, Pakistan. They travel along a route often used by one of their associates, al-Qaeda recruiter Mohammed Haydar Zammar, to send potential operatives to Afghanistan for training. Turkish intelligence is aware of the route and informed German intelligence of it in 1996, leading to an investigation of Zammar (see 1996). However, it is unclear whether German or Turkish intelligence register the Hamburg cell members’ travel and how and whether they disseminate and act on this information. Jarrah is reportedly noticed by an intelligence service in the United Arab Emirates on his return journey from Afghanistan (see January 30, 2000). [New York Times, 9/10/2002; CBS News, 10/9/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 167; McDermott, 2005, pp. 89]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Turkish intelligence, Said Bahaji, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, Mohamed Atta

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Key Hijacker Events

Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Marwan Alshehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Nawaf Alhazmi meet to discuss the 9/11 operation at a building known as the “House of Alghamdi” in Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to a statement made by bin al-Shibh in 2002. Bin al-Shibh will say, “We had a meeting attended by all four pilots including Nawaf Alhazmi, Atta’s right-hand man,” which the Guardian will interpret to mean Alhazmi flew Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon, instead of Hani Hanjour (see (December 2000-January 2001)). [Guardian, 9/9/2002] The 9/11 Commission, based on information obtained from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) under interrogation, will place Hanjour in Afghanistan in spring 2000, indicating he will arrive some months after this meeting is held, and could not therefore attend it. Please note: information from detainee interrogations is thought to be unreliable due to the methods used to extract it (see June 16, 2004). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 226] In a substitution for testimony introduced as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, KSM will place Hanjour’s arrival at the training camps in Afghanistan in “September or October” of 2000. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006, pp. 23 ]

Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ziad Jarrah, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Nawaf Alhazmi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

Hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi report their passports missing; Ziad Jarrah reports his missing in February 2000. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001; Der Spiegel, 2002, pp. 257-58] Alshehhi receives a replacement passport on December 26, 1999. [London Times, 9/20/2001]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah

Hamza Alghamdi in Afghanistan. [Source: Spiegel TV]Several of the hijackers bring money into the US in the form of cash and traveler’s checks. At least $69,000 is imported this way:
Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar bring in about $15,000 (see February 4, 2000);
Marwan Alshehhi purchases $2,000 in traveler’s checks in New York on May 31, 2000, apparently using money withdrawn from his Dresdner bank account in Hamburg; [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 136 ]
Ziad Jarrah opens a bank account with a $2,000 deposit shortly after arriving in the US (see June 28-July 7, 2000);
Majed Moqed, Wail Alshehri, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Saeed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, and Ahmed Alnami bring in traveler’s checks worth $43,980 purchased in the UAE (see April 11-June 28, 2001); [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 137 ]
Khalid Almihdhar brings in traveler’s checks worth $4,900 purchased in Saudi Arabia. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 137 ]

Entity Tags: Wail Alshehri, Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Marwan Alshehhi, Hamza Alghamdi, Ahmed Alnami, Saeed Alghamdi, Majed Moqed

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

Mohamed Atta (left) and Ziad Jarrah (right). [Source: London Times]Hijackers Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah are filmed together recording their martyrdom wills in Afghanistan. The video footage will later be captured by US forces in late 2001 and leaked to the media in late 2006 (see September 30, 2006). The footage is significant because it is the only hard evidence that Atta and Jarrah were ever in the same place at the same time. Although the two men were frequently in close proximity to each other, for instance both attended Florida flight schools just a couple of miles apart at around the same time, their paths often just miss each other. However, they appear friendly to each other in this footage, frequently laughing and smiling. Atta reads his will and then Jarrah reads his, but their exact words are unknown since the sound was not recorded and lip-syncing experts apparently failed to understand what they said. [London Times, 10/1/2006]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Jarrah, in an undated family photo taken in Lebanon. [Source: Getty Images]9/11 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah arrives in Dubai to change planes when flying from Peshawar, Afghanistan, to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is stopped in Dubai by United Arab Emirates (UAE) immigration officials and questioned because they suspect him of being a radical Islamist. [CNN, 8/1/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496; McDermott, 2005, pp. 186] Almost every aspect of this stop is disputed by UAE and US officials:
Some accounts place it one year later (see January 30, 2001);
UAE officials claim Jarrah was stopped based on a tipoff from the US. A UAE source will tell author Jane Corbin “It was at the request of the Americans and it was specifically because of Jarrah’s links with Islamic extremists, his contacts with terrorist organizations. That was the extent of what we were told.” [Corbin, 2003] UAE officials will continue to repeat this story to other media. [Chicago Tribune, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002; McDermott, 2005, pp. 294] However, US officials claim no such tipoff was ever given. [CNN, 8/1/2002; Chicago Tribune, 9/28/2005] In this version Jarrah raised suspicion because of an overlay of the Koran in his passport and because he was carrying religious tapes and books. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496] According to CNN, “The questioning of Jarrah in Dubai fits the pattern of a CIA operation described to CNN by UAE and European sources. Those sources say that in 1999, the CIA began an operation to track suspected al-Qaeda operatives, as they transited there. One of those sources provided [a] drawing showing the airport layout and describes how people wanted for questioning were intercepted, most often at a transit desk. As was the case with Ziad Jarrah, CNN sources say UAE officials were, often, told in advance by American officials who was coming in and whom they wanted questioned;” [CNN, 8/1/2002]
UAE officials will claim that the stop is long and that, after the suspicious tapes and books are found, Jarrah is questioned for four hours. However, the FBI will claim that it was “routine” and the 9/11 Commission will call it a “minor problem” and relegate it to an endnote; [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496; McDermott, 2005, pp. 294]
UAE officials will claim they inform the US they are holding Jarrah while he is at the airport and ask what they should do with him. The US tells them to let Jarrah go and that they will track him. [CNN, 8/1/2002; Corbin, 2003; McDermott, 2005, pp. 186-7; Chicago Tribune, 9/28/2005] However, US authorities will deny being informed of the stop until after 9/11. [Chicago Tribune, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002] Regarding the denials by US authorities, author Terry McDermott will point out, “It is worth noting, however, that when the initial reports of the Jarrah interview were made by Jane Corbin for the BBC in 2001…, the Americans publicly denied they had ever been informed of it. As it happened, Corbin had the wrong date for the event, so the American services might have been technically correct in denying any knowledge of it. They later repeated that denial several times when other reports repeated the inaccurate date.” However, based on information from his UAE sources, McDermott will conclude that the stop occurred and that the US was informed of it at the time. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 294-5]

Entity Tags: United Arab Emirates, Terry McDermott, Ziad Jarrah, Central Intelligence Agency, Jane Corbin, 9/11 Commission

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Ziad Jarrah

Florida Flight Training Center. [Source: FBI]Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, arrives in the US, flying from Munich to Atlanta, Georgia (or Newark, according to the 9/11 Commission). He enters on a tourist visa, issued in Berlin on May 25, 2000. He then flies to Venice, Florida, where he has already arranged to take full-time lessons at the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC). However, he never files an application to change his status from tourist to student. According to the 9/11 Commission, “This failure to maintain a legal immigration status provided a solid legal basis to deny him entry on each of the six subsequent occasions in which he reentered the United States. But because there was no student tracking system in place and because neither Jarrah nor the school complied with the law’s notification requirements, immigration inspectors could not know he was out of status.” Jarrah begins the private pilot program at FFTC on June 28, aiming to get a multi-engine license. His training will cost $16,000, which his parents wire to him. [Longman, 2002, pp. 90-91; US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 11-12 ] FFTC is just down the road from Huffman Aviation, a flight school where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi soon begin training. [Associated Press, 9/9/2002]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Florida Flight Training Center

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Key Hijacker Events, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

Ziad Jarrah (left) at his flight school in the second half of 2000. [Source: National Geographic]Some 9/11 hijackers open bank accounts in Florida around the time they start flight training there (see July 6-December 19, 2000). Ziad Jarrah opens an account at the First Florida National Bank with a $2,000 deposit and, nine days later, hijacker pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi open a joint account at SunTrust Bank in Venice, Florida. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 139 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ] It is unclear whether more accounts are opened at this time, although the New York Times will also say that an account is opened with the Century Bank and that money is paid into this account from abroad (see (July-August 2000)). [New York Times, 11/4/2001] It will initially be claimed that the hijackers provide fake and randomly made up social security numbers. [New York Times, 7/10/2002] However, the 9/11 Commission will say that they did not present or give false numbers, but that in some cases bank employees completed the social security number field with a hijacker’s date of birth or visa control number. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 140 ] Reports of the number of accounts the hijackers open in the US vary over time (see Late-September 2001-August 2004), although the hijackers are known to have had several other bank accounts (see February 4, 2000, Early September 2000, May 1-July 18, 2001 and June 27-August 23, 2001).

Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Mohamed Atta, SunTrust Bank

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Jarrah flying in Florida in 2000. [Source: Der Speigel]After entering the United States (see June 27-28, 2000), Ziad Jarrah lives in Venice, Florida, while taking flying lessons (see (June 28-December 2000)). According to the 9/11 Commission, he stays with some of his flight school’s instructors. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] Other accounts describe him “spending most of the time sleeping on a sofa in the apartment the other students shared,” or simply as rooming “with three others.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 91; Corbin, 2003, pp. 155] For six weeks, Thorsten Biermann, a 23-year-old fellow flight student from Germany, rooms with Jarrah. According to Biermann, Jarrah keeps another apartment in Venice, but does not sleep in it. [Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 91-92] As well as paying for his flying lessons, Jarrah’s family in the Lebanon regularly wires him generous pocket money. He buys himself a car, which he lets other flight students borrow, and often cooks for his flatmates. During his time in the US, Jarrah maintains close contact with his girlfriend Aysel Senguen who is in Germany, phoning her hundreds of times and frequently e-mailing her. [Corbin, 2003, pp. 155; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224-225]

Entity Tags: Thorsten Biermann, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Jarrah, with dark blue shirt and sunglasses, leaning against an airplane. He is surrounded by his fellow flight school students. [Source: History Channel]Ziad Jarrah attends the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, where he takes lessons in a Cessna 152. According to the FBI, he finishes his training there in December 2000. [Der Spiegel, 2002, pp. 12; US Congress, 9/26/2002] The school’s owner, Arne Kruithof, says Jarrah is enrolled there until January 15, 2001. [Longman, 2002, pp. 91] The 9/11 Commission says he studies there until January 31, 2001. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 12 ] However, these latter two accounts conflict with other reports, according to which Jarrah is elsewhere at the same time (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). According to the 9/11 Commission, in early August, just weeks after commencing training, Jarrah gains a single-engine private pilot certificate. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] However, Arne Kruithof says that although Jarrah eventually receives his private pilot license and instrument rating, he does not do so while at FFTC. Kruithof later claims that Jarrah becomes an “average” pilot, saying, “We had to do more to get him ready than others. His flight skills seemed to be a little bit out there.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 91] At the same time as Jarrah is in Venice, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi attend Huffman Aviation, which is just up the road from FFTC. [Associated Press, 9/9/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] Yet no reports describe him ever meeting them while they are so near to each other. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who shared an apartment in Hamburg with Mohamed Atta (see November 1, 1998-February 2001), is supposed to join Jarrah at FFTC, wiring the school a $2,200 deposit in August 2000, but is repeatedly unable to obtain the necessary US visa (see May 17, 2000-May 2001). [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 225]

Entity Tags: Florida Flight Training Center, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

Arne Kruithof. [Source: History Channel]According to some accounts, while he is taking lessons at Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, alleged hijacker Ziad Jarrah appears an unlikely terrorist. Arne Kruithof, the school’s owner, says he is “not just nice, but he had qualities you look for in a dear friend, someone you trust.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 92] He says Jarrah “would even offer to put out the trash cans at night, which no one else did,” and later remembers him “bringing me a six-pack of beer at home when I hurt my knee one time and sitting for hours on my sofa chatting.” Unlike other Middle Eastern students, Jarrah never seems uncomfortable or disapproving of the school’s receptionists, who wear skimpy skirts and tiny t-shirts. [Corbin, 2003, pp. 155] Furthermore, Jarrah drinks alcohol, having one or two beers, “but not three.” According to Kruithof, who later insists Jarrah’s demeanor was “not faked,” the school’s “entire staff does not believe that he had bad intentions,” and Jarrah “was a friend to all of us.” However, fellow flight student Thorsten Biermann, who rooms with Jarrah for six weeks, describes him as “introverted, a loner, he kept his distance.” Biermann will describe one occasion flying with Jarrah on a round-trip to Fort Lauderdale where, on the return, Jarrah insisted on both flying and manning the radio, and twice ignored Biermann’s pleas to refuel when the weather worsened. Biermann says, “I decided I did not want to fly with him anymore, and everyone I knew who flew with him felt the same way. It was as if he needed control.” Biermann also says Jarrah avoids pork and, contrary to what Arne Kruithof claims, does not drink alcohol, even when they go to bars together. [New York Times, 9/23/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 91-92]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

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

9/11 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah and a couple of companions from flying school rent a plane for a trip from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas. There is no immigration departure record, although there is a record of his re-entry. Upon his return to the US, Jarrah undergoes immigration and customs checks, including an inspection of the plane by customs for the presence of drugs, contraband, and currency. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 16 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] He will later tell his girlfriend that the pilot gets drunk in Nassau and he has to fly back himself, although he does not have a license for the plane. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 197] Jarrah should not be re-admitted to the US because he is out of status—he breached immigration rules by taking a flight training course despite entering the US as a tourist—but this is apparently not noticed (see June 27-28, 2000).

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Hijacker Contact w Government in US

Two images of Ziad Jarrah. The photo on the right is from the wreckage of Flight 93. [Source: FBI]There is some evidence indicating hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah transits Dubai on January 30, 2001 after spending two months in Afghanistan (see January 30, 2001). [Chicago Tribune, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002] However, the Florida Flight Training Center, where Jarrah has been studying for the previous six months, later says he is in school there until January 15, 2001. His family later reports he arrives in Lebanon to visit them on January 26, five days before he supposedly passes through Dubai. His father had just undergone open-heart surgery, and Jarrah visits him every day in the hospital until after January 30. Pointing out this incident, his uncle Jamal Jarrah later asks, “How could he be in two places at one time?” [Longman, 2002, pp. 101-02] Other accounts place Jarrah in Dubai one year earlier, not in 2001 (see January 30, 2000). If the 2001 version is correct, this is not the only example of Jarrah being in two places at the same time—there is also evidence he was in different places at once from March 1995-February 1996 (see March 1995-February 1996).

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Florida Flight Training Center, Jamal Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Jarrah using a flight simulator in January 2001. [Source: Los Angeles Times]From December 15-18, 2000, hijacker Ziad Jarrah attends Aeroservice Aviation in Miami, Florida where he takes lessons in Boeing 727 and 737 simulators. Around this same time, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi take lessons in a 727 simulator, but at a different Florida center (see December 29-31, 2000). After returning to the US from a visit home to Beirut, Jarrah again attends Aeroservice Aviation on January 8, 2001. His girlfriend Aysel Senguen is with him for a ten-day stay at the time, accompanies him to the flight training session, and photographs him in the simulator. [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/10/2001; US Congress, 9/26/2002; Los Angeles Times, 1/27/2003; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 227] However, some accounts conflict with him being in Florida on this second occasion (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001 and January 30, 2001). [Chicago Tribune, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Aeroservice Aviation

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah takes a trip to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stays for three days at the Ramada Inn. The purpose of this trip is not known, although he will return again one month later (see February 25-March 4, 2001). It is unclear how he arrives in Jacksonville, as there is no record of him taking a flight there. However, he is known to have arrived in Newark from Tampa on January 16, and to have bought a ticket on January 15 for a flight from Newark to Tampa on January 22, the day he arrives in Jacksonville. He departs the US on January 26, flying from Jacksonville to Newark and then to Dusseldorf, Germany. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 120-121 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 5-6, 22 ] Marwan Alshehhi, and possibly Mohamed Atta, stopped in Jacksonville around October 2000 (see (October 2000)).

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah is questioned at Dubai airport over suspected radical Islamist links in January of 2000 or 2001. Initial accounts place the stop in 2001, after Jarrah had received flight training in the US. [Chicago Tribune, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002; Corbin, 2003] However, other accounts place this a year earlier (see January 30, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496; Vanity Fair, 11/2004; McDermott, 2005, pp. 186-7; Chicago Tribune, 9/28/2005] In the 2001 version, Jarrah has already started flight training and has a US visa, whereas in the 2000 version he merely tells UAE officials of his plans to get a US visa and receive flight training there. [Corbin, 2003; History Channel, 2004] There is evidence to suggest Jarrah is not in Dubai on January 30, 2001 (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). In addition, there is evidence to suggest Jarrah was in Afghanistan in January 2000 (see January 18, 2000).

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, United Arab Emirates, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah arrives in the US for the fifth time and is admitted at Newark as a business visitor, receiving a six-month stay. This is unusual, as inspectors usually give business visitors one to three months, depending on the port of entry, and six months only when the visitor can document the purpose of the stay, which Jarrah apparently does not do. Jarrah actually should not be admitted at all because he is out of status—he breached immigration rules by taking a flight training course despite entering the US as a tourist—but this is apparently not noticed (see June 27-28, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 20 ]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Hijacker Contact w Government in US

After returning to the US for the fifth time, 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flies immediately to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stays at the Ramada Inn for a week. He had previously visited Jacksonville (see January 22-26, 2001), as had Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi (see (October 2000)). While in Jacksonville, he frequents Wacko’s strip club. A worker there will later say that the FBI comes to the club after 9/11 to ask questions and show pictures “of the 9/11 terrorists,” and a dancer recognizes Jarrah from a photo line-up. The information about the hotel stay will be discovered by First Coast News in summer 2004 and they will offer to share it with the FBI. The local office will originally agree to meet the reporters, but then cancel at the last minute, saying that the cancellation had been ordered by their superiors at the Justice Department due to a possible impact on the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. First Coast News will comment, “Questions still remain as to what Jarrah was doing in Jacksonville.” [First Coast News, 8/24/2004; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 5, 22 ] Jarrah’s whereabouts after he leaves Jacksonville are unknown for a week and a half, but he shows up in Decatur, Georgia, on March 15. There he stays at a hotel previously used by Atta and Alshehhi for two weeks using the name variant Ziad Samir. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 128 ]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Jarrah standing next to a Cessna in Florida. [Source: National Geographic]Ziad Jarrah is said to obtain a commercial pilot’s license around this time by flight school owner Arne Kruithof, although neither the FBI nor any other official body will confirm this. Jarrah obtained a private pilot’s license from Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) (see (June 28-December 2000)) in 2000 and then spent a few hours on Boeing simulators later in 2000 (see December 15, 2000-January 8, 2001). FFTC owner Kruithof will later say that he was told Jarrah obtained a commercial license: “He was supposed to come back and finish his commercial pilot license, but he did not. Later, I found out that he did it somewhere else.” However, there is no mention of where he may have obtained such additional training. [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 133]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Arne Kruithof

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

According to an associate of the 9/11 hijackers, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and flight school owner Rudi Dekkers, the hijackers have more training on large jets than the FBI will disclose. The FBI will say that the four hijacker pilots never fly real large jets before 9/11 and have a total of approximately 17 sessions on large aircraft simulators, mostly on older models:
Both Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi each take two sessions lasting 90 minutes on a Boeing 727 simulator and one session on a simulator for a Boeing 767, the type of aircraft they fly on 9/11 (see December 29-31, 2000);
Ziad Jarrah, who flies a Boeing 757 on 9/11, has five sessions on 727s and 737s (see December 15, 2000-January 8, 2001);
Hani Hanjour, who flies a Boeing 757 on 9/11, practices for a total of 21 hours on a Boeing 737-200 simulator (see February 8-March 12, 2001).
When he learns what the FBI believes is the extent of the hijackers’ training, bin al-Shibh will complain in a fax sent to a reporter after 9/11: “How do aviation experts evaluate the skill with which the aircraft were flown, especially the Pentagon attack—accurate and professional as it was? Is it credible that the executers had never before flown a Boeing? Is it credible they only had some lessons on small twin-engine aircrafts and some lessons on simulators?” Referring to the period in early 2001 after the pilots spend a few hours practicing on simulators, bin al-Shibh will say, “What they needed was more flying hours, more training on simulators of large commercial planes such as Boeing 747s and Boeing 767s, as well as studying security precautions in all airports.” However, apparently bin al-Shibh does not mention exactly when or where such additional training took place, if in fact it did. [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 24-6, 38, 134] Interviewed two days after 9/11, Dekkers, at whose flight school Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi initially trained (see July 6-December 19, 2000), will comment, “After the training they had here they went to another flight school in Pompano Beach and they had jet training there, simulator or big planes, but there is where they conducted the training to do what they had to do.” Dekkers will say that he has heard this “from several directions.” However, the Pompano Beach school is not named. [Dekkers, 9/13/2001]

Entity Tags: Rudi Dekkers, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

Ziad Jarrah amd Aisel Senguen holidaying in Paris in the fall of 2000. [Source: McDermott]Ziad Jarrah flies from Atlanta to Dusseldorf via Amsterdam. He then returns to Lebanon to see his father, who is ill. On his way back to the US, he stops in Bochum, Germany, to see his girlfriend and tells her he wants to have children soon. He is re-admitted to the US as a business visitor for three and a half months. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 21 ; McDermott, 2005, pp. 213]

Entity Tags: Aysel Senguen, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

The most famous image of Mohamed Atta came from his Florida driver’s license. [Source: 9/11 Commission]At least six hijackers get more than one Florida driver’s license. They get the second license simply by filling out change of address forms:
Waleed Alshehri—first license May 4, duplicate May 5;
Marwan Alshehhi—first license, April 12, duplicate in June;
Ziad Jarrah—first license May 2, duplicate July 10;
Ahmed Alhaznawi—first license July 10, duplicate September 7 (see September 7, 2001);
Hamza Alghamdi—first license June 27, two duplicates, the second in August; and
“A sixth man” with a Florida duplicate is not named. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001] Additionally, some hijackers obtained licenses from multiple states. For instance, Nawaf Alhazmi had licenses from California, New York, and Florida at the same time, apparently all in the same name. [Newsday, 9/21/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001; Daily Oklahoman, 1/20/2002]

Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Hamza Alghamdi, Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Marwan Alshehhi, Waleed M. Alshehri

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

Waleed Alshehri. [Source: FBI]The 9/11 hijackers open nine new SunTrust bank accounts in Florida. One is opened by hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah, the others by the newly arrived hijackers:
Satam Al Suqami and Waleed Alshehri open a joint account on May 1 with a $9,000 deposit; [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 136 ]
Ziad Jarrah opens an account on May 15;
Ahmed Alnami, Hamza Alghamdi, and Mohand Alshehri open accounts on June 1;
Wail Alshehri opens an account on June 18;
Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alhaznawi open accounts on July 12;
Fayez Ahmed Banihammad opens an account on July 18. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 3, 19 ] Many of the hijackers also obtain Florida driver’s licenses and ID cards at the same time (see April 12-September 7, 2001).

Entity Tags: Wail Alshehri, Ziad Jarrah, Waleed M. Alshehri, Satam Al Suqami, SunTrust Bank, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Hamza Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

Ziad Jarrah’s computer record at the US1 Fitness gym. [Source: Patrick Durand/ Corbis]The hijackers work out at various gyms, presumably getting in shape for the hijacking. Ziad Jarrah appears to train intensively from May to August, and Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi also take exercising very seriously. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; New York Times, 9/23/2001] However, these three are presumably pilots who would need the training the least. For instance, Jarrah’s trainer says, “If he wasn’t one of the pilots, he would have done quite well in thwarting the passengers from attacking.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001] From September 2-6, Flight 77 hijackers Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Salem Alhazmi show up several times at a Gold’s Gym in Greenbelt, Maryland, signing the register with their real names and paying in cash. According to a Gold’s regional manager, they “seemed not to really know what they were doing” when using the weight machines. [Washington Post, 9/19/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; Associated Press, 9/21/2001; Newsday, 9/23/2001] Three others—Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami— “simply clustered around a small circuit of machines, never asking for help and, according to a trainer, never pushing any weights. ‘You know, I don’t actually remember them ever doing anything… They would just stand around and watch people.’” [New York Times, 9/23/2001] Those three also had a one month membership in Florida—whether they ever actually worked out there is unknown. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001]

Entity Tags: Satam Al Suqami, Ziad Jarrah, Waleed M. Alshehri, Salem Alhazmi, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Nawaf Alhazmi, Majed Moqed, Central Intelligence Agency, Hani Hanjour, Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Almihdhar

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

An apartment in Hollywood, Florida, where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi lived for a month from May 13. [Source: Patrick Durand / Corbis]Several large deposits are made on the hijacker pilots’ accounts. The joint SunTrust account of Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi receives $8,600 on May 11, $3,400 on May 22, and $8,000 on June 1, when $3,000 is also deposited in Ziad Jarrah’s SunTrust account. The 9/11 Commission will not identify the source of these funds, but will speculate that they may be from physically imported cash or traveler’s checks the investigation did not identify, or funds that were previously withdrawn, but not spent. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 136-7 ] Alternatively, they may be related to the way in which Mohamed Atta distributes cash transferred to his US bank accounts (see Mid-July - Mid-August 2001).

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, 9/11 Commission, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, SunTrust Bank

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah

Several of the 9/11 hijackers make trips to Las Vegas and the west coast over the summer:
May 24-27: Marwan Alshehhi flies to Vegas (see May 24-27, 2001);
June 7-10: Ziad Jarrah takes a trip to Vegas (see June 7-10, 2001);
June 28-July 1: Mohamed Atta takes his first trip to Vegas, flying from Fort Lauderdale to Boston and then, the next day, to Las Vegas via San Francisco with United Airlines. He stays there three nights, then returns to Boston via Denver, and flies to New York the next day;
July 31-August 1: Waleed Alshehri flies from Fort Lauderdale to Boston and then takes American Airlines flight 195 to San Francisco the next day. After spending a night at the La Quinta Inn, he returns to Miami via Las Vegas; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 1-2, 16, 18 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 55-7 ]
August 1: Actor James Woods sees four people he will later suspect are hijackers, including individuals he believes to be Khalid Almihdhar and Hamza Alghamdi, on a transcontinental flight (see August 1, 2001). Abdulaziz Alomari is reported to try to get into the cockpit on a different flight from Vegas on the same day (see August 1, 2001);
August 13-14: Atta, Hani Hanjour, and Nawaf Alhazmi all fly to Vegas, possibly meeting some other hijackers there (see August 13-14, 2001).
Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar also made frequent car trips to Las Vegas from San Diego, where they lived in 2000. [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002; McDermott, 2005, pp. 192] The reason for these trips is never definitively determined, although there will be speculation the hijackers are casing aircraft similar to those they will hijack on 9/11. The 9/11 Commission will comment, “Beyond Las Vegas’s reputation for welcoming tourists, we have seen no credible evidence explaining why… the operatives flew to or met in Law Vegas.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 242, 248] After 9/11, it will be reported that the hijackers may use these cross-country flights to take pictures of airline cockpits and check out security at boarding gates. During the flights, the hijackers apparently take notes, watch the crews, and even videotape them. There are some reports that two, or perhaps more, of the hijackers sit in “jumpseats” in the pilot’s cabin, a courtesy extended by airlines to other pilots, during the surveillance flights (see Summer 2001) and on the day of 9/11 itself (see November 23, 2001). [Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; Associated Press, 5/29/2002] There are reports that the hijackers drink alcohol, gamble, and frequent strip clubs while they are in Las Vegas. For example, according to a dancer named “Samantha,” Marwan Alshehhi stares up at her blankly while she “undulate[s] her hips inches from his face” and only gives her $20, although he is a “light drinker.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/2001; Newsweek, 10/15/2001]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Waleed M. Alshehri

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

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

During much of the summer, four of the alleged 9/11 hijackers rent scooters from AAA Car Rental in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Like many students do, they pass time riding up and down the city’s beaches. One of the owners of AAA Car Rental later remarks, “For guys that hated America, they sure looked like they were having a great time here. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world.” [Wall Street Journal, 10/16/2001] Though the identities of the four are unstated, many of the hijackers are reportedly in the Fort Lauderdale area around this time, including Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and nine of the so-called “muscle hijackers” (see April 23-June 29, 2001). [US Congress, 9/26/2002]

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

Ziad Jarrah. [Source: National Geographic]Ziad Jarrah takes a trip to Las Vegas, but will reportedly later say he was followed on the trip. One of the hijackers’ associates, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, will later say that Jarrah felt he was followed on a flight from New York to California by “security officers.” Bin al-Shibh will also say that fellow hijacker Marwan Alshehhi was followed on a similar flight (see May 24-27, 2001). Hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar also thought they were followed on a flight to the US (see January 15, 2000 and Mid-July 2000). [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 135] Jarrah flies first class from Baltimore to Los Angeles on a United Airlines Boeing 757, the same type of plane he will apparently fly on 9/11, and then continues to Las Vegas. Three days later he returns his rental car, having driven 350 miles, and flies back to Baltimore, where he boards a plane back to Fort Lauderdale. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 23 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 55 ] His uncle will describe the trip as a “gambling junket.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001] Several other hijackers also travel to Vegas (see May 24-August 14, 2001).

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Mohamed Atta stayed at the Las Vegas Econolodge. [Source: Chris Farina/Corbis]The lead hijackers meet in Las Vegas for a summit a few weeks before 9/11. Investigators will believe that this is the “most crucial planning in the United States,” but will not understand why the hijackers choose Vegas, since they are all living on the East Coast at this time (see March 2001-September 1, 2001 and August 6-September 9, 2001). One senior official will speculate, “Perhaps they figured it would be easy to blend in.” [New York Times, 11/4/2001] At least three of the plot leaders are in Las Vegas at this time. Hani Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi fly from Dulles Airport to Los Angeles on an American Airlines Boeing 757, the same sort of plane they hijack on 9/11, and then continue to Las Vegas. Mohamed Atta also flies to Las Vegas from Washington National Airport. This is his second trip to Vegas, which was also previously visited by some of the other hijackers (see May 24-August 14, 2001). A few weeks earlier, Atta had traveled to Spain, possibly with some of the other hijackers, to finalize the plans for the attack with their associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh (see July 8-19, 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 1, 17, 21 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 57-8 ] Alhazmi will later be recalled by a hotel employee, who will say she ran into him at the Days Inn. According to her later account, he is “cold and abrupt,” in Vegas on “important business,” and will soon be traveling to Los Angeles. He asks for a list of Days Inns in Los Angeles, but does not want a reservation to be made. He also claims to be from Florida, although he is only thought to have spent a week there (see June 19-25, 2001). [Las Vegas Review-Journal, 10/26/2001] A close associate of the hijackers, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, will later say in a 2002 interview that Ziad Jarrah, Marwan Alshehhi, and Khalid Almihdhar are also present in Vegas at this time. [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 137] Newsweek calls Vegas an “odd location” and comments: “They stayed in cheap hotels on a dreary stretch of the Strip frequented by dope dealers and $10 street hookers. Perhaps they wished to be fortified for their mission by visiting a shrine to American decadence. Or maybe they just wanted a city that was easy to reach by air from their various cells in Florida, New Jersey and San Diego.” [Newsweek, 10/15/2001]

Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Khalid Almihdhar, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mohamed Atta, Nawaf Alhazmi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah

A letter that Zacarias Moussaoui had in his possession when he was arrested. It is signed by Yazid Sufaat, whose apartment was used for a 9/11 planning meeting in January 2000 that was monitored by the authorities. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division] (click image to enlarge)After Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested, the FBI wishes to search his possessions (see August 16, 2001 and August 23-27, 2001). According to a presentation made by FBI agent Aaron Zebley at Moussaoui’s trial, the belongings are sufficient to potentially connect Moussaoui to eleven of the 9/11 hijackers: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, Fayez Banihammad, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Hamza Alghamdi, Satam Al Suqami, and Waleed Alshehri. The connections would be made, for example, through Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who spoke with Moussaoui on the telephone and wired him money (see July 29, 2001-August 3, 2001), and who was linked to three of the hijacker pilots from their time in Germany together (see November 1, 1998-February 2001). Bin al-Shibh also received money from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, who was connected to hijacker Fayez Ahmed Banihammad (see June 25, 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Moussaoui’s notebook contained two recognizable control numbers for the Western Union wire transfers from bin al-Shibh and, according to McClatchy newspapers, a check on these numbers “would probably have uncovered other wires in the preceding days” to bin al-Shibh from al-Hawsawi. [McClatchy Newspapers, 9/11/2007] The discovery of the eleven hijackers could potentially have led to the discovery of some or all of the remaining eight plot members, as they were brothers (Wail and Waleed Alshehri, Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi), opened bank accounts together (see May 1-July 18, 2001 and June 27-August 23, 2001), lived together (see March 2001-September 1, 2001), obtained identity documents together (see April 12-September 7, 2001 and August 1-2, 2001), arrived in the US together (see April 23-June 29, 2001), and booked tickets on the same four flights on 9/11 (see August 25-September 5, 2001).

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

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers, Zacarias Moussaoui

Several deposits are made to the hijackers’ accounts. Details are available for some of the deposits for eleven of the nineteen hijackers: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour, Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Ahmed Alhazmawi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Hamza Alghamdi, Waleed Alshehri, and Satam Al Suqami. Over $40,000 is deposited in their accounts, much in cash. The largest amounts deposited in one day occur on August 24, when $8,000 is split equally between Hamza Alghamdi’s account and a joint account of Atta and Alshehhi, and September 5, when a total of $9,650 is split between Banihammad’s and Hamza Alghamdi’s accounts, and the joint Atta/Alshehhi account. The smallest deposit is $120, paid into Khalid Almihdhar’s First Union National Bank account on September 9. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ] Although it is impossible to trace the exact origins of the deposits, possible sources include withdrawals from other hijackers’ bank accounts, cash and traveler’s checks brought in by the hijackers in the spring/early summer (see January 15, 2000-August 2001), car sales, and money distributed by Atta, who reportedly received around $100,000 in early August (see Early August 2001, Summer 2001 and before, and Mid-July - Mid-August 2001).

Entity Tags: Hamza Alghamdi, Ziad Jarrah, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Waleed M. Alshehri, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Satam Al Suqami, Mohamed Atta, Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Hani Hanjour

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

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

All the hijackers book their flights for 9/11, using their apparent real names. The total cost of the tickets is in excess of $30,000:
August 25: Khalid Almihdhar, who was watchlisted two days previously (see August 23, 2001), and Majed Moqed book tickets for American Airlines flight 77 using the AA.com website. They are collected from the American Airlines ticket counter at Baltimore Washington International Airport on September 5. The tickets were not mailed, because the shipping address did not match the credit card address. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 72, 74 ]
August 26: Wail Alshehri buys a ticket for American Airlines flight 11 over the phone with his debit card. His brother Waleed buys a ticket for the same flight at the AA.com website using his debit card. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 72 ]
August 27: Nawaf Alhazmi, who was watchlisted four days before (see August 23, 2001), buys tickets for himself and his brother Salem for American Airlines flight 77 through Travelocity from a Kinkos computer in Laurel, Maryland, using his debit card (see August 25-27, 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 72 ]
August 27: Saeed Alghamdi uses his debit card to purchase tickets for United Airlines flight 93 for himself and Ahmed Alnami from the UA.com website. The tickets are not paid for until September 5, 2001, due to a problem with the debit card. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 72 ]
August 27: Fayez Ahmed Banihammad uses his visa card to purchase tickets for himself and Mohamed Alshehri for United Airlines flight 175 over the telephone. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 72-73 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
August 28: Mohamed Atta uses his debit card to buy tickets for American Airlines flight 11 for himself and Abdulaziz Alomari from the AA.com website. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
August 28: Waleed Alshehri purchases a ticket for Satam Al Suqami for American Airlines flight 11 in person from the company’s counter at Fort Lauderdale Airport. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 73 ]
August 28: Marwan Alshehhi purchases a ticket for United Airlines flight 175 from the company’s counter at Miami International Airport. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 73 ]
August 29: Hamza Alghamdi books tickets for himself and Ahmed Alghamdi for United Airlines flight 175 from the UA.com website. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
August 29: Ahmed Alhaznawi creates a new e-mail account and Travelocity.com account and uses them to book a ticket for himself on United Airlines flight 93. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 74 ]
August 30: Ziad Jarrah purchases a ticket for himself for United Airlines flight 93 from the UA website. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
August 31: Hani Hanjour purchases a ticket for American Airlines flight 77 from ATS Advanced Travel Services in Totowa, New Jersey, paying in cash. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
At least five tickets are one way only. [Los Angeles Times, 9/18/2001] There are numerous connections between the hijackers booked on the four flights by this point:
Hijackers on different 9/11 flights arrived in the US on the same plane. For example, Salem Alhazmi (Flight 77) arrived with Abdulaziz Alomari (Flight 11), and Fayez Ahmed Banihammad (Flight 175) arrived with Saeed Alghamdi (Flight 93) (see April 23-June 29, 2001);
Two of the pilots, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, train and live together, and have a joint bank account (see (Mid-July 2000 - Early January 2001), July 6-December 19, 2000, and June 28-July 7, 2000);
Hijackers from different planes open bank accounts together (see May 1-July 18, 2001 and June 27-August 23, 2001); and
The hijackers obtain identity documents together (see April 12-September 7, 2001 and August 1-2, 2001).
Six hijackers also provide the same phone number and three use the same address. [Miami Herald, 9/22/2001]

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

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

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

The Pin-Del Motel. [Source: Michael Springer / Zuma Press]On August 27, Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah checks into the Pin-Del, a budget motel in Laurel, Maryland. Giving a Florida address and driver’s license number, he pays for three nights with a Visa card, but leaves the following evening. [Associated Press, 9/19/2001; Washington Post, 9/19/2001] Days later, Nawaf Alhazmi spends the night of September 1 at the same motel. He uses a New York driver’s license as identification, which gives his address as a Manhattan hotel. But the records of this hotel later will show he never stayed there, and his driver’s license will also be found to be a fake. On September 2, he joins the other Flight 77 hijackers at another motel, about a mile from the Pin-Del (See (August 23-September 10, 2001)). Jarrah is apparently never seen with any of the other hijackers while in the US. [Associated Press, 9/19/2001; Newsday, 9/21/2001]

Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Ziad Jarrah

According to Paul Dragomir, the manager of the Longshore Motel in Hollywood, Florida, two individuals who may be Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah rent a room in his motel. They sign in using apparent aliases, claiming to be computer engineers from Iran, and say they are down from Canada to find jobs. However, they leave the motel after a few hours because of a dispute over Internet access, which the motel cannot provide on a 24-hour basis. The Washington Post will write: “The need to be online at any moment suggests they were looking for Web pages or messages that would signal phases of the operation, experts say. Dragomir said he refunded their $175 in cash and they left. ‘They got very angry. One of the guys said, You don’t understand. We are here on a mission.’” [Washington Post, 10/5/2001] While the Post’s account will say that the motel manager recognizes Atta and Jarrah, other press accounts differ. According to the Chicago Tribune, Dragomir “said he was uncertain whether the pair had any connection to the Sept. 11 events, except for general physical descriptions.” [Chicago Tribune, 9/18/2001] And according to Wired Magazine, Dragomir “suggested that they were closely linked to the 19 hijackers, but that they were not among those men.” [Wired, 9/20/2001]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Mohamed Atta, Paul Dragomir

Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah

The four hijackers of flight 93 apparently arrive in Newark from Florida on this day, although there is much confusion over this. Two of them, Ahmed Alnami and Saeed Alghamdi, take Spirit Airlines flight 1460 via Atlanta, leaving around 6:30 p.m. and arriving three hours later. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 253 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 81 ] However, the travel of the other two, Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed Alghamdi, is very confusing:
Ticket Purchase - According to an initial FBI chronology, Jarrah and Alghamdi book tickets on Continental Flight 1500 on September 5. But the chronology gives the wrong times, departure at 8:35 p.m. and arrival at 11:20 p.m., for this flight, which, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, actually leaves just after midday (note: the 8:35 p.m. and 11:20 p.m. times are actually for Continental Flight 1700). The chronology also refers to this flight as “Spirit Airlines Flight 1500.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 253 ; Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2/20/2008] Chronologies for Jarrah and Alhaznawi submitted at the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui will say that they purchase tickets for Spirit Air Flight 1500. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
Continental Flight 1500 - A stipulation used at the Moussaoui trial will claim that Jarrah takes this flight, and also Flight 1700 (note: this is impossible as he does not have time to arrive in Newark on the first flight, rent a car and hotel room there, and return to Florida in time for the second flight). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 81-82 ] Jarrah rents the car and hotel room in Newark just before 5:00 p.m., suggesting that he does indeed take Continental flight 1500, which arrives in time for him to rent the car. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 264 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ] A luggage tag will be found after 9/11 indicating that Jarrah did in fact fly on this flight. However, Jarrah’s name is not on the passenger manifest for this flight and neither is Alhaznawi’s. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 261, 265 ]
Spirit Flight 1460 or 1500 - Used Spirit Airline tickets dated September 7 will be found after 9/11 in Newark for all four flight 93 hijackers. This indicates Jarrah and Alhaznawi may fly with Alnami and Alghamdi on Spirit Airlines. However, Spirit Airlines flight 1460 arrives in Newark several hours after Jarrah rents a car and hotel room there. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 264 ] Chronologies for Jarrah and Alhaznawi submitted at the Moussaoui trial will say that they purchase tickets for “Spirit flt 1500”, but this may be a typo due to confusion with the Continental booking that is said to have occurred the same day, also for a flight 1500. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
Continental Flight 1700 - Jarrah takes this flight, which arrives in Newark several hours after he rents a car and hotel room there, according to the Moussaoui trial stipulation, which also says he takes the earlier flight (for which he is not on the manifest). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 81-82 ] Alhaznawi, who has a ticket for either Continental 1500 or Spirit 1500 and for whom a used ticket for a Spirit flight was found, takes this flight, according to one of the Moussaoui trial chronologies, the Moussaoui trial stipulation, and a chart of the hijackers’ name usage used as evidence at the Moussaoui trial. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 81-82 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 24 ]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

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

Ziad Jarrah. [Source: CNN]9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah is stopped in Maryland for speeding, ticketed, and released. No red flags show up when his name is run through the computer by the state police, even though he already had been questioned in January 2001 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the request of the CIA for “suspected involvement in terrorist activities” (see January 30, 2001) Baltimore’s mayor has criticized the CIA for not informing them that Jarrah was on the CIA’s watch list. [Chicago Tribune, 12/13/2001; Associated Press, 12/14/2001] Sen. Bob Graham (D) will later make reference to Jarrah’s detention in the UAE and the fact that an arrest warrant had been put out for Mohamed Atta (see June 4, 2001), and comment, “Had local law enforcement been able to run the names of Jarrah and Atta against a watch list, it is likely that they would have been arrested and detained, and at least one team of hijackers would no longer have had a pilot.” [Graham and Nussbaum, 2004, pp. 37] Three other hijackers are also stopped for speeding while they are in the US (see April 26, 2001).

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Hijacker Contact w Government in US

About an hour before boarding Flight 93, Ziad Jarrah phones his girlfriend, Aysel Senguen, who is currently recovering from a minor operation in a hospital in Germany, where she lives. [Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Observer, 8/22/2004] Senguen will later recount, “[H]e was very brief. He said he loved me three times. I asked what was up. He hung up shortly afterwards.… It was so short and rather strange him saying that repeatedly.” [Reuters, 11/19/2002; Guardian, 11/20/2002] Some accounts say Jarrah makes this call from his hotel, the Days Inn in Newark. Other accounts claim he makes it from a payphone at the airport, although he does not actually check in there until later on, at 7:39 a.m. [PBS, 1/17/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 532; Observer, 8/22/2004; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 8/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 35 ]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Aysel Senguen

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight UA 93, Ziad Jarrah

One page of a torn up 757 cockpit poster used by the hijackers. It was found in a trash compactor at the Days Inn, near the Newark Airport. [Source: FBI]Investigators find a remarkable number of possessions left behind by the hijackers:
Two of Mohamed Atta’s bags are found on 9/11. They contain a handheld electronic flight computer, a simulator procedures manual for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft, two videotapes relating to “air tours” of the Boeing 757 and 747 aircraft, a slide-rule flight calculator, a copy of the Koran, Atta’s passport, his will, his international driver’s license, a religious cassette tape, airline uniforms, a letter of recommendation, “education related documentation” and a note (see September 28, 2001) to other hijackers on how to mentally prepare for the hijacking. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/15/2001; Boston Globe, 9/18/2001; Independent, 9/29/2001; Associated Press, 10/5/2001]
Marwan Alshehhi’s rental car is discovered at Boston’s Logan Airport containing an Arabic language flight manual, a pass giving access to restricted areas at the airport, documents containing a name on the passenger list of one of the flights, and the names of other suspects. The name of the flight school where Atta and Alshehhi studied, Huffman Aviation, is also found in the car. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001]
A car registered to Nawaf Alhazmi is found at Washington’s Dulles Airport on September 12. This is the same car he bought in San Diego in early 2000 (see March 25, 2000). Inside is a copy of Atta’s letter to the other hijackers, a cashier’s check made out to a flight school in Phoenix, four drawings of the cockpit of a 757 jet, a box cutter-type knife, maps of Washington and New York, and a page with notes and phone numbers. [Arizona Daily Star, 9/28/2001; Cox News Service, 10/21/2001; Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002] The name and phone number of Osama Awadallah, a friend of Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in San Diego, is also found on a scrap of paper in the car. [CNN, 2/1/2002]
A rental car is found in an airport parking lot in Portland, Maine. Investigators are able to collect fingerprints and hair samples for DNA analysis. [Portland Press Herald, 10/14/2001]
A Boston hotel room contains airplane and train schedules. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/15/2001]
FBI agents carry out numerous garbage bags of evidence from a Florida apartment where Saeed Alghamdi lived. [CNN, 9/17/2001]
Two days before 9/11, a hotel owner in Deerfield Beach, Florida, finds a box cutter left in a hotel room used by Marwan Alshehhi and two unidentified men. The owner checks the nearby trash and finds a duffel bag containing Boeing 757 manuals, three illustrated martial arts books, an 8-inch stack of East Coast flight maps, a three-ring binder full of handwritten notes, an English-German dictionary, an airplane fuel tester, and a protractor. The FBI seizes all the items when they are notified on September 12 (except the binder of notes, which the owner apparently threw away). [Miami Herald, 9/16/2001; Associated Press, 9/16/2001]
In an apartment rented by Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed Alhaznawi, the FBI finds a notebook, videotape, and photocopies of their passports. [Miami Herald, 9/15/2001]
In a bar the night before 9/11, after making predictions of a attack on America the next day, the hijackers leave a business card and a copy of the Koran at the bar. The FBI also recovers the credit card receipts from when they paid for their drinks and lap dances. [Associated Press, 9/14/2001]
A September 13 security sweep of Boston airport’s parking garage uncovers items left behind by the hijackers: a box cutter, a pamphlet written in Arabic, and a credit card. [Washington Post, 9/16/2001]
A few hours after the attacks, suicide notes that some of the hijackers wrote to their parents are found in New York. Credit card receipts showing that some of the hijackers paid for flight training in the US are also found. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001]
A FedEx bill is found in a trash can at the Comfort Inn in Portland, Maine, where Atta stayed the night before 9/11. The bill leads to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, allowing investigators to determine much of the funding for 9/11. [Newsweek, 11/11/2001; London Times, 12/1/2001]
A bag hijackers Alhazmi and Almihdhar left at a mosque in Laurel, Maryland, is found on September 12. The bag contains flight logs and even receipts from flight schools from San Diego the year before (see September 9, 2001).
The hijackers past whereabouts can even be tracked by their pizza purchases. An expert points out: “Most people pay cash for pizza. These [hijackers] paid with a credit card. That was an odd thing.” [San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/3/2002] “In the end, they left a curiously obvious trail—from martial arts manuals, maps, a Koran, Internet and credit card fingerprints. Maybe they were sloppy, maybe they did not care, maybe it was a gesture of contempt of a culture they considered weak and corrupt.” [Miami Herald, 9/22/2001] Note The New Yorker’s quote of a former high-level intelligence official: “Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the FBI to chase” (see Late September 2001). [New Yorker, 10/8/2001]

Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Huffman Aviation, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mohamed Atta, Saeed Alghamdi, Osama Awadallah, Washington Dulles International Airport, Ziad Jarrah, Nawaf Alhazmi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, FBI 9/11 Investigation, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers

Several of the hijackers have tickets to continue from the destinations of their 9/11 flights. However, they do not take the flights, as all air traffic has been grounded in the US (see (9:26 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and they are presumed to have died in the 9/11 attacks. Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi, and Flight 175 hijackers Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Mohand Alshehri, and Hamza Alghamdi are to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Flight 93 hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi is to continue from San Francisco to San Diego, whereas Ziad Jarrah is to continue to Las Vegas. Alghamdi also has tickets for flights later in September (see September 20-29, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 233, 238, 242 246, 288 ]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ziad Jarrah, Nawaf Alhazmi, Mohand Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi, Salem Alhazmi

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers, All Day of 9/11 Events

After investigating the 9/11 hijackers, the CIA finds that the 19 operatives used a total of 364 aliases, including different spellings of their own names and noms de guerre. Although some examples are made public, the full list is not disclosed. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 1, 5 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ] However, an FBI timeline of hijacker movements made public in 2008 will mention some of the aliases. For example:
Hani Hanjour and Ahmed Alghamdi rent a New Jersey apartment using the names Hany Saleh and Ahmed Saleh. (Saleh is Hanjour’s middle name.) [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 144, 205 ]
Fayez Ahmed Banihammad uses the aliases Abu Dhabi Banihammad and Fayey Rashid Ahmed. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 167, 174 ]
Nawaf Alhazmi uses the aliases Nawaf Alharbi and Nawaf Alzmi Alhazmi. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 60 ; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 248 ]
Mohamed Atta frequently likes to use variants of the name El Sayed, for instance calling himself Awaid Elsayed and even Hamburg Elsayed. Marwan Alshehhi also uses the Elsayed alias. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 125, 126 ]
When Majed Moqed flies into the US on May 2, 2001, the name Mashaanmoged Mayed is on the flight manifest. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 139 ]
In contrast to this, many reports emphasize that the hijackers usually used their own names. For example, the 9/11 Commission will say, “The hijackers opened accounts in their own names, using passports and other identification documents.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 22 ] In addition, a Commission staffer will tell UPI: “They did not need fake passports. The plotters all used their own passports to get into the country and once here, used US-issued ID documents whenever possible.” [United Press International, 8/17/2005]

Entity Tags: Wail Alshehri, Mohand Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Nawaf Alhazmi, Saeed Alghamdi, Satam Al Suqami, Marwan Alshehhi, Salem Alhazmi, Ziad Jarrah, Waleed M. Alshehri, Majed Moqed, Khalid Almihdhar, Ahmed Alhaznawi, 9/11 Commission, Abdulaziz Alomari, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hani Hanjour, Hamza Alghamdi, Central Intelligence Agency, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ahmed Alnami

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

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

Hani Hanjour (left) and Majed Moqed (right) captured by surveillance video on September 5, 2001. [Source: FBI]An FBI timeline of the 9/11 hijackers’ activities compiled in late 2001 and released this month indicates that considerable video footage of the hijackers has yet to be released. Most of the footage appears to come from surveillance video discovered after the 9/11 attacks. So far, the only known footage made public has been two video stills of Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed using an ATM machine, one still each of Waleed Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami, several stills of Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in Portland the night before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001), and a few more stills and footage of several hijackers in airports on the morning of 9/11 (see (Between 5:45 a.m. and 5:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (7:15 a.m.-7:18 a.m.) September 11, 2001). But the FBI’s timeline reveals video footage that has never even been publicly hinted at:
Mohamed Atta used an ATM in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 19, 2001.
Salem Alhazmi and Ahmed Alghamdi used an ATM in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 2.
Hanjour and Mojed used a Kinko’s for half an hour in College Park, Maryland, on August 10.
Moqed and Nawaf Alhazmi shopped at an Exxon gas station in Joppa, Maryland, on August 28.
Waleed and Wail Alshehri wandered around a Target store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 4.
Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were in a Florida bank lobby on September 4, and the audio of Atta calling Saudi Arabia was even recorded in the process.
Fayez Ahmed Banihammad used an ATM on September 7 in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Salem Alhazmi was at the Falls Church DMV on September 7. Low quality surveillance video at the Milner Hotel in Boston showed Marwan Alshehhi and possibly Mohand Alshehri on multiple occasions in the days just before 9/11.
Ziad Jarrah and possibly Saeed Alghamdi were videotaped using a Kinko’s for about an hour near Newark on September 10. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001 ]

Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Salem Alhazmi, Marwan Alshehhi, Nawaf Alhazmi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ahmed Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, Abdulaziz Alomari, Mohand Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers, FBI 9/11 Investigation

Ali al-Jarrah. [Source: New York Times/Public Domain]Ali al-Jarrah, a cousin of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah, is arrested by the Lebanese military. He is accused of spying for Israel since the early 1980s. According to Lebanese investigators interviewed by the New York Times, he was recruited in 1983—a year after Israel invaded Lebanon—by Israeli officers who had imprisoned him. Jarrah, 50, worked as a school administrator. He is accused of providing information on Palestinian forces and Syrian troop movements. He is also suspected of involvement in the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah commander killed in Damascus in February 2008. His brother Yusuf, who is accused of helping him spy, is also arrested. Ali and Ziad Jarrah were “20 years apart in age and do not appear to have known each other well.” [Jerusalem Post, 11/3/2008; London Times, 11/9/2008; Independent, 11/13/2008; New York Times, 2/19/2009]

Entity Tags: Ali al-Jarrah, Ziad Jarrah

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Israel