Did he meet with somebody in Portland who helped him with the attack? [52], German investigators said that they had evidence that Mohamed Atta trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000. [8] In mid-1995, he stayed for three months in Cairo, on a grant from the Carl Duisberg Society, along with fellow students Volker Hauth and Ralph Bodenstein. [25] The invitation had been for a three-day visit, but Atta ended up staying several weeks that August, only to visit Aleppo yet again that December. It turned out one of his accomplices, Mohamed Atta-- thought to be the ringleader of the entire four-jet attack that demolished the twin towers and part of the Pentagon-- stayed in the cheap Econo . (L to R, top to bottom) Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Ibrahim A. al-Haznawi, Ziad Samir al-Jarrah, and Saeed Alghamdi. He said he later called Signature to arrange to retrieve the airplane and was told that they did pass through the company's offices, at least briefly, before renting a car to return to Venice. The official, Mr. Kraus said, said the two pilots had abandoned the plane without radioing the tower and were walking across the airfield toward the main hanger used for general aviation. We went through the logs of ferries leaving Maine, and we went through the logs of airlines and anything associated with potential for a terrorist cell to support Atta. But Atta's night before 9-11 - which he spent in Portland, Main -- is a mystery that has puzzled terrorism experts for five years. It is not known where he stayed that night, but on the 29th he registered at the Econo Lodge at 1150 South Las Vegas Boulevard. He inquired about flight training, "Dear sir, we are a small group of young men from different Arab countries. He insisted that she write his name as ATTA, that he originally was from Egypt but had moved to Afghanistan, that he was an engineer and that his dream was to go to a flight school. That aircraft hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. United Flight 175, also from Boston, hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. "One of the things we did at the White House was push the FBI to focus on Portland to determine whether or not there were people there that they might have met with, Cressey said. [16] Atta and Shehhi established accounts at SunTrust Bank and received wire transfers from Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew in the United Arab Emirates. Records on Atta's cellphone indicated that he phoned the Moroccan embassy in Washington on January 2, just before Shehhi flew to the country. The next day, he received a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the United States embassy in Berlin. He had made no progress on his thesis. ", The other possibility is that Atta went to Portland for a final meeting with an unknown supporter. [88] At 6:45a.m., while at the Boston airport, Atta took a call from Flight 175 hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi. that best enable air traffic controllers to follow a plane's path. The Web . [31][32] Further, after the Egyptian government had imprisoned droves of political activists, he knew better than to trust it not to target him too, with his social and political beliefs being such as they were. Realizing they were facing a suicide mission, flight 93 passengers fought for control of the plane. He moved into a nearby apartment in the Wilhelmsburg district, where he lived with Said Bahaji and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Atta returned to Hamburg in February 2000, and began inquiring about flight training in the United States. Readers may recall the shaving custom from the media coverage of 9/11. In the aftermath of the attack, law enforcement agents discovered a four-page document in Mohamed Atta's baggage. They instead traveled to Afghanistan over a two-week period in late November. While in the United States he traveled to Lawrenceville, Georgia, where he and Shehhi visited an LA Fitness Health Club. Something is not right. About a minute later, he turned the plane southbound, on a course pointed in the direction of New York City. "[114] By contrast, criminal justice professor, Adam Lankford, has found evidence that indicated Atta was suicidal, and that his struggles with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame, hopelessness, and rage were extraordinarily similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide and murder-suicide. He . 8:24 am - Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control (apparently in an attempt to communicate with the plane's cabin). Many al-Qaeda members lived in this apartment at various times, including hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi, Zakariya Essabar, and others. Lip readers have failed to decipher it. [32] Atta Sr. rejected media reports that stated his son was drinking wildly, and instead described his son as a quiet boy uninvolved with politics, shy and devoted to studying architecture. The Mohamed Atta Files. Atta, an Egyptian, and Omari, a Saudi, held $2,400 first-class tickets to fly from Portland to Boston to Los Angeles. I have been planning and working with Bin Laden on the destruction of certain American targets. . Mohammed Atta, a convicted terrorist released by Israel at the insistence of the U.S., participated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Pursell described the incident at the Miami airport as a nuisance more than a serious violation, an assessment shared by many others in general aviation. If any of the hijackers could not reach their intended targets, Atta said, they were to crash the plane. During that time Atta flew out of Briscoe Field in Lawrenceville with a pilot, and Atta and either the pilot or Shehhi flew around the Atlanta area. He was among the highest-scoring students; by his senior year, he was admitted to an exclusive architecture program. [1][2][3][4][5] Having just turned 33 at the time of the attacks, he was the oldest of the 19 hijackers who took part in the mission. Mr. Kraus and Mr. Pursell said that the breakdown could have happened to any pilot on any airfield, but that the response by the two men was wrong. [59][60], From July 13 to 16, Atta stayed at the Hotel Sant Jordi in Tarragona. [23] He kept to himself to such an extent that he would often react to simple greetings with silence. On the morning of September 11, Atta boarded American Airlines Flight 11, which he and his team then hijacked. He spoke again seconds after that first transmission, still unaware that his voice was being heard on the ground: "Nobody move, everything will be OK. Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta (/t/ AT-ah; Arabic: [mmmd elmi wd essj.jed t]; September 1, 1968 September 11, 2001) was an Egyptian hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in 2001 in which four United States airliners were commandeered with the intention of destroying specific civilian, military, and governmental targets. But more likely it is that the origination of his flight in Newark, delayed on the ground for 40 minutes, that made his flight more vulnerable. The reservation was not used and canceled on August 9 with the reason "Family Medical Emergency". A huge search operation is underway to try and find any survivors from the horror plane crash in Nepal, but officials have said that the chances of finding any . [35][36] He was also angry and bitter at the elite in his native Egypt, who he believed hoarded power for themselves, as well as at the Egyptian government, that cracked down on the dissident Muslim Brotherhood. Mohamed Atta Flight Record. Atta and Shehhi then moved into a small house nearby in Nokomis where they stayed for six months. The Egyptian Mohamed Atta arrived at the Florenc bus terminal in Prague, from Germany, on June 2, 2000. ; Azrbaycanca; Catal; etina; Dansk; Deutsch; Espaol; ; Franais; ; Hausa; Bahasa Indonesia; Italiano; . . A spokesman for the F.A.A. Just stay quiet." Bin al-Shibh later explained that they believed it would contribute to operational security for Atta to fly out of Prague instead of Hamburg, where he traveled from previously. [9][44] This was the same day that Israel, much to the outrage of Atta, attacked Lebanon in Operation Grapes of Wrath; signing the will "offering his life" was his response. According to Bryant, Atta wanted to finance the purchase of a crop-duster. Undated photos of suspected hijackers of United Airlines flight #93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania, released by the FBI September 27, 2001 in Washington, DC. Had Atta or any of these men been on international watchlists, their names would have been flagged upon making a domestic reservation. By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [13][14] In 1985, Atta enrolled at Cairo University and focused his studies on engineering. Born and raised in Egypt, Atta studied architecture at Cairo University, graduating in 1990, and continued his studies in Germany at the Hamburg University of Technology. [16], Atta continued with flight training that included solo flights and simulator time. On December 22, Atta and Shehhi applied to Eagle International for large jet and simulator training for McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and Boeing 737-300 models. They may have helped arrange and host the meeting in Tarragona. It was here that the Hamburg cell developed and acted more as a group. Jarrah, a Lebanese citizen, would go on to pilot United Airlines Flight 93, intended to hit the U.S. Capitol Building. Passengers must leave the secured area, go outdoors, cross a covered roadway, and enter another building before going through security once again. Make an oath to die and renew your intentions. This encounter took place "around the third week of April to the third week of May of 2000", before Atta's official entry date into the United States (see below). . A voice believed to be that of al Qaeda hijack leader Mohamed Atta urged passengers to . But Atta's night before 9-11 which he spent in Portland, Main -- is a mystery that has puzzled terrorism experts for five years. On September 11 we'll live tweet the events of the day, minute by minute, starting at 4:45 a.m. EST, @RoadTo911. Atta flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. After Atta's transmission, Boston Center concludes that Flight 11 has been hijacked and alerts other control centers. Atta was believed to have used a payphone at the airport to phone a number "linked to al-Qaeda" after Qahtani was denied entry.[78]. At 2:43 p.m., Atta established an American Airlines "AAdvantage" profile #6H26L04 and reserved a business class seat on American Airlines Flight 11 departing Boston at 7:45 a.m. Reading airline charts and inquiring with the airline, he had determined that the flight would be in a Boeing 767-223ER plane, one that he had scouted and studied over months, taking numerous test flights to screen the plane and the boarding and security procedures. [16], On August 4, Atta is believed to have been at Orlando International Airport waiting to pick up suspected "20th Hijacker" Mohammed al-Qahtani from Dubai, who ended up being held by immigration as "suspicious." Atta grew up in Egypt and studied urban planning in Germany. Kersten said in an interview at the agency's headquarters in Wiesbaden that Atta was in Afghanistan from late 1999 until early 2000,[53][54] and that there was evidence that Atta met with Osama bin Laden there. An employee at Huffman confirmed that the flight school did send the agency the plane's maintenance records. Atta flew to Spain on January 4, 2001, to coordinate with bin al-Shibh and returned to the United States on January 10. Sun 14 Oct 2001 11.31 EDT. The third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that took off from Dulles Airport . On April 3, Atta and Shehhi rented a postal box in Virginia Beach, Virginia. [27][28], While in Hamburg, Atta held several positions, such as one part-time job at Plankontor, as well as another at an urban planning firm, beginning in 1992. When they later returned to Huffman, Mr. Pursell said, they were reprimanded. [8] He then worked for several months at the Urban Development Center in Cairo, where he joined various building projects and dispatched diverse architectural tasks. [107], Lt. Col. Shaffer's book also clearly indicates direct identification of the Brooklyn cell, and Mohamed Atta. Atta said, he was to crash the plane. It's Easy to Get Knives and Razors Onto a Plane, the Hijackers Found, The FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit Ignored This Radical Fundamentalist. He said they wanted advice on trying to restart the plane. Bin al-Shibh was worried that Jarrah might even abandon the plan. Abdulaziz al Omari (22), Saudi Arabia - Airport security guard. Atta graduated from Cairo University with marks insufficient for the graduate program. ''They said I'd hear back from them, which I never did.''. ET (approx.) He stayed there until 1998. Bryant said "the picture that came out in the newspaper, that's exactly what that man looked like. "Nothing they said or did raised any suspicions at all," he told the commission's investigators. Ziad Jarrah should demonstrate that intelligence collection needs to be a holistic endeavor and is highly complicated. One of them came on Dec. 26 at Miami International Airport. His nascent infatuation with her, begrudgingly realised, was the closest thing Atta knew to romance. ", "Staff Report "We Have Some Planes": The Four Flights a Chronology", National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, "The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks Staff Statement No. They also discussed the personal difficulties Atta was having with fellow hijacker Ziad Jarrah. [12] Atta initially lived with two high school teachers; however, they eventually found his closed-mindedness and introverted personality to be too much for them. The 9/11 Commission Report speculated that the now-convicted terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was being trained as a possible replacement for Jarrah. [30], In Hamburg, Atta was intensely drawn to al-Quds Mosque which adhered to a "harsh, uncompromisingly fundamentalist, and resoundingly militant" version of Sunni Islam. There, Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, another man the F.B.I. Some, like the 9/11 plot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Florida, checking into a motel in Wayne for a few days and then leaving and then returning days . "There's a real question there because he took a tremendous risk in going to Portland the night before and then having to catch a commuter flight to Boston, said Roger Cressey, who was director of transnational threats for President Bush's National Security Council. American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked by five al Qaeda terrorists led by Mohamed Atta and was deliberately crashed into the North Tower (on the right) of the World Trade Center at 8:46am local . Bin Laden was concerned about having so many operatives in the United States. [33], After coming to Hamburg in 1992, Atta grew more religiously fanatical and frequented the mosque with greater regularity. identifies as one of the 19 hijackers, taxied a small private plane toward a runway when, unexpectedly, it stalled. This was the last transmission heard from Flight 11. American Airlines Flight 11: Mohamed Atta, Egypt (33) - Tactical leader of 9/11 plot and pilot. [108], Atta's father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, a retired lawyer in Egypt, vehemently rejected allegations his son was involved in the September 11 attacks, and instead accused the Mossad and the United States government of having a hand in framing his son. Atta began adhering to the strictest Islamic diet, frequenting the most conservative mosques, socializing seldom, and acting disdainfully towards the couple's unmarried daughter who had a young child. During the meeting, Atta and bin al-Shibh also decided on the targets to be hit, ruling out a strike on a nuclear plant. At 8:26 a.m., Flight 11 makes . Atta also claimed different nationalities, sometimes Egyptian and other times telling people he was from the United Arab Emirates. They were on a suicide flight. His travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan were also signs of radicalization, both of which were masked in the passports he used to enter the United States. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, said the two men never explained why they chose to fly to Miami or apologized for the costs incurred by the school. [48] When he returned in spring 1998, after disappearing for several months, he had grown a thick long beard, and "seemed more serious and aloof" than before to those who knew him. - United Airlines Flight 175 (traveling from Boston to Los Angeles) strikes the South Tower of the World Trade Center . [51] They met three or four times a week to discuss their anti-American feelings and to plot possible attacks. Although estimates range from 18 On the morning of September 11, 2001, 46 minutes into United Airlines Flight 93, a nonstop flight from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, four hijackers took control of the Boeing 757-222. He was the only pilot who was married, to a German national of Turkish descent. On July 25, Atta dropped Ziad Jarrah off at Miami International Airport for a flight back to Germany. He is now with God. Hardball takes a look at the top mysteries surrounding the deadliest terror attack on American soil starting with the activities al-Qaida ring leader Mohammed Atta on the evening of Sept. 10, 2001. Waterboarded at a CIA Black Site, the "Number One Terrorist" Gave Up a Name, A Florida Motel Manager Let the "Clean-cut" Guest Have an Overnight Visitor, Atta chose the day: A surveillance camera photographs suspected hijackers Mohammed Atta (R) and Abdulaziz Alomari (C) passing through airport security September 11, 2001 at Portland International Jetport in Maine. A well-connected Saudi family hosted visits from 9/11 terrorists at their Sarasota, Fla., home, including Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, who were the hijackers in the cockpit of the plane which . The two al-Shehri brothers selected seats 2A and 2B in first class. Mr. Kraus said Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi told him they had not been aware that they needed to radio the tower for instructions. Mohammed AttaUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (U.S. v. Moussaoui) Mistakenly broadcasting over the air traffic control channel instead of the public-address system, flight 11 hijacker Mohammad Atta, who is piloting the plane, announces, "We have some planes. He was the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 which he crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated attacks. It's hard to tell.". Although the marriage never happened, Atta's father mentioned they liked each other.[18]. The video, bearing the date of January 18, 2000, is of good resolution but contains no sound track. Initially, Mohamed Atta's identity was confused with that of a native Jordanian, Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta, who bombed an Israeli bus in the West Bank in 1986, killing one and severely injuring three. We will high-jack airliners and crash them into specific targets. He criticized how the newfangled skyscrapers and other modernizing projects were disrupting the fabric of communities by blocking common streets and altering the skyline. Published Nov 7, 2001. [79], On August 23, Atta's driver license was revoked in absentia after he failed to show up in traffic court to answer the earlier citation for driving without a license. They learned of a massive terrorist attack underway, concluding that they had to take action to down the plane: it was not being hijacked to land and for demands to be made. In the spring of 2000, Atta entered the United States and enrolled in an aviation school in Venice, Fla. On Sept. 10, 2001, Atta picked up another 9/11 terrorist, Abdul-Azzia Al-Omari, at the Milner Hotel in Boston. . Ringleader Mohammed Atta and at least four of the other 19 hijackers made six visits to Las Vegas between late May and mid-August of 2001. [43], On April 11, 1996, Atta signed his last will and testament at the mosque, officially declaring his Muslim beliefs and giving 18 instructions regarding his burial. (Photo By U.S. Navy/Getty Images). [16] Also in 1990, Atta's family moved into the eleventh floor of an apartment building in the Egyptian city of Giza. On December 26, Atta and Shehhi needed a tow for their rented Piper Cherokee on a taxiway of Miami International Airport after the engine shut down. After six months, they asked him to leave.[20][21][22]. The second chapter showed Atta and Ziad Jarrah reading their wills together ten days later on January 18. [24] Atta was averse to modern development. "He wanted to finance a twin-engine, six-passenger aircraft and remove the seats," Bryant told ABC's World News Tonight. Just stay quiet, and you'll be okay. Of the four hijacker pilots, Jarrah was the most westernized, coming from a Lebanese secular background and Christian schooling before moving to Germany for university studies. The luggage included a copy of Atta's will, written in Arabic, as well as a list of instructions, called "The Last Night". He rented a Chevrolet Malibu from an Alamo Rent A Car agency. Mahmoud Atta was 14 years older than Atta. "I suspect they were casing a fallback position to launch from if, for weather or security, they couldn't get out of Boston, Drumhiller said. "[105][106], Five witnesses who had worked on Able Danger and had been questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General later told investigative journalists that their statements to the IG were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report, or the report omitted essential information that they had provided. In late 1999, Atta, Shehhi, Jarrah, Bahaji, and bin al-Shibh decided to travel to Chechnya to fight against the Russians, but were convinced by Khalid al-Masri and Mohamedou Ould Salahi at the last minute to change their plans. Mr. Kraus noted that the two men had been trained on smaller, ''uncontrolled'' airports that operate without flight towers.
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