considered an honor for a new recruit to be handpicked by bin Laden.
After teaching Hanjour the code words he needed to know, al-Qaeda’s leaders instructed him to procure a visa for travel to the United States. Khallad explained to him how to get in touch with Nawaf al-Hazmi once he was in the United States. On June 20, 2000, he returned to Saudi Arabia, and on September 25 he received a U.S. visa.
This group of would-be pilots joined the ranks of those already selected by bin Laden to be part of the operation—Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Khallad. Born in Mecca, Hazmi and Mihdhar were Saudis, and they had no problem getting U.S. visas. Khallad’s visa application, however, was rejected because he was a Yemeni.
Mihdhar and Hazmi were to be among the muscle hijackers—those whose task it would be to overwhelm the crew and any troublesome passengers. They were sent, with other hijackers, to al-Qaeda’s Mes Aynak camp, in Afghanistan, where they underwent physical fitness training and received instruction in combat and weapons. They were also given the best available food in order to keep them healthy and boost their spirits. KSM personally helped train both the pilot and the nonpilot hijackers, teaching them how to hide knives in their bags and how to slit passengers’ throats. He made them practice slitting the throats of goats, sheep, and camels.
KSM and others briefed them about the United States at a facility nicknamed by many involved “The House of Martyrs.” (KSM nicknamed it “The House of Ghamdis” because a few of the hijackers were from the Ghamdi tribe.) KSM taught them English phrases, showed them how to read phone books and make reservations, and had them read aviation magazines and watch movies with hijacking scenes. Among the phrases taught were “get down,” “don’t move,” “stay in your seat,” and “if anyone moves I’ll kill you.”
After the training, Hazmi and Mihdhar traveled to Kuala Lumpur, where a 9/11 summit meeting took place. From there the two men departed for Bangkok with Khallad. Upon Nibras and Quso’s delivery, to Khallad, of the $36,000 in cash, Mihdhar and Hazmi purchased first-class tickets to Los Angeles, leaving Bangkok on January 15, 2000.
Their fellow muscle hijackers arrived in the United States in the summer of 2001. Most were Saudis (twelve of the thirteen), and most were unemployed, unmarried, and uneducated. They had applied for visas in Saudi Arabia, and, once those applications were approved, they had traveled to Afghanistan for training. Atta and Shehhi coordinated their arrival in the United States, found them places to stay, and settled them in.
KSM’s nephew Ammar al-Baluchi and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, an al-Qaeda financial operative, helped coordinate their travel and money both before departure and once they were in the United States. Upon arrival the hijackers were given Baluchi’s or Hawsawi’s number. Also promptly on arrival, they opened bank accounts and deposited the money they had brought with them. Each hijacker had been given six to eight thousand dollars by KSM or Hawsawi and had been told to keep a few thousand for himself and to give the rest to Atta.
On August 4, 2001, an al-Qaeda member named Mohammed al-Qahtani landed in Orlando, Florida, on Virgin Atlantic Airlines Flight 15 but was refused entry by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent and shipped out of the United States on a later flight. As he was departing, he vowed, “I will be back.” On August 28, 2001, Ammar al-Baluchi applied for a one-week travel visa to the United States, beginning September 4, 2001. The visa would expire on September 11. Baluchi’s request was denied.
Atta’s biggest challenge was finding four flights that would be in the air at the same time on one day—and on planes that Shehhi, Jarrah, Hanjour, and he himself knew how to fly. He ran a number of searches on Travelocity and found that everything matched up on September 11, 2001. Once that was established, he phoned Binalshibh to give him the message.
Once the date was set, the hijackers went out to enjoy their last days alive. Some attended strip joints; others went to bars and got drunk. Atta was spotted doing a series of shots. While it might seem surprising that these men who were later proclaimed by al-Qaeda to be religious martyrs were debasing themselves, the reality is that most weren’t truly religious. At best, they had only a superficial knowledge of Islam, and most were either simple people swayed by convincing recruiters or macho individuals looking for a way to look tough and impress friends. But even while on missions, they never fully left their old lifestyles behind. Jarrah even traveled back to Germany a few times to hook up with his girlfriend. This activity was common across al-Qaeda. Nashiri, the mastermind of the USS
In anticipation of the attack, and with the knowledge that the United States would likely strike back hard, bin Laden moved continuously from Kabul to Khost to Jalalabad with his most trusted aides. None of the bodyguards, and not even Salim Hamdan, the driver, ever knew the destination of the convoy. A minute or so before they were about to leave, bin Laden would tell them.
Sometimes bin Laden would order a change of direction mid-trip. At times he would just stop en route and order them to make camp. At times he himself had no idea where they would end up. He would camp in the middle of nowhere so he could not easily be found. They wouldn’t even know their exact coordinates. These procedures made bin Laden feel safer.
In Kabul bin Laden spent a lot of time in the homes of Abu al-Khair al-Masri and Mohammed Saleh. Former EIJ
After the merger, bin Laden and Zawahiri went around visiting al-Qaeda training camps and facilities, accompanied by Abu Hafs al-Masri, who had become the number three in the group (Zawahiri had taken the number two spot), and a Kuwaiti named Salman Abu Ghaith, whose importance in the group had been steadily growing; he became the spokesman for the organization. Later, all four appeared in al-Qaeda’s propaganda videos. The name al-Qaeda was officially changed to Qaeda al-Jihad, a combining of the names al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The name change was purely a formality, and the organization is still commonly known as al- Qaeda.
On September 11, 2001, bin Laden seemed especially excitable to those who knew him. Only a few members of his entourage knew why. Late in the afternoon, bin Laden told Ali al-Bahlul to switch on the satellite in his media van so they could watch the news. Bahlul tried but couldn’t get any reception. Bin Laden told him instead to get the news on the radio. They alternated between channels, first the BBC, then Voice of America, till they got a consistent signal. For about forty-five minutes they listened to regular news reports. Finally a news flash came in: at 8:46 AM in the United States (EDT), a plane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The report said that it seemed to have been an accident.
But bin Laden knew that American Airlines Flight 11, scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International Airport, had been successfully hijacked by Mohammed Atta, Abdulaziz al- Omari, Waleed al-Shehri, Wail al-Shehri, and Satam al-Suqami. Before the plane crashed, a flight attendant had reported that a passenger had been stabbed and that it was hard for him to breath, leading investigators to later suspect that Mace had been used. But this report didn’t get through till later.
Bin Laden smiled, and the al-Qaeda members with him started celebrating. “Allah Hu Akbar” (God is great), they shouted, firing their AK-47s into the air. Most were simply happy that the “Great Snake,” the United States, had been hit. But based on bin Laden’s smile and the lack of surprise on his face, they began to suspect that this had been an al-Qaeda plot.
“Calm down, calm down. Wait. There is more,” bin Laden said, raising his hand to silence the celebrants. Here was confirmation of their suspicions. They were silent, wondering what was next. Only a few senior al-Qaeda members knew what to expect.
Another news flash came: at 9:03 AM, a second plane had hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. This was no longer looking like an accident, the newscaster said. The two most visible skyscrapers in New York City were going up in smoke. People were trapped inside and jumping out of windows.
Bin Laden’s smile broadened. United Airlines Flight 175, scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, had been successfully hijacked by Marwan al-Shehhi, Fayez Banihammad, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, and Mohand al-Shehri. Bin Laden knew all the hijackers personally. He had approved their selection and helped guide their training. He was elated. Once again the al-Qaeda members present started shouting and firing into the air. “Calm down, wait, there is more,” bin Laden said again.
The next breaking news flash said that a plane had hit the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 AM. It was beginning to look like a coordinated attack, the announcer said. “This can’t be a coincidence.”
