, 9/30/01, Hijackers Timeline [redacted], 11/14/03, INTELWIRE;
5
Mihdhar/crammed:
ibid., CR, 240–, McDermott,
221;
6
Hazmi bride:
CR, 222,
marriage obligatory:
Fouda & Fielding, 81, & see, e.g., “The Importance of Marriage in Islam,”
www.sunniforum.com
.
7
Atta:
, 9/11/04,
, 10/1/01, Bernstein, 105, MFR 04017500, 12/4/03. In a 2004 book, author Daniel Hopsicker gave an account of a supposed relationship, covering periods in 2000 and 2001, between Atta and a young woman named Amanda Keller. Widely circulated on the Internet, the account presents a picture of a deeply unpleasant character who— were the account to prove accurate—frequented sleazy nightspots, beat his girlfriend, and—in one savage incident—killed and dismembered one of her cats and an entire litter of kittens. After lengthy analysis of a tangled scenario, however, the authors concluded that this has been a matter of mistaken identity. A young woman who— according to the Hopsicker account—accompanied Atta and Keller on a trip to the Florida Keys did not recognize pictures of the authentic Atta as the “Mohamed” who made the trip. Keller’s mother and sister are reported as having said that her Mohamed was “tall,” “lanky,” while Atta was only five foot seven. She said early on her boyfriend was French Canadian, and that he told her he had fathered a child in France. That could of course have been a lie—except for another element. According to Keller, the name her Mohamed used at one point to sign a document was “Mohamed Arajaki”—and an official list of men of interest to law enforcement after 9/11 includes a reference to an “Arakj, Mohamad” with a French address.
In the transcript of a long interview with Hopsicker, Keller refers to her sometime boyfriend only as Mohamed, not as Atta or as definitely having been Atta. Press reports of interviews with Keller, moreover, have twice thrown doubt on the notion that her boyfriend was future hijacker Atta. Phone checks, said a counterterrorism agent cited in the second report—in 2006—indicated that the real Atta and Keller never called each other. Keller herself was quoted in that report as saying her Mohamed had been “another flight student not connected to 9/11.” If she had given the impression that he was the real Atta, she reportedly said, that had been “my bad for lying.… I really didn’t think about it until after I did it.” The authors did not succeed in reaching Keller for interview. (Hopsicker account: Hopsicker, refs., Keller videotape seen by authors, transcript provided by Hopsicker; trip to Keys: ints. & corr. Linda Lopez; “tall”/“lanky”:
, 9/24/01; 5’7”: Temporary Airman Certificate, “Airman Records,” B45, T5, CF; “Arajaki”: Hopsicker, 76; list: AP, 10/12/01, list inadvertently released first in Finland, later in Italy, in authors’ collection; press reports:
, 9/23/01, 9/10/06; in addition, relevant authors’ interviews included Elaine Emrich, Stephanie Frederickson, Vicky Keyser, Earle Kimel, Tony & Vonnie LaConca, and Neil Patton).
8
injections:
, 4/25/11;
9
KSM stipend:
CR, 518n40.
10 muslimmarriage.com: MFR of int. [name redacted], 2/23/04, CF. Two of the hijack pilots had married or gone through a form of marriage. As early as 1999, Jarrah and his girlfriend, Aysel, took part in a wedding ceremony at a Hamburg mosque, and—though she would later say she did not consider it binding (the marriage was not registered with the state)—Aysel referred to herself in a letter as Jarrah’s “yearning wife.” Under pressure from his family, Shehhi had married during a trip back to the United Arab Emirates in early 2000—only to decline to go through with the relationship afterward. Mohamed Atta’s father, meanwhile, was to say he found his son a prospective wife who was “nice and delicate, the daughter of a former ambassador.” By one account, Atta agreed to get engaged to the woman in 1999—but any prospect of the union becoming a reality vanished with his extended stay in Germany and growing commitment to jihad. One account holds that Atta spoke of marrying a Turk rather than an Egyptian, because he thought Turkish women “more obedient.” Binalshibh, for his part, picked up a young woman—believed to have been a Japanese Roman Catholic!—in 2000, and proposed within twenty-four hours. She would have to dress and behave in the way required of a Muslim wife, he told her, and that their children would have to be brought up to hate Jews. Though they never met again after the initial five-day interlude, Binalshibh later wrote her emails signed: “Your King, Ramzi.” Records, meanwhile, indicate that two of the muscle hijackers, Banihammad and Omari, were married (Jarrah: McDermott, 78–; Shehhi: ibid., 54, Corbin, 224, Berlin to Counterterrorism, 12/5/03, FBI 315N-WF-227135, INTELWIRE; Atta:
11 fishing: Hijackers Timeline [redacted], 11/14/03, INTELWIRE;
12 Wacko’s: ibid., “Exclusive: 9/11 Hijacker Stayed at Jacksonville Hotel,” www.firstcoastnews.com.
13 lap dancing/movies/sex toys: “Agents of Terror Leave Mark on Sin City,” 10/4/01, www.sfgate.com, Hijackers Timeline [redacted], 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, FBI report, “The 11 September Hijacker Cell Model,” 2/03, released under FOIA to INTELWIRE. Shehhi’s reported visit to a lap dancing club occurred during a trip to Las Vegas, reported later in this chapter. Earlier, in California in 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar had also reportedly visited strip clubs. The hijacker who visited the Adult Lingerie Center was Majed Moqed (Shehhi:
14 Jarrah to Germany: Hijackers Timeline [redacted], 11/14/03, INTELWIRE;
15 Rodriguez/“very humble”: Jeffrey Steinberg, “Cheney’s ‘Spoon-Benders’ Pushing Nuclear Armegeddon,” 8/26/05,
16 fitness classes: Hijackers Timeline [redacted], 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, “Hijackers’ True Name Usage,”
17 knives: “Hijacker Knife Purchases,” B18, T7, CF;
18 Hortman: MFR 04018712, 4/27/04, & MFR 04018407, 4/12/04, CF, Staff Statement 16, CO;
19 Hanjour Hudson/practice flight DC: Hijackers Timeline [redacted], 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, Staff Statement 16, CO.
20 familiarize routine/Vegas, etc.: “Hijackers’ True Name Usage,”
