He moved into a nearby apartment in the Wilhelmsburg district, where he lived with Said Bahaji and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Even for those who couldn't believe what they were seeing, that signaled a terrorist plot, with the possibility of more attacks to follow. [6] At 8:18am, flight attendants Betty Ong and Madeline Amy Sweeney began making phone calls to American Airlines to report what was happening. [10] His father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, was a lawyer, educated in both sharia and civil law. But, he agreed, it raised a host of questions, most notably one that remains unanswered: Why were the two novice pilots flying into a heavily trafficked airport on such a busy day? After Atta's transmission, Boston Center concludes that Flight 11 has been hijacked and alerts other control centers. [55], A video surfaced in October 2006. [24] Atta was averse to modern development. A voice believed to be that of al Qaeda hijack leader Mohamed Atta urged passengers to . 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. When Atta returned, he claimed that his passport was lost and applied for a new one, which is a common tactic to erase evidence of travel to places such as Afghanistan. . A spokesman for the F.A.A. The night before, Atta went to Portland, Maine, a trip that has mystified terrorism experts for five years. Mohamed Atta is shown in this photo released Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001, in a State of Florida Division of Motor Vehicles photograph. [33], After coming to Hamburg in 1992, Atta grew more religiously fanatical and frequented the mosque with greater regularity. He had vacationed often as a child (and would continue to take vacations with his wife while he was in the United States) and was the best English speaker and student of the four. But none of them were so flagged. [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. Passengers must leave the secured area, go outdoors, cross a covered roadway, and enter another building before going through security once again. The date for the planes operation is set. 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. [38] Even before bin al-Shibh had arrived, Atta, Shehhi, and Jarrah were sent to the House of Ghamdi near bin Laden's home in Kandahar, where he was waiting to meet them. Mohamed Atta, 33, Egypt Atta was quickly identified as the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. Al-Omari chose 8G and al-Suqami chose 10B in Business Class. [11] Atta was the only son; he had two older sisters who are both well-educated and successful in their careers one as a medical doctor and the other as a professor. They also discussed the personal difficulties Atta was having with fellow hijacker Ziad Jarrah. The leader of the nineteen was Mohamed Atta, and they were divided into four groups, one for each plane, each with a pilot who served as group leader: Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Samir Jarrah . ''They said I'd hear back from them, which I never did.''. Atta was at the controls when the 767 collided with the . At 8:25 . Unable to restart the engine, the two men shut the plane down, flipped off the lights and, by one account, walked off. According to the interrogations of KSM and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh (his interlocutor in Germany), Mohammed Atta was worried about the communications, Atta's real concern being that Jarrah might be unable to break away from his wife, that it would just be too painful in the end for him to follow through with his suicide flight. During the meeting, Atta and bin al-Shibh also decided on the targets to be hit, ruling out a strike on a nuclear plant. [57], On March 22, 2000, Atta was still in Germany when he sent an e-mail to the Academy of Lakeland in Florida. We hate America and all that it stands for. Did he meet with somebody in Portland who helped him with the attack? Mohamed Atta's Story. 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. [9] He was known as Abd al-Rahman al-Misri by al-Qaeda. Newsweek is reconstructing the road to 9/11 as it was constructed 20 years ago, day by day. [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. Madam Speaker, I say to the Speaker and to the Members that the ghost of Mohamad Atta has attacked our Nation. One theory suggests that Mohamed Atta and the other pilots who led the hijacking teams were here planning the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. A secret police intelligence report . Bin Laden was concerned about having so many operatives in the United States. The Israeli Supreme Court later overturned his extradition and set him free. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane.". Instead, he went to Central Office & Travel in Pompano Beach to purchase a ticket for a flight to Newark, leaving on the evening of August 7 and schedule to return in the evening on August 9. Mohamed Atta, right, and Abdulaziz al-Omari pass through security at the Portland jetport ahead of a commuter flight to Boston on Sept. 11. Volker Hauth, who was traveling with Atta, described Amal as "attractive and self-confident. 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. The family had few relatives on the father's side and kept their distance from Bouthayna's family. Flight controllers, according to airport records, guided the waiting passenger airliners around the stalled aircraft until it was towed away 35 minutes later. [94], On October 1, 2006, The Sunday Times released a video it had obtained "through a previously tested channel", purporting to show Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah recording a martyrdom message six months earlier at a training camp in Afghanistan. On August 26, Saudi brothers Waleed and Wail al-Shehri also purchased tickets for the same flight. Lip readers have failed to decipher it. Bin Laden sent them to see Atef to get a general overview of the mission, and then they were sent to Karachi to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to go over specifics. When they later returned to Huffman, Mr. Pursell said, they were reprimanded. The timing of the Afghanistan training was outlined on August 23, 2002, by a senior investigator. 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. The incident, which occurred on a busy travel day at the country's ninth-busiest passenger airport, is especially notable because of how close it brought the two men to official scrutiny. THE LAST NIGHT. [73][74] He drove east out of Madrid towards the Mediterranean beach area of Tarragona. Photocopy of Jarrah's passport, made by Rina Bernard when she rented out one of her apartments at 1816 Harding St. Jarrah was on board United Airlines flight 93 when it crashed in Pennsylvania. [87], The connection between the two flights at Logan International Airport was within Terminal B, but the two gates were not connected within security. Atta and Shehhi then moved into a small house nearby in Nokomis where they stayed for six months. [6] Atta was not heard from again for nine minutes until 8:33:59, when he was heard to say: "Nobody move, please. [38] The instructions in his last will and testament reflect both Sunni funeral practices along with some more puritanical demands from Salafism, including asking people not "to weep and cry" and to generally refrain from showing emotion. Dale Kraus, then the general manager at Huffman, recalled a telephone call that came within minutes of the incident in Miami from an irritated official in the flight tower. Financial records and bank video show Atta and Al-Omari made two ATM withdrawals in Portland, and the men were reportedly spotted at an area Wal-Mart, as well as in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut restaurant. The luggage included a copy of Atta's will, written in Arabic, as well as a list of instructions, called "The Last Night". [16], Atta continued with flight training that included solo flights and simulator time. [38] These beliefs were even stronger during Operation Infinite Reach, which he believed that Monica Lewinsky was a Jewish agent influencing Bill Clinton against aiding Palestine, which would later play a key role in creating the Hamburg Cell. [40] Before this trip he grew out a beard, with a view to show himself as a devout Muslim and to make a political gesture thereby. According to The Sunday Times, "American and German investigators have struggled to find evidence of Atta's whereabouts in January 2000 after he disappeared from Hamburg. [86] In Portland, Mohamed Atta was selected by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which required his checked bags to undergo extra screening for explosives but involved no extra screening at the passenger security checkpoint. [52], German investigators said that they had evidence that Mohamed Atta trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000. He rented a Chevrolet Malibu from an Alamo Rent A Car agency. 1) Making an oath to die and renew your intentions. FBI investigators have officially concluded that 11 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the aircraft on 11 September did not know they were on a suicide mission, Whitehall . [100][101][102], In 2005, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Congressman Curt Weldon alleged that the Defense Department data mining project, Able Danger, produced a chart that identified Atta, along with Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Marwan al-Shehhi, as members of a Brooklyn-based al-Qaeda cell in early 2000. He . Mr. Kraus said Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi told him they had not been aware that they needed to radio the tower for instructions. Flesh or bone from 13 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who flew passenger jets into . This document is divided into three sections; the first is a fifteen point list providing detailed instructions for the last night of a martyr's life, the second gives instructions for travelling to the plane and the third from the time between boarding the plane and martyrdom. There, Atta and bin al-Shibh held a meeting to complete the planning of the attacks. Twenty-three minutes later, Atta flew that plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. They checked out the next morning, and spent the next few days at an unknown location in Tarragona. Follow the Newsweek live tweet of September 11, 2001 (based upon the new book On That Day) starting at 4:45 a.m. EST @Roadto911. He used his credit card to purchase two Swiss Army knives and some chocolate in a shop at the Zrich Airport. By early 1993, Atta had moved into university housing with two roommates, in Centrumshaus. ", "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. On June 28, Atta arrived at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to meet with the three other pilots. The remains of the 9/11 killers are now held in deep freeze. The Egyptian Mohamed Atta arrived at the Florenc bus terminal in Prague, from Germany, on June 2, 2000. Other hijackers traveled to Las Vegas at different times in the summer of 2001. The crash and fire kill 59 on the plane and 125 on the . TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The men who planned and carried out the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings staked out the White House before deciding that their targets should be the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and the U.S . Wail's ticket was purchased over the phone with a debit card. [112], There are multiple, conflicting explanations for Atta's behavior and motivation. "This begs the question of why the pilots had not punched in the hijack code of 7500, also known as Squawking, if things were happening on the plane before the hijackers gained entry to the . They had never been pictured together before. The men who would become the pilots of the four hijacked planes began working on the plot in 1999, traveled to the US in 2000, and enrolled in flight training schools. "[111], In 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Atta's mother was interviewed by a Spanish newspaper. 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. On American Airlines Flight 11, Atta joined four other hijackers. "It is possible that he calculated that security would be less stringent in Portland, Maine, than it would be in Boston, said terrorism expert Steve Emerson. Just stay quiet." By this view, Atta's political and religious beliefs affected the method of his suicide and his choice of target, but they were not the underlying causes of his behavior. After consulting with the other hijacker pilots about the flights they also booked on September 11, three days later Atta again visited aa.com and retrieved his reservations and paid for his flight for himself and A. al-Omari (one of his muscle men) using his VISA card. Some, like the 9/11 plot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Florida, checking into the King's Inn Motel in Wayne for a few days and then leaving and then returning days later. Since these were domestic flights, there was no particular means at the time for the intelligence community to receive a tip-off of a reservation. [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." Mohammed Atta, (born September 1, 1968, Kafr al-Shaykh, Egyptdied September 11, 2001, New York, New York, U.S.), Egyptian militant Islamist and al-Qaeda operative who helped plot and lead the September 11 attacks. Shave excess hair from the body and wear cologne. Atta also claimed different nationalities, sometimes Egyptian and other times telling people he was from the United Arab Emirates. Mohamed Atta is believed to have been the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. . Atta was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 1,600 people during the attacks. 122 in Coral Springs, Florida, for $840 per month,[68] and assisted with the arrival of the muscle hijackers. Atta graduated from Cairo University with marks insufficient for the graduate program. [90][6] The crash instantly killed all 92 people on-board, murdered hundreds more inside the building, and left at least 800 workers trapped in the upper floors of a burning quarter-mile high skyscraper. [107], Lt. Col. Shaffer's book also clearly indicates direct identification of the Brooklyn cell, and Mohamed Atta. Given the vagaries of traveling on the East Coast, (it was a) tremendous risk to take. [15][17], Atta also got engaged to a woman lined up by his father and her family in Cairo, at late 1999, after coming back from Germany the same year. [3] After they arrived, they were selected by Al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef as suitable candidates for the "planes operation" plot. He was among the highest-scoring students; by his senior year, he was admitted to an exclusive architecture program. Thirty minutes later, Marwan al-Shehhi hit the South Tower. The next day, he received a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the United States embassy in Berlin. Mohamed Atta accepted and was in Germany two weeks later, in July. "[98], In the months following the September 11 attacks, officials at the Czech Interior Ministry asserted that Atta made a trip to Prague on April 8, 2001, to meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent named Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. Atta phoned his graduate advisor, Machule, and mentioned family problems at home, saying, "Please understand, I don't want to talk about this. On May 2, Atta received his driver's license in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. The couple explained at dinner that they ran an exchange program and invited Atta to continue his studies in Germany; they also offered him room and board at their home in the city. [16] When Atta and Shehhi arrived in Florida, they initially stayed with Huffman's bookkeeper and his wife in a spare room of their house. There seem to be two primary reasons for his choosing that particular day: that it fell after Labor Day when most Americans (and the George W. Bush administration) would be back at work, maximizing the impact in terms of killing people; and that it was a Tuesday when air travel was easier and the planes less full (that is, fewer hostile passengers to deal with). "[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. Atta had lived in Germany for approximately five years and also had a "strong record as a student". Bin al-Shibh would not discuss this meeting with Fouda. Unidentified sources from both Al-Qaeda and the United States confirmed The Times the video's authenticity. While in the United States he traveled to Lawrenceville, Georgia, where he and Shehhi visited an LA Fitness Health Club. "These guys looked like they might have been on business travel," Tuohey said. 3", "Ticket agent recalls anger in Atta's eyes", "9/11 victim calmly describes hijack on haunting tape", https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jun-18-na-introflight18-story.html, "102 Minutes: Last Words at the Trade Center; Fighting to Live as the Towers Die", "TWO YEARS LATER: THE 91ST FLOOR; The Line Between Life and Death, Still Indelible", "FBI affidavit: Flight attendant made call to report hijacking", "A Case of Mistaken Identity: Mohammad Atta Not Linked to Bus Bombing", "2nd Witness Arrested; 25 Held for Questioning", "A Tale of Two 'Attas': How spurious Czech intelligence muddied the 9/11 probe", "Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00", "Officer Says 2 Others Are Source of His Atta Claims", "Hijackers Were Not Identified Before 9/11, Investigation Says", "Exclusive: Witnesses in Defense Dept. In November 2000, Atta earned his instrument rating, and then a commercial pilot's license in December from the Federal Aviation Administration. Just after 9:03 a.m., United 175 crashed into the World Trade Center's South Tower. In this series, Newsweek maps the road to 9/11 as it happened 20 years ago, day by day. [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. [70], In July 2001, Atta again left for Spain in order to meet with bin al-Shibh for the last time. In mid-1998, Atta worked alongside Shehhi, bin al-Shibh, and Belfas, at a warehouse, packing computers in crates for shipping. The reservation was not used and canceled on August 9 with the reason "Family Medical Emergency". [30] Atta had harbored a desire to return to his native city, ever since he finished his studies in Hamburg; but he was prevented by the dearth of job prospects in Cairo, his family lacking the "right connections" to avail the customary nepotism. Bouthayna and Mohamed married when she was 14, via an arranged marriage. Mahmoud Atta was 14 years older than Atta. Drumhiller said it could have been "to make the final arrangements, to sort of close out everything they were doing to wrap up their time in the states.". He also began teaching classes both at Al-Quds and at a Turkish mosque near the Harburg district. Usually in these types of things you have your initial plan and you have a fallback plan. 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). This included the construction of high-rise buildings in Cairo and other ancient cities in the region. [76], During the meetings in Spain, Atta and bin al-Shibh had coordinated the details of the attacks. In this series, Newsweek maps the road to 9/11 as it happened 20 years ago, day by day. Timeline September 11, 2001. Something is not right. Had Atta or any of these men been on international watchlists, their names would have been flagged upon making a domestic reservation. This claim has been disputed; Terry McDermott has argued that it is unusual for someone to go on pilgrimage so soon after the first time and to spend three months there (more than Hajj requires). On Sept. 12, 2001, investigators combed over the field near Shanksville, Pa., where United Flight 93 crashed a day earlier. 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. He was the only pilot who was married, to a German national of Turkish descent. The timing of the incident also apparently came near the end of the time Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi spent in Venice and the start of the months they spent in South Florida before the attacks. [3] Immediately after returning to Germany, Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to discard travel visas to Afghanistan. The two al-Shehri brothers selected seats 2A and 2B in first class. 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. ''Any time the tower calls, they are not in the best of moods.''. He asked about the Pentagon and the White House. In the end though, those international calls and Emails open a window to the falsehood of greater authority to intercept communications. "He wanted to finance a twin-engine, six-passenger aircraft and remove the seats," Bryant told ABC's World News Tonight. "[15] For his thesis, Atta concentrated on the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo. Make sure you know all aspects of the plan well, and expect the response, or a . ", The other possibility is that Atta went to Portland for a final meeting with an unknown supporter. identifies as one of the 19 hijackers, taxied a small private plane toward a runway when, unexpectedly, it stalled. At 7:59a.m., the plane departed from Boston to Los Angeles International Airport, carrying 81 passengers.[86]. He was therefore treated favorably and not scrutinized. Readers may recall the shaving custom from the media coverage of 9/11. Atta said, he was to crash the plane. Mr. Pursell said that because the airport was secured, the two men could not have simply left undetected. They inquired about multi-engine planes and told the instructor that "they wanted to move quickly, because they had a job waiting in their country upon completion of their training in the U.S." In mid-October, Atta and Shehhi returned to Huffman Aviation to continue training. "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. Mohamed Atta, right, and Abdulaziz al-Omari are seen passing through security at the Portland Jetport on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Credit: Courtesy of Spectrum News Service It is a day no one . In April, he was ticketed in South Florida for driving without a license. They drove a rented Nissan to Portland, Maine, and arrived at the Comfort Inn Hotel at 5:43 p.m. At the time, Tyler Drumhiller was a top official at the CIA, responsible for all European Operations. [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. He left Prague the next day, flying on Czech Airlines to Newark, New Jersey, U.S. At 2:12 p.m. on August 25, Mohammed Atta logged into his Travelocity account. Protection against purely domestic hijackers primarily was lodged with check-in personnel at the airport counter, then with security screeners, and finally with attendants at the gate. By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. They board a commuter flight to Boston Logan International Airport, they then board American Airlines Flight 11.. 7:59 AM - Flight 11 takes off from Boston, headed for Los Angeles, California. [73][74] After bin al-Shibh returned to Germany on July 16, 2001, Atta had three more days in Spain. During his trip to Las Vegas, he is thought to have used a video camera that he had rented from a Select Photo outlet back in Delray Beach, Florida. He criticized how the newfangled skyscrapers and other modernizing projects were disrupting the fabric of communities by blocking common streets and altering the skyline. September 9, 2021 at 12:30 p.m. EDT. [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. Following the real Mohamad Atta and his crash into the World Trade Center, his ghost, like ashes left at Ground Zero, has arisen and entered the public consciousness again. 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 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 . About a minute later, he turned the plane southbound, on a course pointed in the direction of New York City. [7] In Germany, he registered his name as "Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta", and went by the name Mohamed el-Amir at the Hamburg University of Technology. Several clues have been found to link their stay in Spain to Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas (Abu Dahdah), and Amer el Azizi, a Moroccan in Spain. THE LAST NIGHT. Atta, who piloted the first plane into the world trade center, flew to Las Vegas on June 28, rented a car, then spent . Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, had already gotten a cellphone call from Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi. They were all well-educated, had experience of living in western society, along with some English skills, and would be able to obtain visas. The plane is piloted by plot leader Mohamed Atta. For Mohamed Atta, the meticulous and intensely disciplined figure who is believed to have helped organize the Sept. 11 attacks, mistakes did happen, or at least nearly did.
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