The Eleventh Day

by Anthony Summers

  71 Zammar/Darkazanli: CR, 164, 167, McDermott, 72–. Zammar has languished in a jail in Syria since his arrest the month after 9/11. A Syrian court convicted him of membership of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in Syria. Because he was allegedly tortured in prison, Amnesty International has issued an appeal on his behalf. Darkazanli has not been accused of any crime in Germany. Spanish prosecutors sought his extradition, however, in 2004, citing alleged contacts with al Qaeda operatives there. Darkazanli was in Spain in summer 2001 at approximately the same time as Atta and Binalshibh (Zammar: “Unfair Trial & Sentencing of Muhammad Haydar Zammar,” Appeal Case, 3rd Update, 3/22/07, www.amnestyusa.org, Der Spiegel, 11/21/05; Darkazanli: “Germany’s Imam Mamoun Darkazanli,” www.jamestown.org, 8/27/10, JI, Report, 183–).

  72 “coincidence”: Chicago Tribune, 11/16/02, Derek Flood, “Germany’s Imam Mamoun Darkazanli,” Vol. 1, No. 8, www.jamestown.org.

  73 boxes/books/“I will pay”: WP, 9/11/02;

  74 Atta vanished/“Don’t ask”: CR, 168, Fouda & Fielding, 123, transcript, int. Dittmar Machule, LAT, 9/1/02, but see Corbin, 139—which suggests he disappeared for more than a year. Tenet so speculated, even though KSM apparently denied to interrogators that Atta went to Afghanistan prior to late 1999 (Testimony of George Tenet, JI, 6/18/02, KSM SUBST).

  75 passport lost/new one: Testimony of George Tenet, JI, 6/18/02, McDermott, 57;

  76 speculation: ibid., Testimony of George Tenet, MFR 04019351, 12/10/03;

  77 “serve the interests”: ed. Lawrence, 60–;

  78 “This was sensitive”: Kean & Hamilton, 284–;

  79 bring attack forward: KSM SUBST;

  80 KSM concern: McDermott, 117–;

  81 “the atrocities”: KSM SUBST;

  82 KSM claims: “Verbatim Transcription of Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing for ISN 10024,” 3/10/07, www.defense.gov;

  83 “entitled”: int. Yousef by Raghida Dergham, Al Hayat, 4/12/95;

  84 “If you ask”: McDermott, 13;

  85 “world Jewish conspiracy”: CR, 161;

  86 “great-grandparents”: LAT, 10/17/04;

  87 “How can you”: CR, 162;

  88 “He enlightened”: McDermott, 80;

  89 “With God’s”: ed. Lawrence, 61;

  90 “The problem”: McDermott, 82;

  91 met/prayed, etc.: ibid., 58–;

  92 apartment: “Hamburger Mietvertrag für Wohnraum,” Marienstrasse 54, 10/31/98, authors’ collection;

  93 Dar al-Ansar: McDermott, 63, CR, 164, 495n82. See Notes for Ch. 18, p. 501;

  94 “the highest”: McDermott, 62;

  95 “dissatisfied”: ibid., 51–, 275n15;

  96 dying for faith: ibid., 49;

  97 “love death”: “Ladenese Epistle: Declaration of War,” pts. I, II, III, www.washingtonpost.com.

  98 “The morning”/“the smell”: McDermott, 88, 280n43. Jarrah’s notes, found with his Hamburg college papers, are in German police files. The 1996 bin Laden declaration—reported in Ch. 22, p. 253—not only includes the “death as you love life” reference but also multiple references to Paradise. Bin Laden was to use almost exactly the same phrase in a letter in Arabic posted on the Internet in October 2002 (notes: McDermott, 89, 280n43; OBL letter: ed. Lawrence, 172);

  99 “Paradise”: McDermott, 85;

  100 “Muslims are”: WP, 9/11/02, CR, 496n88. Washington Post reporter Peter Finn dated the Atta-Nickels exchange as having occurred in November 1999. The commission dates it merely to the year 1999 (WP, 9/11/02, CR, 496n88).

  101 traveled Afghanistan: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted], FBI, 2/1/07, INTELWIRE, Report, JI, 134–, MFR 04019351, 12/10/03. Binalshibh, the sole survivor of the group from Germany, would tell interrogators that they had initially planned to fight in Chechnya. The decision to go instead to Afghanistan, he claimed, was the outcome of an encounter with a man he and two others of the Hamburg group met by chance on a train. This claim may or may not be true. According to Binalshibh, the man on the train—whom he identified as Khalid al-Masri—advised them to talk with a second man named Mohamed Slahi. Slahi, when they went to see him, allegedly said it was difficult to get to Chechnya and suggested they travel instead to Afghanistan via Pakistan. Khalid al-Masri, if he ever existed, has yet to be identified. (He is not the man of the same name who after 9/11was seized in Macedonia by a U.S. “snatch team,” reportedly tortured, and—when CIA officials concluded he had been wrongfully detained—released by being dumped at the roadside in Albania. Slahi was arrested soon after 9/11 and eventually transferred to Guantánamo. A Senate inquiry found that he was subjected to serious ill treatment. Though Slahi admitted having met Binalshibh and his two comrades, he denied having suggested they go to Afghanistan. At the time of writing he remains in Guantánamo but has not been charged. A federal judge ruled in March 2010 that a prosecution of Slahi was impossible because his file was “so tainted by coercion and mistreatment.” In November 2010, a U.S. appeals court ordered the judge to review the case. Mohammed Zammar, meanwhile—who had also reportedly been tortured, not in U.S. custody but in a Syrian jail—told visiting German investigators that he “helped” Binalshibh and the others get to Afghanistan (encounter/​Masri/​advised: CR, 165, 496n90, German translation of interrogation of Binalshibh provided to prosecution in Motassadeq case, Vereinigte Staaten Von Amerika gegen Zacarias Moussaoui, 4/28/05, authors’ collection; snatched/dumped Albania: WP, 12/4/05, The Independent [U.K.], 5/1907; Slahi: Report, “Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody,” U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, 110th Cong. 2nd Sess., 11/20/08, http://armed-services.senate.gov, 138–, Miami Herald, 11/5/10, WP, 3/24/10; Zammar: Der Spiegel, 11/21/05).

  102 bodyguard recalled: The bodyguard was Nasser al-Bahri. Fahd al-Quso, a Yemeni interrogated after 9/11, said he, too, had seen Shehhi in Kandahar, when he became sick (Bahri: Newsweek, 9/3/07, Wright, 366 & see Sunday Times [London], 10/1/06; Quso: New Yorker. 7/10 & 17/06);

  103 Another jihadi: Bergen, OBL I Know, 262;

  104 handwritten note: FBI translation, 12/21/01, “Misc. Requests for Documents, FBI-03013592, Packet 2,” CF.

  105 videotape/“will”: The footage was described in a story by Yosri Fouda in the London Sunday Times on October 1, 2006. The same day, NBC News showed still photos from the videotape. According to the Times article, the videotape was “obtained through a previously tested channel.” The article also said that sources from both al Qaeda and the United States had confirmed the authenticity of the tape, “on condition of anonymity.” Date marks on the footage show that bin Laden was filmed on January 8 and the future hijackers on January 18, 2000. Atta, Jarrah, and Binalshibh apparently were in Afghanistan on both those days. The different date marks seem to indicate that bin Laden was not present when Atta and Jarrah recorded their martyrdom statements. NBC’s story reported, however, that “U.S. government analysis … identifies hijackers Atta and Jarrah in the large crowd at bin Laden’s feet” (Sunday Times [London] & NBC News, 10/1/06).

  106 KSM/Binalshibh described: KSM SUBST, CR, 166–, Fouda & Fielding, 123–, 126, Staff Statement 16, CO;

  107 Shehhi left/ailment: ibid., CR, 166, New Yorker, 7/10/06, “PENTTBOM, Summary of Captioned Investigation,” 11/5/01, authors’ collection;

  108 “middling”: KSM SUBST;

  109 oath: Staff Statement 16, CO, CR, 166–. Shehhi had apparently taken the oath before leaving (CR 166–);

  110 OBL considered/select targets: KSM SUBST;

  111 Jarrah endured: Fouda & Fielding, 128;

  112 tricks of trade: KSM SUBST;

  113 airline schedules: Staff Statement 16, CO “learning”/“be normal”: KSM SUBST;

  114 phone code: New Yorker, 9/13/10;

  115 “PlayStation”: Daily Mail (U.K.), 4/17/10;

  116 “worked hard”/Hazmi deputy: KSM SUBST; kunyahs: These kunyahs, and all the honorifics assigned to what became a nineteen-man hijack team, appear in Masterminds of Terror, by Yosri Fouda a
nd Nick Fielding, 110, 121n15.

  117 “wonderful evening”: Clinton, 881;

  118 Jordan/Zubaydah: NYT, 1/15/01, Tenet, 125;

  119 Ressam caught/plan: Counterterrorism to All Field Stations, FBI 265A-SE-83340, etc., 12/29/1999, INTELWIRE, CR, 176–, Staff Statement 15, CO, Richard Clarke, 211, Bergen, Holy War Inc., 140–, NYT, 12/15/01, Burke, 198–, 208–;

  120 “aware”: Burke, 209, Report, JI, Appendix, 44, CR, 261;

  121 Clinton rang: Coll, Ghost Wars, 487;

  122 Berger met: Shenon, 234, 261;

  123 wiretap orders: Farmer, 39;

  124 “Foreign”: CR, 179;

  125 Berger/Clarke Christmas: Richard Clarke, 213, MFR 04021455, 2/13/04;

  126 thousands on duty/vigil: Richard Clarke, Testimony of Louis Freeh, 4/13/04, CO;

  127 O’Neill: Miller & Stone, 222–.

  128 “I think”/“popped”: Richard Clarke, 214. U.S. intelligence worried not only about December 31 as the date of a possible attack, but also about January 3 and 6. The 3rd is considered a night of destiny in Islam, while January 6, 2000, coincided with the end of Ramadan. As discovered later, an attack was indeed planned for the 3rd—a bombing of the U.S. destroyer Sullivans, which was visiting the Yemeni port of Aden. The explosives-loaded boat, however, sank in the surf before the operation could be carried out. This botched effort preceded by nine months the successful attack on the USS Cole, also in Aden, which is covered in Ch. 25. Walid bin Attash, one of the Yemenis bin Laden initially selected for the 9/11 operation, reportedly played a role in planning both bombings (Jan. 3/6: FBI IG; Sullivans/Attash: Staff Statement 2, CO).

  129 “They said”: Benjamin & Simon, 313.

  130 “All Islamic”: Staff Report, “Monograph on the Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security,” 8/26/04, CF;

  131 1998 exercise: Kean & Hamilton, 109, CR, 345;

  132 “bin Laden and his”: CR, 128;

  133 “unconventional”: Sunday Times (London), 6/9/02;

  134 “America”: “New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century,” Commission on National Security, 9/15/99, www.fas.org. The commission was chaired by former U.S. senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman;

  135 Library of Congress report: Rex Hudson, “The Sociology & Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?,” Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 9/99, 7, NYT, 5/18/02.

  136 America West/“walked into”/door locked/​alerted/​handcuffs/​interrogation: Judgment, Muhammad Al-Qudhai’een et al. v. America West Airlines et al., Case No. C-2-00-1380, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, 4/30/03 Manager, Chicago Civil Aviation Security Office to Director, undated FAA Memo, “Other Flights 9/11, FAA Memo re America West 90,” B7, T7, CF, Report, JI, 6;

  137 “casing”: MFR 04017521, 1/7/04, MFR 04019354, 7/22/03;

  138 “tied”: MFR 04019354, 7/22/03;

  139 poster: Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/24/02 (as supplemented 10/17/02), JI;

  140 “explosive”: ibid.

  141 arrested with Zubaydah: CR, 521n60. The man who tried the cockpit door was Muhammad al-Qudhai’een and his companion Hamdan al-Shalawi. Both insisted that Qudhai’een had merely wished to find the airplane lavatory. They subsequently sued America West, alleging racial stereotyping, but the suit was dismissed. Qudhai’een, interviewed in Saudi Arabia by 9/11 Commission staff, said he thought the perpetrators of 9/11 were “ignorant” people. In his interview, Shalawi said he recalled having encountered future pilot hijacker Hani Hanjour before the incident on the airplane. He acknowledged having done “charity work” in Afghanistan back in 1987, but denied ever having been there since. Three officers of the Mabahith, Saudi Arabia’s internal security service, were present during the commission’s interviews of both Shalawi and Qudhai’een. The associate with a bin Laden poster on his wall was Zacaria Soubra, then a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona (Qudhai’een, Shalawi sued: Judgment, Muhammad Al-Qudhai’een et al. v. America West Airlines et al., No. C-2–00–1380, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, 4/30/03; “ignorant”/“charity work”/Mabahith: MFR int. Muhammad al-Qudhai’een, 10/26/03 & MFR int. Hamdan bin al-Shalawi, 10/23/03, “Staff Delegation International Trip,” T1A, CF; Soubra: Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/24/02 [as supplemented 10/17/02], JI, FBI IG).

  142 exploratory trips: Fouda & Fielding, 158, Bergen, OBL I Know, 302;

  143 1999 reports: Report, JI, 334, Statements of Eleanor Hill, 9/18/02, 9/24/02 (as supplemented 10/17/02), JI, FBI IG;

  144 “The purpose”/found no indication/INS: ibid., Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/24/02, (as supplemented 10/17/02), JI;

  145 “very frustrating”; MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF.

  CHAPTER 25

  1 training camp/​combat/​magazines/​games/​movies: CR, 157, 493n50, 54;

  2 phone directories/English/two Yemenis: KSM SUBST, CR, 157–.

  3 Mihdhar left early: Detainees’ accounts varied as to whether Mihdhar completed the physical training course. KSM said Mihdhar was not present for the familiarization-with-U.S.-life sessions that Hazmi attended—he had supposedly had similar instruction earlier (CR, 493n50 & 53);

  4 on choosing optimal: ibid., 158, 493n54;

  5 Attash dry run/no visas/he learned: ibid., 158–, KSM SUBST;

  6 box cutter/knife: CR, 159, “Charge Sheet, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” 4/15/08, www.findlaw.com;

  7 toothpaste/art supplies: CR, 493n59;

  8 ploy worked: ibid., 159.

  9 condominium in K.L.: ibid. It remains unclear who exactly may have been with the trio at the condominium, which belonged to a former Malaysian army captain named Yazid Sufaat. Their comrade from the training period, Abu Bara al Tai’zi (see notes for Ch. 24), was there. So, too, reportedly, was Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian terrorist leader known as “Hambali.” In his insightful book The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright wrote that a dozen terrorist associates came and went from the condominium. There have also been unconfirmed reports that KSM and Ramzi Binalshibh joined the group. The claim that KSM was present is unsupported by any available evidence. A senior German police official has referred to evidence, apparently credit card receipts, indicating that Binalshibh was there (Tai’zi/Sufaat: CR, 156–; Isamuddin: New Straits Times [Malaysia] 2/10/02, Time Asia, 4/1/02 CR, 158; dozen: Wright, 311; KSM: e.g. Newsweek, 7/9/03; Binalshibh: LAT, 9/1/02, NYT, 8/24/020).

  10 boarded UA flight/“tourists”: Staff Report, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel,” CO, 13–, Timeline, “Hijackers Primary Docs, AA77, 2 of 2,” & FBI 302 of Special Agent [redacted], 9/12/01, “Hijackers Primary Docs, AA77, 1 of 2,” B50, T5, CF. After 9/11 it would emerge that U.S. intelligence had been aware, even before it began, that suspected terrorists were to meet in Kuala Lumpur. The men were surveilled while they were there and an attempt was made to follow them afterward, when they left for Thailand. Most stunning of all, the CIA knew even before Mihdhar reached Kuala Lumpur that he had a current visa to enter the United States. Within months, moreover, it learned the equally alarming fact that Hazmi had entered the United States. Agency spokesmen have claimed that, even so, the CIA took no action until just before 9/11. Why not? The issue is of enormous significance and will be covered in Ch. 31 (e.g., Staff Statement 2, CO, CR, 353–, FBI IG).

  11 no “facilitator”: KSM SUBST;

  12 Commission not believe: CR, 215;

  13 no trace: CR, 514n8, Staff Statement 16, CO, MFR 040204580, 6/23–24/04, CF.

  14 chauffeur/“two Saudis”/“an apartment”/tour: int. of Qualid Benomrane, FBI 302, 265A-LA-228901, 4/6/02, INTELWIRE. The statements of the driver, a Tunisian named Qualid Benomrane, contain unresolved issues. He did not, for example, have an official taxi driver’s license until several months after Hazmi and Mihdhar’s arrival. Benomrane said it was Fahad al-Thumairy, an imam at the King Fahd mosque, who asked him to drive the two Saudis around—at the request, in turn, of someone at the Saudi consulat
e. At one point, however, he said the “two Saudis” were sons of a sick father seeking treatment in Los Angeles—which would not fit Hamzi and Mihdhar. Thumairy, for his part, denied knowing Benomrane but said he did know a “son and sick father.” Commission staff who interviewed Thumairy in Saudi Arabia, however, judged him “deceptive.”

  9/11 Commission senior counsel Dieter Snell asserted in a 2004 memo that Benomrane’s information appeared to be of “uniquely significant value” to understanding the facts behind the 9/11 attacks. Benomrane had by then been deported from the United States, however, and the Commission never did interview him. Journalist Judith Miller reported in 2007 that Los Angeles Police Department detectives were convinced that “Benomrane and al-Thumairy were militants in the al Qaeda support network and that Benomrane’s passengers were, in fact, the two hijackers” (license: e.g. MFR 04018787, 4/19/04, MFR 04018782, 4/21/04; Thumairy: CR, 515n14, Line of Inquiry: Qualid Moncef Benomrane, B36, T1A, CF; sons of sick father: int. Qualid Benomrane, FBI 302, 265A-LA-228901, 4/6/02; Thumairy denied: MFR 04019362, 2/23/04; “deceptive”: Dieter Snell et al. to Philip Zelikow, 2/25/04, Summary of Interview Conducted in Saudi Arabia, ARC Identifier no. 2610841, CF; “uniquely”: Dieter Snell to Pat O’Brien, 1/16/04, “Benomrane Folder,” B37, T1A, CF; deported/never interviewed: CR, 515n14; LAPD convinced: Judith Miller, “On the Front Line in the War on Terrorism,” Summer 07, www.city-journal.org).

  15 photographs: CR, 515n14;

  16 “barely”/“instructed”: KSM SUBST;

  17 address in CA: CR, 150, 514n4, Guardian (U.K.), 11/12/06, Telegraph (U.K.), 11/7/06;

  18 CIA concluded: CR, 514n4;

  19 “possibly” Long Beach: CR, 157, 514n7;

  20 language schools LA: CR, 216;

  21 San Diego directories: KSM SUBST;

  22 “idea”: ibid.;

  23 Bayoumi 42: DHS Document Request 3, “Doc Requests, Entire Contents,” T5, B9, CF;

  24 rental application: San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/25/01;

  25 Bayoumi employee/mosque, etc.: ibid., FBI IG;

  26 “ghost”: CR, 515n18, Don/trip to LA/​consulate/​restaurant: MFR of int. Omar al Bayoumi, 10/16–17/003, “Staff Delegation International Trip, Tab 1,” T1A, MFR 04017552, 9/29/03, & MFR 04019254, 4/20/04, CF, FBI 302 of int. Caysan bin Don, 10/8/01, INTELWIRE, CR, 217–, 515n15, 17. Bin Don has also used the name Isamu Dyson. His birth name was Clayton Morgan (CR, 435);