hist2004
06-28-2004, 10:00 AM
Unraveling the plot
New evidence shows setbacks and stumbles--and plans for a much more deadly attack
By Chitra Ragavan
He was a trusted lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and one of the world's most feared terrorists. But these days, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who conceived and directed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is one of the U.S. government's best sources of information on al Qaeda. Captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and held incommunicado ever since, Mohammed has been explaining, under what the government calls "coercive" interrogation, just how the 9/11 attacks were executed and, more important, how and when bin Laden plans to strike again. No one knows just how much to trust Mohammed's tales or exactly how they were obtained, but what he's saying is fascinating--and frightening. "They keep going back [to Mohammed]," says a U.S. intelligence official, "and running scenarios by him."
Last week, in its 12th and final public hearing, the bipartisan commission investigating the 9/11 attacks disclosed new details that dramatically fleshed out the plot, based largely on the transcripts of Mohammed's interrogations and those of more than 100 other detainees, including Ramzi Binalshibh, a wannabe hijacker who became Mohammed's principal overseas terror coordinator after his application for a U.S. visa was rejected four times. The commission's conclusion that there was no "collaborative relationship" between al Qaeda and former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein reignited the political firestorm over the Iraq war (Page 18). But it was the depiction of the Federal Aviation Administration, the Pentagon, and the White House floundering in understandable confusion immediately after the attacks that brought tears to the eyes of 9/11 relatives, as did the disclosures of clues ignored and opportunities missed. The two days of hearings also had moments of chilling drama, like the tape-recorded voice of lead hijacker Mohamed Atta--never heard publicly before--telling terrified passengers, "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport."
The lasting contribution of the panel's investigation is likely to be the deeper understanding it provided of both the 9/11 plot and of bin Laden's al Qaeda organization. Mohammed's confessions offer a rare glimpse of bin Laden as the hands-on CEO of a global terror conglomerate and a micromanager extraordinaire--an employer who urges his followers to think big but doesn't hesitate to clip their wings when they overreach. The interrogation reports reveal how bin Laden pulled off the attacks despite internecine rivalries among hijackers, logistical obstacles, strategic disagreements, and deep philosophical conflicts among the top al Qaeda ranks. The strike date was set just three weeks before the attacks, and as late as September 9, lead hijacker Atta wasn't sure whether one of the planes should crash into the White House or the U.S. Capitol. But he picked September to ensure that Congress was back in session, just in case the Capitol was the target.
Bin Laden says OK. There are still plenty of doubts about Mohammed's credibility. Federal investigators have been unable to corroborate some of his claims, and some commissioners seem skeptical of the aggrandizing portrait that has been painted of bin Laden. "Is this really realistic that he was that much hands-on in charge?" asked Commissioner Fred Fielding, "or was this perhaps part of a propaganda activity to praise and elevate the mastermind of this plot now that it's turned out to be successful?" The answers to these questions may never be known, but the bottom line is that the commission seems to have accepted much of what Mohammed has said.
These are among the commission's most significant findings:
Mohammed first planned on hijacking 10 planes and crashing them into nuclear power plants, the CIA and FBI buildings, and the tallest buildings in California and Washington State. He personally wanted to pilot a 10th plane, kill all adult male passengers on board, and, after delivering a speech denouncing U.S. policy in the Middle East, release all the women and children. Al Qaeda leaders were "lukewarm" to these ideas, the commission's report said, and bin Laden nixed the 10-plane plan.
Bin Laden selected all the hijackers--the four pilots, the 15 "musclemen," and at least nine alternates, whom the commission has identified by name. When two of bin Laden's four original candidates were unable to obtain visas to come to the United States, Mohammed expanded the plan to include a Southeast Asian component so the pair might still participate. The proposed expansion involved simultaneously blowing up or crashing U.S. aircraft flying Pacific routes from Southeast Asia. Once again, bin Laden vetoed the second component as too ambitious.
Bin Laden twice tried to move up the strike date and urged Mohammed to consider a scaled-down version of the plot in order to do so; Mohammed and Atta persuaded him to be patient.
Mohammed told investigators he planted the seeds of 9/11 in bin Laden's mind in 1996 when he was a terrorist freelancer eager to forge ties with al Qaeda. "Bin Laden listened but did not commit himself," the report says. But in early 1999, bin Laden told Mohammed that "his proposal to use aircraft as weapons now had al Qaeda's full support."
Things soon got underway. Two of bin Laden's original candidates for the mission, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdar, made their way to Los Angeles and then San Diego, traveling undetected even though their names were on a terrorist watch list. Almihdar and Alhazmi were hardly sophisticated travelers. Mohammed had to teach them "basic English words and phrases and showed them how to read a phone book, make travel reservations, use the Internet, and encode communications," the commission says. Once in the United States, the two men often skipped their English classes; it soon became clear that they would make lousy pilots. Mohammed wanted to dump Almihdar after he abandoned Alhazmi and joined his family back in Yemen. Bin Laden insisted that Almihdar remain.
In the meantime, four Middle Eastern men from Hamburg, Germany--including Binalshibh--visited al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and pledged allegiance to bin Laden. Bin Laden designated one, Atta, as emir or team leader, and Atta met with the al Qaeda chief to pick the targets. Bin Laden favored the Pentagon and the White House. Mohammed was enamored of the World Trade Center; his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, had exploded a truck bomb there in 1993.
By June 2000, flight training had begun in earnest, and bin Laden and his associates began selecting the "muscle," the hijackers who would help take over the cockpit and overcome any resistance. The men began traveling to Afghanistan for "special training on how to conduct hijackings, disarm sky marshals, and handle explosives and knives."
Sally's "skirts." One of the commission's most dramatic revelations casts new light on the role of Zacarias Moussaoui, now awaiting trial in connection with the 9/11 attacks. Mohammed and Binalshibh offered conflicting views of Moussaoui's role. Binalshibh told interrogators that Moussaoui popped into the picture when Atta and another pilot, Ziad Samir Jarrah, a member of the Hamburg cell, began to squabble. Jarrah wanted more of a say in the planning, and Atta evidently frowned on Jarrah's frequent contacts with his family and girlfriend. Mohammed feared that Jarrah might drop out of the plot, according to Binalshibh. In this version, Mohammed told Binalshibh that if Atta and Jarrah "divorced," it would cost a lot of money to train another pilot. Mohammed told Binalshibh to "send the skirts to Sally," which Binalshibh says meant Mohammed was asking him to send funds to Moussaoui, to train him to replace Jarrah. Not so, Mohammed says: Moussaoui was actually slated for a "second wave" of attacks and had no role in the 9/11 plot. As for Jarrah, his girlfriend bought him a one-way ticket to Germany. Atta drove Jarrah to the airport. Binalshibh picked him up in Germany, and the two men had an emotional conversation, says Binalshibh, in which he convinced Jarrah to stick with the plot.
As the attacks neared, the commission says, bin Laden was taking heat from his advisers and from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Fearing U.S. military retaliation, the advisers wanted bin Laden to cancel the plot. Bin Laden refused. The attacks, he believed, according to the commission, would "reap al Qaeda a recruiting and fundraising bonanza."
The commission's hearings and its final report, due out next month, are more than just an intimate examination of the attacks and the planning that led up to them. One commissioner, former Illinois Gov. James Thompson, called America an "unguardable, unprotectable" nation and wondered aloud: "How in the world do we ever expect to win this war?" U.S. officials are hoping Mohammed can help them answer that question. "There is credible evidence that [al Qaeda] intends to strike in the United States sometime in the summer or fall of this year," says Robert Bonner, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. After the al Qaeda attacks on packed commuter trains in Madrid in March, resulting in the defeat of the Spanish prime minister and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, U.S. officials went back to Mohammed. He told them that while al Qaeda had never discussed timing terrorist attacks to influence elections, bin Laden definitely would have noted the ripple effect. Mohammed also told interrogators that while al Qaeda had no role in the October 2001 anthrax attacks, the terrorist organization's leadership had again noted the panic that resulted. He also told officials that al Qaeda has experimented with anthrax, and he emphasized repeatedly that bin Laden is deeply interested in weapons of mass destruction but said he had not been privy to specific information. Recently, Attorney General John Ashcroft named seven individuals he believes may be plotting new attacks. It was Mohammed, sources say, who personally fingered those six men and one woman. The latter, Mohammed says, has been a useful source of information for al Qaeda on unconventional weapons.
Mohammed maintains that al Qaeda also wants to repeat its 9/11 success and use commercial aircraft as bombs again, according to U.S. officials. Those same officials report that in late 2002 and early to mid-2003, they learned that al Qaeda was quietly trying to get its operatives aboard planes. They were thwarted, but several remain at large. "I don't think we have a good handle on what's yet to unfold," says a U.S. official. "It's as much a cat-and-mouse game as I've ever seen."
Regards,
Hist2004
New evidence shows setbacks and stumbles--and plans for a much more deadly attack
By Chitra Ragavan
He was a trusted lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and one of the world's most feared terrorists. But these days, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who conceived and directed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is one of the U.S. government's best sources of information on al Qaeda. Captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and held incommunicado ever since, Mohammed has been explaining, under what the government calls "coercive" interrogation, just how the 9/11 attacks were executed and, more important, how and when bin Laden plans to strike again. No one knows just how much to trust Mohammed's tales or exactly how they were obtained, but what he's saying is fascinating--and frightening. "They keep going back [to Mohammed]," says a U.S. intelligence official, "and running scenarios by him."
Last week, in its 12th and final public hearing, the bipartisan commission investigating the 9/11 attacks disclosed new details that dramatically fleshed out the plot, based largely on the transcripts of Mohammed's interrogations and those of more than 100 other detainees, including Ramzi Binalshibh, a wannabe hijacker who became Mohammed's principal overseas terror coordinator after his application for a U.S. visa was rejected four times. The commission's conclusion that there was no "collaborative relationship" between al Qaeda and former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein reignited the political firestorm over the Iraq war (Page 18). But it was the depiction of the Federal Aviation Administration, the Pentagon, and the White House floundering in understandable confusion immediately after the attacks that brought tears to the eyes of 9/11 relatives, as did the disclosures of clues ignored and opportunities missed. The two days of hearings also had moments of chilling drama, like the tape-recorded voice of lead hijacker Mohamed Atta--never heard publicly before--telling terrified passengers, "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport."
The lasting contribution of the panel's investigation is likely to be the deeper understanding it provided of both the 9/11 plot and of bin Laden's al Qaeda organization. Mohammed's confessions offer a rare glimpse of bin Laden as the hands-on CEO of a global terror conglomerate and a micromanager extraordinaire--an employer who urges his followers to think big but doesn't hesitate to clip their wings when they overreach. The interrogation reports reveal how bin Laden pulled off the attacks despite internecine rivalries among hijackers, logistical obstacles, strategic disagreements, and deep philosophical conflicts among the top al Qaeda ranks. The strike date was set just three weeks before the attacks, and as late as September 9, lead hijacker Atta wasn't sure whether one of the planes should crash into the White House or the U.S. Capitol. But he picked September to ensure that Congress was back in session, just in case the Capitol was the target.
Bin Laden says OK. There are still plenty of doubts about Mohammed's credibility. Federal investigators have been unable to corroborate some of his claims, and some commissioners seem skeptical of the aggrandizing portrait that has been painted of bin Laden. "Is this really realistic that he was that much hands-on in charge?" asked Commissioner Fred Fielding, "or was this perhaps part of a propaganda activity to praise and elevate the mastermind of this plot now that it's turned out to be successful?" The answers to these questions may never be known, but the bottom line is that the commission seems to have accepted much of what Mohammed has said.
These are among the commission's most significant findings:
Mohammed first planned on hijacking 10 planes and crashing them into nuclear power plants, the CIA and FBI buildings, and the tallest buildings in California and Washington State. He personally wanted to pilot a 10th plane, kill all adult male passengers on board, and, after delivering a speech denouncing U.S. policy in the Middle East, release all the women and children. Al Qaeda leaders were "lukewarm" to these ideas, the commission's report said, and bin Laden nixed the 10-plane plan.
Bin Laden selected all the hijackers--the four pilots, the 15 "musclemen," and at least nine alternates, whom the commission has identified by name. When two of bin Laden's four original candidates were unable to obtain visas to come to the United States, Mohammed expanded the plan to include a Southeast Asian component so the pair might still participate. The proposed expansion involved simultaneously blowing up or crashing U.S. aircraft flying Pacific routes from Southeast Asia. Once again, bin Laden vetoed the second component as too ambitious.
Bin Laden twice tried to move up the strike date and urged Mohammed to consider a scaled-down version of the plot in order to do so; Mohammed and Atta persuaded him to be patient.
Mohammed told investigators he planted the seeds of 9/11 in bin Laden's mind in 1996 when he was a terrorist freelancer eager to forge ties with al Qaeda. "Bin Laden listened but did not commit himself," the report says. But in early 1999, bin Laden told Mohammed that "his proposal to use aircraft as weapons now had al Qaeda's full support."
Things soon got underway. Two of bin Laden's original candidates for the mission, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdar, made their way to Los Angeles and then San Diego, traveling undetected even though their names were on a terrorist watch list. Almihdar and Alhazmi were hardly sophisticated travelers. Mohammed had to teach them "basic English words and phrases and showed them how to read a phone book, make travel reservations, use the Internet, and encode communications," the commission says. Once in the United States, the two men often skipped their English classes; it soon became clear that they would make lousy pilots. Mohammed wanted to dump Almihdar after he abandoned Alhazmi and joined his family back in Yemen. Bin Laden insisted that Almihdar remain.
In the meantime, four Middle Eastern men from Hamburg, Germany--including Binalshibh--visited al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and pledged allegiance to bin Laden. Bin Laden designated one, Atta, as emir or team leader, and Atta met with the al Qaeda chief to pick the targets. Bin Laden favored the Pentagon and the White House. Mohammed was enamored of the World Trade Center; his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, had exploded a truck bomb there in 1993.
By June 2000, flight training had begun in earnest, and bin Laden and his associates began selecting the "muscle," the hijackers who would help take over the cockpit and overcome any resistance. The men began traveling to Afghanistan for "special training on how to conduct hijackings, disarm sky marshals, and handle explosives and knives."
Sally's "skirts." One of the commission's most dramatic revelations casts new light on the role of Zacarias Moussaoui, now awaiting trial in connection with the 9/11 attacks. Mohammed and Binalshibh offered conflicting views of Moussaoui's role. Binalshibh told interrogators that Moussaoui popped into the picture when Atta and another pilot, Ziad Samir Jarrah, a member of the Hamburg cell, began to squabble. Jarrah wanted more of a say in the planning, and Atta evidently frowned on Jarrah's frequent contacts with his family and girlfriend. Mohammed feared that Jarrah might drop out of the plot, according to Binalshibh. In this version, Mohammed told Binalshibh that if Atta and Jarrah "divorced," it would cost a lot of money to train another pilot. Mohammed told Binalshibh to "send the skirts to Sally," which Binalshibh says meant Mohammed was asking him to send funds to Moussaoui, to train him to replace Jarrah. Not so, Mohammed says: Moussaoui was actually slated for a "second wave" of attacks and had no role in the 9/11 plot. As for Jarrah, his girlfriend bought him a one-way ticket to Germany. Atta drove Jarrah to the airport. Binalshibh picked him up in Germany, and the two men had an emotional conversation, says Binalshibh, in which he convinced Jarrah to stick with the plot.
As the attacks neared, the commission says, bin Laden was taking heat from his advisers and from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Fearing U.S. military retaliation, the advisers wanted bin Laden to cancel the plot. Bin Laden refused. The attacks, he believed, according to the commission, would "reap al Qaeda a recruiting and fundraising bonanza."
The commission's hearings and its final report, due out next month, are more than just an intimate examination of the attacks and the planning that led up to them. One commissioner, former Illinois Gov. James Thompson, called America an "unguardable, unprotectable" nation and wondered aloud: "How in the world do we ever expect to win this war?" U.S. officials are hoping Mohammed can help them answer that question. "There is credible evidence that [al Qaeda] intends to strike in the United States sometime in the summer or fall of this year," says Robert Bonner, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. After the al Qaeda attacks on packed commuter trains in Madrid in March, resulting in the defeat of the Spanish prime minister and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, U.S. officials went back to Mohammed. He told them that while al Qaeda had never discussed timing terrorist attacks to influence elections, bin Laden definitely would have noted the ripple effect. Mohammed also told interrogators that while al Qaeda had no role in the October 2001 anthrax attacks, the terrorist organization's leadership had again noted the panic that resulted. He also told officials that al Qaeda has experimented with anthrax, and he emphasized repeatedly that bin Laden is deeply interested in weapons of mass destruction but said he had not been privy to specific information. Recently, Attorney General John Ashcroft named seven individuals he believes may be plotting new attacks. It was Mohammed, sources say, who personally fingered those six men and one woman. The latter, Mohammed says, has been a useful source of information for al Qaeda on unconventional weapons.
Mohammed maintains that al Qaeda also wants to repeat its 9/11 success and use commercial aircraft as bombs again, according to U.S. officials. Those same officials report that in late 2002 and early to mid-2003, they learned that al Qaeda was quietly trying to get its operatives aboard planes. They were thwarted, but several remain at large. "I don't think we have a good handle on what's yet to unfold," says a U.S. official. "It's as much a cat-and-mouse game as I've ever seen."
Regards,
Hist2004