Mohamed Atta

“ Let these good people open their eyes, and they will see that Atta Troll was not shot down in the valley of Roncesvalles, but that he is still alive, very much alive, and making a dreadful noise, and that not in the Pyrenees, but just outside our doors, where he still keeps haranguing about equality and liberty and occasionally breaks his fetters and escapes from his masters. ”

“ Meerza Ahmed has murdered my camp-followers and Sepoys in the most cruel and atrocious manner, and it is my duty, merely as commander of the force, to offer a reward to any person who will bring him in. Mahomed Atta has, like a monster, murdered our officers in their houses, and cut to pieces our unarmed and inoffensive camp-followers. I will show no mercy to these men. My note said nothing about ‘dead or alive,’ and I thought clearly indicated bringing them in prisoners. ”

“ American 11 and United 175. Atta and Omari boarded a 6:00 A.M. flight from Portland to Boston's Logan International Airport. [1]
When he checked in for his flight to Boston, Atta was selected by a computerized prescreening system known as CAPPS (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System) , created to identify passengers who should be subject to special security measures. Under security rules in place at the time, the only consequence of Atta's selection by CAPPS was that his checked bags were held off the plane until it was confirmed that he had boarded the aircraft. ”

“ Binalshibh says Bin Ladin had given the same message to Waleed al Shehri for conveyance to Atta earlier that spring. Binalshibh also received permission to meet Atta in Malaysia.Atef provided money for the trip,which KSM would help Binalshibh arrange in Karachi.141 In early June, Binalshibh traveled by taxi from Kandahar to Quetta,Pakistan, where al Qaeda courier Abu Rahmah took him to KSM.According to Binalshibh, KSM provided a plane ticket to Malaysia and a fraudulent Saudi passport to use for the trip. ”

“ Essabar made reservations on August 22 and departed Hamburg for Karachi on August 30; Bahaji purchased his tickets on August 20 and departed Hamburg for Karachi on September 3.173 Binalshibh also made arrangements to leave for Pakistan during early September, before the attacks, as did Ali and Hawsawi, the plot facilitators in the UAE. During these final days, Binalshibh and Atta kept in contact by phone, email, and instant messaging.Although Atta had forbidden the hijackers to contact their families, he apparently placed one last call to his own father on September 9. ”

“ No evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001. According to the Czech government,Ani, the Iraqi officer alleged to have met with Atta,was about 70 miles away from Prague on April 8–9 and did not return until the afternoon of the ninth, while the source was firm that the sighting occurred at 11:00 A.M.When questioned about the reported April 2001 meeting,Ani—now in custody—has denied ever student visa, both of them had to persuade INS inspectors that they should be admitted so that they could continue their flight training. ”

“ He and Hanjour, for instance, soon established new bank accounts, acquired a mailbox, rented cars, and started visiting a gym. So did the four other hijackers who evidently were staying with them in New Jersey. Several also obtained new photo identification, first in New Jersey and then at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, where Hazmi and Hanjour had obtained such documents months earlier, likely with help from their Jordanian friend, Rababah.138 Atta probably met again with Hazmi in early July. Returning from his initial cross-country surveillance flight, Atta flew into New York. ”

“ Although continual blood-feuds are springing up amongst the inhabitants of the various ksor, the tribe unites in the case of attack from without, all intervillage quarrels being left until the enemy is driven off. But so firm a position have the people managed to obtain for themselves, and so renowned are they for their pluck and bravery, that nowadays attack from other tribes is uncommon. However, a few years since the powerful Aït Atta marched in force against the inhabitants of Dads, accompanied by a large number of horsemen ”

“ As a rule, the Berbers seem to be constantly at war without the idea of plunder, their feuds being far more often matters of revenge. With the Aït Atta, however, this is different, and they seem to retain from the [209] time of their Eastern ancestors the love of going afield for conquest and booty, with the result that there is little land of the eastern portion of trans-Atlas Morocco which has not at one time or another been overrun, or at least attacked, by their hordes. ”

“ On Atta's family background, see FBI report, "Hijackers Timeline," Nov. 14, 2003 (citing FBI electronic communication from Cairo dated Sept. 13, 2001) ; CIA analytic report,"The Plot and the Plotters," June 1, 2003,
p. 23. For details on his study in Germany, see German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) report, investigative summary re Atta, June 24, 2002 ”

“ Atta was puzzled. They must be the men from the East about whom he had been hearing. Long ere he left Lemnos there had been news about the Persians. They were coming like locusts out of the dawn, swarming over Ionia and Thrace, men and ships numerous beyond telling. They meant no ill to honest islanders: a little earth and water were enough to win their friendship. But they meant death to the hubris of the Hellenes. Atta was on the side of the invaders; he wished them well in their war with his ancient foes. ”

“ At the end of January 2001, Jarrah again flew to Beirut, to visit his sick father.After staying there for several weeks, Jarrah visited Senguen in Germany for a few days before returning to the United States at the end of February.66 While Jarrah took his personal trips,Atta traveled to Germany in early January 2001 for a progress meeting with Ramzi Binalshibh. Binalshibh says Atta told him to report to the al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan that the three Hamburg pilots had completed their flight training and were awaiting orders. ”

“ Or the flight attendants may just have been in their way.26
At the same time or shortly thereafter, Atta — the only terrorist on board trained to fly a jet — would have moved to the cockpit from his business-class seat, possibly accompanied by Omari.As this was happening, passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated in the row just behind Atta and Omari, was stabbed by one of the hijackers — probably Satam al Suqami, who was seated directly behind Lewin. Lewin had served four years as an officer in the Israeli military. ”

“ They are a fierce tribe of Berbers, intent upon the annexation of everybody else’s country and property, and have extended their conquests in every direction, from the Draa to the Ziz basin. The oases of Medaghra and Ertib, often included in Tafilet, are in their hands, the only Arabs being a sprinkling of Shereefs. The Aït Atta are said to have captured these lands at the beginning of this century. ”

“ Additionally, we alleged that al Qosi was involved with Mubarak and that al Bahlul was aware of Atta and Jarrah, and was somehow linked to a 9/11 meeting in Malaysia. I understand that significant policy decisions have yet to be vetted with DOJ OLC, and that they appeared less than totally comfortable with our theory of liability and culpability of the accuseds. The comments we have heard in the office appear to revolve around one goal - to get the process advanced to the point that it can not be turned off. ”

“ A few words must be said as to the powerful Berber tribe of Aït Atta, a stronghold of which Ul Turug is. Probably no division of the Shloh people south of the Atlas is so well known as this tribe, and deservedly so, for by their bravery and warfare, by their constant extension of territory, and the fear in which their name is held, they have become a byword for all that is fierce or strong. ”

“ Accordingly when the fleet from Artemision arrived next morning, and all but a few score Persians were shovelled into holes, that the Hellenes might seem to have been conquered by a lesser force, Atta's body was laid out with pomp in the midst of the Lacedaemonians. And the seamen rubbed their eyes and thanked their strange gods that one man of the East had been found to match those terrible warriors whose name was a nightmare. ”

“ Many are reduced to great want, and over two-thirds are said to suffer from various forms of ophthalmia. Tafilei-t Oasis. South of Mdaghra, most of the natives belong to the powerful Ait-Atta con- federation, which extends westwards to the Wed Draa. According to the local tradition, about one hundred years ago the Ait-Attas expelled the Shorfa Arabs from this part of Tafilelt, which takes the name of Ertih or Reteh. Their women, who go unveiled, are distinguished from most others in Marocco by the practice of tattooing different parts of the body. ”

“ Atta said that those two operatives had rented small aircraft and flown reconnaissance flights near the Pentagon.Atta explained that Hanjour was assigned to attack the Pentagon, Jarrah the Capitol, and that both Atta and Shehhi would hit the World Trade Center. If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane. ”

“ Even now he is more of an automaton than a human being, more dead than alive, and yet—greatest of all miseries!—he is not allowed to die. For he has a mother, the witch Uraka, who keeps him artificially alive by anointing him every night with magic salve and giving him such diabolic advice as will be useful to him during the day. By means of the sham health she gives to her son, the magic bullets she casts for him, the tricks and wiles she teaches him, Lascaro is enabled to find the track of Atta Troll, to lure him out of his lair and to lay him low with a treacherous shot. ”

“ As may be expected, the Berbers do not allow their influence to be used for nothing; but so poor are the Jews, and also the entire country in which this state of things exists, that it is little or nothing that the “lord” can screw out of his vassal.
In the same way the tribe of Aït Atta, one of the most powerful of the Berber tribes of the Sahara, recently added a large district to the south of Mesgita, on the Wad Draa, to their already extensive territory. However, the inhabitants—Haratin—could not be enrolled as are the Jews, as they are Moslems ”

“ On both occasions, Sheikh Mohammed was able to withstand Bin Laden's pressure by asserting that his hijacking team was not ready yet.
The Hijackers Travel Through Dubai, UAE
66. The hijackers traveled to the U.S. via Dubai, where they met with Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi ("al-Hawsawi") and received final instructions on security and were informed that they had been selected to participate in a suicide hijacking operation of U.S. aircraft. The distribution of the hijacking teams was decided by Atta who communicated that information to al-Hawsawi. ”

“ It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event. Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein’s regime. ”

“ Hazmi’s old friend Khalid al Mihdhar would soon join them.79 Atta and Shehhi had already returned to Florida. On April 11, they moved into an apartment in Coral Springs.Atta stayed in Florida, awaiting the arrival of the first muscle hijackers.80 Shehhi, on the other hand, bought a ticket to Cairo and flew there from Miami on April 18.We do not know much more about Shehhi’s reason for traveling to Egypt in April than we know about his January trip to Morocco. ”

“ The security checkpoints through which passengers, including Atta and his colleagues, gained access to the American 11 gate were operated by Globe Security under a contract with American Airlines. In a different terminal, the single checkpoint through which passengers for United 175 passed was controlled by United Airlines, which had contracted with Huntleigh USA to perform the screening. ”

“ For example, according to FBI documents, there is evidence that hijackers Marwan al-Shehhi and Mohammed Atta were in contact with Mohammed Rafique Quadir Harunani, the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation since 1999 and a close associate of Abdullah Bin Ladin, who is referred to in FBI documents as Usama Bin Ladin's half brother. Abdullah Bin Ladin, who is the subject of several FBI investigations, is currently in the United States He claims to work for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC as an administrative officer. ”

“ They decided to obtain U.S. visas prior to traveling to Afghanistan to make themselves more attractive for any possible operation in the United States. Neither al- [Hazmi] or al-Mihdar were aware of the September 11 operation prior to getting the visas, nor were they directed by Bin Laden, Sheikh Mohammed, or any other al Qaeda operative to do so.
25. Sheikh Mohammed said that he gave al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar approximately U.S. $8,000 each for their travel to California. Sheikh Mohammed added that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdar got additional funds when they met with Atta. ”