Organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks - Definition

Many individuals were directly responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks. According to nearly all reputable sources, including the 9/11 Commission Report, the attack was planned and carried out by al-Qaida operatives. This article describes those operatives.

It can be argued that others were indirectly responsible for the attacks, by implementing lax security or by turning a blind eye to possible threats, but that is outside the scope of this article. In addition, there exist other less accepted theories regarding culpability for the attacks. These are described in the articles 9/11 domestic conspiracy theory and Misinformation and rumors about the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Hijackers

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, 26 al-Qaida terrorist conspirators sought to enter the United States to carry out a suicide mission. In the end, there were 19 hijackers in all: five on three of the flights, and four on the fourth. Soon after the attacks, the FBI identified all nineteen, though at least eight of the names on the FBI's list have been called into doubt; see links by name.

Organization

U.S. authorities believe that the hijackers were in two groups: six core organizers, who included the four pilots and two others; and the remaining thirteen who entered the United States later in pairs in the spring and summer of 2001 via the United Arab Emirates.

The six primary organizers among them were Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and the pilots (Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Hani Hanjour).

Some of the terrorists did not seem to match the profiles of past suicide terrorists as young, poor, and uneducated. However the "muscle" hijackers, as opposed to the pilots, were between 20 and 28 years old and most were unmarried and without familial attachments. Fifteen came from Saudi Arabia. The remaining four came from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon. According to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, this distribution reflects the proportions of trainees at al-Qaida camps and the relative ease of obtaining U.S. visas for Saudi citizens. (See: Visa Express.)

There are persistent rumors some of the hijackers may have travelled under false passports or been misidentified, but this has not been proven. The 9/11 Commission looked into this possibility and rejected it. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, many of the hijackers were photographed at the airport by security cameras. None of these photographs have been released by U.S. authorities at this time, but they were examined by the 9/11 Commission. One airport photograph of two of the hijackers was released, but it was taken at a different airport, boarding a non-hijacked flight.

List of the hijackers

Note: There have been variations in the spelling of the names of the alleged hijackers in differing accounts of the attacks. This is because there is no one correct way of transliterating from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet.

The hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 were reported to be:

• Waleed al-Shehri
• Wail al-Shehri
• Mohammed Atta
• Abdulaziz al-Omari
• Satam al-Suqami

Mohammed Atta is believed to have flown Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Aboard United Airlines Flight 175 the hijackers were reported to be:

• Marwan al-Shehhi
• Fayez Banihammad
• Mohand al-Shehri
• Hamza al-Ghamdi
• Ahmed al-Ghamdi

Marwan al-Shehhi is believed to have flown Flight 175 into the South Tower.

The hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77 were reported to be:

• Khalid al-Mihdhar
• Majed Moqed
• Nawaf al-Hazmi
• Salem al-Hazmi
• Hani Hanjour

Hani Hanjour is believed to have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

The hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 were reported to be:

• Ahmed al-Haznawi
• Ahmed al-Nami
• Ziad Jarrah
• Saeed al-Ghamdi

Ziad Jarrah is believed to have crashed Flight 93 into the Pennsylvania countryside to prevent or end an assault by the passengers.

Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Ahmad al-Haznawi came from three neighboring towns and belonged to the same tribe. Wail and Waleed al-Shehri were brothers. Salem al-Hazmi was a younger brother of Nawaf al-Hazmi.

The Hamburg cell and other conspirators

The terrorist attack itself was planned by Khalid Sheik Mohammed and approved by Osama bin Laden; the two of them personally chose the hijackers. Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah became the organizers of the plot. Investigators say that Mohammed Haydar Zammar acted as the "travel agent" to Afghanistan.

Three of the hijackers, along with Ramzi Binalshibh, Said Bahaji, and Zakariyah Essabar were members of the Hamburg cell. After Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah left for the United States, Binalshibh provided money to the conspirators. Riduan Isamuddin, aka Hambali, met with two of the hijackers in Kuala Lumpur in 2000. Hambali also gave money to alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui. The members of the cell fled Germany before the terrorist attacks.

Some of the money that financed the terrorist attack seems to have originated from Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mohammed Yousef Mohamed Alqusaidi, who may be Marwan al-Shehhi's brother. Another conspirator is Abu Abdul Rahman. Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Khallad, assisted the hijackers in many ways, and unsuccessfully sought a visa to enter the United States and participate in the attacks.

Interviews with detained al Qaida members have identified ten hijacker candidates who did not participate in the attacks for various reasons. This people were identified as Mohamed Mani Ahmad al Kahtani, Khalid Saeed Ahmad al Zahrani, Ali Abd al Rahman al Faqasi al Ghamdi, Saeed al Baluchi, Qutaybah al Najdi, Zuhair al Thubaiti, Saeed Abdullah Saeed al Ghamdi, Saud al Rashid, and Mushabib al Hamlan, and Abderraouf Jdey.

Financial Support - Money Trail Missed?

The 9/11 Commission stated in their final report that the "9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack" but the "origin of the funds remains unknown." The Commission noted: "we have seen no evidence that any foreign government-or foreign government official-supplied any funding."[1] (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch5.htm) However many reports suggest the majority of the funds came from Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as well as agents of the Saudi Arabian government.

A senior-level U.S. government source told CNN in October of 2001 that U.S. investigators believed Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (Ahmed Umar Syed Sheikh), a long time ISI asset, using the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, sent more than $100,000 from Pakistan to Mohammed Atta, the suspected hijack ringleader of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida in the weeks before the deadliest acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead.

In addition, sources have said Atta sent thousands of dollars -- believed to be excess funds from the operation -- back to Syed in the United Arab Emirates in the days before September 11.

Syed also is described as a key figure in the funding operation of al Qaeda, the network headed by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden."[2] (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/05/inv.terror.investigation/)

CNN later confirmed that it was "Ahmed Umar Syed Sheikh, whom authorities say used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to suspected hijacker Mohammad Atta, who then distributed the money in the United States."[3] (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/10/08/india.ressa/)

Soon after the money transfer was discovered, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Gen. Mahmood (Mahmud) Ahmed resigned from his position. Indian news outlets reported the FBI was investigating the possiblity that Gen. Mahmood Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta, while most Western media outlets only reported his connections to the Taliban as the reason for his departure. [4] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essaysaeed)

Moreover, The Wall Street Journal was one of the only Western news organizations to follow up on the story, citing the Times of India: "US authorities sought [Gen. Mahmud Ahmed's] removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 [was] wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahumd."[5] (http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298) The best coverage came from The Daily Excelsior, reporting "The FBI’s examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to the discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Gen. Mehmood Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deep, sensational information surfaced with regard to the transfer of 100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta, one of the Kamikaze pilots who flew his Boeing into the World Trade Centre. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta."[6] (http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/01oct18/news.htm)

Disturbingly, according to the Washington Post, "on the morning of Sept. 11, [Porter] Goss and [Bob] Graham were having breakfast with a Pakistani general named Mahmud Ahmed -- the soon-to-be-sacked head of Pakistan's intelligence service"[7] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A36091-2002May17&notFound=true) On September 12 and 13, Lt. Gen. Mahmood met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Senator Joseph Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State Colin Powell. An agreement on Pakistan's collaboration in the new “war on terror” was negotiated between Mahmood and Armitage.[8] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay_pf.jsp?article=mahmoodahmed)[9] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2001/reuters091301.html)[10] (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/america_under_attack/article/0,1299,DRMN_16_824298,00.html)[11] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2001/miamiherald091601.html) Lt Gen Mehmood Ahmed then lead a six-member delegation to to the Afghan city of Kandahar in order to hold crisis talks with the Taliban leadership, supposedly in an attempt to persuade them to hand over Osama bin Laden.[12] (http://www.911readingroom.org/bibliography/whole_document.php?article_id=287)

In June of 2001, a "high-placed member of a US intelligence agency" told BBC reporter Greg Palast that "after the [2000] elections, the agencies were told to "back off" investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals".[13] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm)

In May of 2002, former FBI Agent Robert Wright delivered a tearful press conference apologizing to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. He described how his superiors intentionally obstructed his investigation into Al-Qaeda financing.[14] (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/37/news-crogan.php)[15] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=Robert+Wright&events=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&projects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search=+Go+)

Agent Wright would later tell ABC's Brian Ross: "September 11th is a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit," specifically referring to the Bureau's hindering of his investigation into Yassin al-Qadi (al Kadi), who Ross described as a powerful Saudi Arabian businessman with extensive financial ties in Chicago.[16] (http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2002/abcnews121902b.html) One month after 9/11, the US government officially identified Yassin al-Qadi as one of Osama bin Laden's primary financiers and a specially designated global terrorist.[17] (http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2002/10/dos101102.html)

In an interview with Computerworld Magazine, a former business associate described his relationship with al-Qadi: "I met him a few times and talked to him a few times on the telephone. He never talked to me about violence. Instead, he talked very highly of his relationship with [former President] Jimmy Carter and [Vice President] Dick Cheney."[18] (http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,77682,00.html) According to Senator Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, "Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship," as reported by the Miami Herald.

"And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, obtained by The Herald Saturday, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees."[19] (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm)

See also

• "War on Terrorism"
• U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
• 20th hijacker
• 2001 anthrax attack
• U.S. Department of Defense
• Operation Bojinka
• Taliban
• collective trauma

External links

• The Final 9/11 Commission Report (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/index.html)
• Search the 9/11 Commission Report indexed by individual paragraphs, with clustered search results (http://vivisimo.com/911)
• Network Map (http://www.orgnet.com/hijackers.html) of how hijackers were connected to each other and color-coded by their flight.
• A Terrorist Profile Emerges That Confounds the Experts (http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15SUIC.html) The New York Times 15-September-2001
• F.B.I. Documents Detail the Movements of 19 Men Believed to Be Hijackers (http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15HIJA.html) The New York Times 15-September-2001 To be incorporated
• FLIGHT SCHOOL: Learning Where Suspects Studied Is 'Trickier Than It Sounds' (http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15FLIG.html) The New York Times 15-September-2001 To be incorporated
• The Immigration and Naturalization Service's Contacts With Two September 11 Terrorists: A Review of the INS's Admissions of Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, its Processing of their Change of Status Applications, and its Efforts to Track Foreign Students in the United States (http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/2002_05/fullreport.pdf) U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General 20-May-2002 To be incorporated
• portal.telegraph.co.uk (http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml) (UK report that not all of the "hijackers" were actually on the planes)
• Independent reporting of alleged hijacker claims (http://www.worldmessenger.20m.com/alive.html) with additional links
• Saudis Say Cash to Friend of Hijackers Was Charity (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/international/middleeast/24ENVO.html), The New York Times, November 24, 2002 to be incorporated
• Evidence against the theories that some of the named hijackers are still alive. (http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,265160,00.html)
• Saudis Arabia Admit Hijackers of Sept. 11 Attacks were Citizens (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200202/06/eng20020206_90055.shtml)
• The Final 9/11 Commission Report (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/index.html)
• Suspected hijack bankroller freed by India in '99 - CNN (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/05/inv.terror.investigation/)
• Sept. 11's Smoking Gun: The Many Faces of Saeed Sheikh - Center for Cooperative Research (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essaysaeed)
• 'Our Friends the Pakistanis' - The Wall Street Journal (http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298)
• India wants terror spotlight on Kashmir - CNN (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/10/08/india.ressa/)
• A Cloak But No Dagger - The Washignton Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A36091-2002May17&notFound=true)
• Chapter 5, Final Report - 9/11 Commission (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch5.htm)