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9/11 Mastermind Says Plot Began in â96
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, has told American interrogators that he first discussed the plot with Osama bin Laden in 1996 and that the original plan called for hijacking five commercial jets on each U.S. coast before it was modified several times, according to interrogation reports reviewed by The Associated Press. Mohammed also divulged that, in its final stages, the hijacking plan called for as many as 22 terrorists and four planes in a first wave, followed by a second wave of suicide hijackings that were to be aided possibly by al-Qaida allies in southeast Asia. Over time, bin Laden scrapped various parts of the Sept. 11 plan, including attacks on both coasts and hijacking or bombing some planes in East Asia.
| I expected that second wave of attacks, close on the heels of the first. Not being a military genius like Binny, I'd have expected the second wave to magnify the effect of the first and maybe even set off a panic. |
Addressing one of the questions raised by congressional investigators in their Sept. 11 review, Mohammed said he never heard of a Saudi man named Omar al-Bayoumi who provided some rent money and assistance to two hijackers when they arrived in California. Congressional investigators have suggested Bayoumi could have aided the hijackers or been a Saudi intelligence agent, charges the Saudi government vehemently deny. The FBI has also cast doubt on the congressional theory after extensive investigation and several interviews with al-Bayoumi. In fact, Mohammed claims he did not arrange for anyone on U.S. soil to assist hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi when they arrived in California. Mohammed portrays those two hijackers as central to the plot, and even more important than Mohammed Atta, initially identified by Americans as the likely hijacking ringleader. Mohammed said he communicated with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar while they were in the United States by using Internet chat software. Mohammed said al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were among the four original operatives bin Laden assigned to him for the plot, a significant revelation because those were the only two hijackers whom U.S. authorities were frantically seeking for terrorist ties in the final days before Sept. 11. Mohammed told his interrogators the hijacking teams were originally made up of members from different countries where al-Qaida had recruited, but that in the final stages bin Laden chose instead to use a large group of young Saudi men to populate the hijacking teams.
| To cause a rift between the U.S. and the Soddies? Or because he considered his countrymen to be more trustworthy? |
Mohammedâs interrogation report states he told Americans some of the original operatives assigned to the plot did not make it because they had trouble getting into the United States. He told interrogators about other terror plots that were in various stages of planning or had been temporarily disrupted when he was captured, including one planned for Singapore. In 1996, he went to meet bin Laden to persuade the al-Qaida leader "to give him money and operatives so he could hijack 10 planes in the United States and fly them into targets," one of the interrogation reports state. Mohammed told interrogators his initial thought was to pick five targets on each coast, but bin Laden was not convinced such a plan was practical.
| I wonder if they ever discussed what the purpose of the attack was? And whether they discussed what they thought a U.S. reaction might be? |
Mohammed said bin Laden offered him four operatives to begin with â al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi as well as two Yemenis, Walid Muhammed bin Attash and Abu Bara al-Yemeni. "All four operatives only knew that they had volunteered for a martyrdom operation involving planes," one report stated. Mohammed said the first major change to the plans occurred in 1999 when the two Yemeni operatives could not get U.S. visas. Bin Laden then offered him additional operatives, including a member of his personal security detail. The original two Yemenis were instructed to focus on hijacking planes in East Asia. Mohammed said through the various iterations of the plot, he considered using a scaled-down version of the Bojinka plan that would have bombed commercial airliners, and that he even "contemplated attempting to down the planes using shoe bombs," one report said. The plot, he said, eventually evolved into hijacking a small number of planes in the United States and East Asia and either having them explode or crash into targets simultaneously. By 1999, the four original operatives picked for the plot traveled to Afghanistan to train at one of bin Ladenâs camps. The focus, Mohammed said, was on specialized commando training, not piloting jets. Mohammedâs interrogations have revealed the planning and training of operatives was extraordinarily meticulous, including how to blend into American society, read telephone yellow pages, and research airline schedules. A key event in the plot, Mohammed told his interrogators, was a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000, that included al-Mihdhar, al-Hazmi and other al-Qaida operatives. The CIA learned of the meeting beforehand and had it monitored by Malaysian security, but it did not realize the significance of the two eventual hijackers until just before the attacks. The interrogation reports state bin Laden further trimmed Mohammedâs plans in spring 2000 when he canceled the idea for hijackings in East Asia, thus narrowing it to the United States. Bin Laden thought "it would be too difficult to synchronize" attacks in the United States and Asia.
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-09-21 |
