Mohammed Atef - in The Sudan

In The Sudan

Atef followed al-Qaeda to the Sudan in 1992 until the group was forced to leave, following the execution of the teenaged son of Ahmad Salama Mabruk, and Atef moved to Afghanistan.

In 1994, he refused to allow American double agent Ali Mohammed to know which name and passport he would be traveling under, expressing concerns that Mohammed could be working with the American authorities. He traveled to Mombassa, Kenya where he met with Mohammed Odeh and gave him money to purchase himself a 7-tonne trawler and start a fishing business.

While in the Sudan, he allegedly conducted a study which resulted in him presenting al-Qaeda details on why aircraft hijackings were a poor idea as they were engineered to allow the negotiation of hostages in exchange for prisoners, rather than inflicting damage. Another alleged study he carried out determined that the Afghan Arabs and Taliban could together topple the dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, and the government of Iran.

In 1995, Atef gave Khalid Sheikh Mohammed details for a contact in Brazil. When Mohammed returned to Afghanistan, he turned to Atef to set up a meeting with Bin Laden in Tora Bora, at which he told the pair his plans for military attacks against the United States.

Prior to 1996, Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri, Atef and Yaseen al-Iraqi aided Enaam Arnaout in purchasing AK-47s and mortar rounds from a Pashtun tribesman named Hajjji Ayoub, and they were subsequently delivered in large trucks to the Jawr and Jihad Wahl training camps.