Planning of The September 11 Attacks - Origins of 9/11

Origins of 9/11

According to the intelligence authorities in the United States and the Philippines, the September 11 attacks originated with Operation Bojinka (a plan that was not executed), which was conceived by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (K.S.M) and his nephew, Ramzi Yousef. The first stage would be the assassination of Pope John Paul II.The second involved the bombing of eleven airliners bound for the United States. The third stages called for a small airplanes loaded with explosives to be crashed into the CIA headquarters and possibly other buildings in major cities across the U.S. The plot was discovered by Manila police on January 6, 1995 and Abdul Hakim Murad was arrested. Ramzi Yousef was arrested in Pakistan in February 1995. Wali Khan Amin Shah escaped after his arrest, but was re-arrested in Malaysia in December 1995. Khalid Sheik Mohammed escaped, and Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, was overlooked.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed first presented the idea for the September 11 plot to bin Laden in 1996 in Afghanistan. However, nothing came of the idea at the time. At that point, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from Sudan.

Mohammed moved to Qatar. Before the government there could arrest him (after a request by the United States), he fled to Afghanistan. The leaders of Al-Qaeda liked the idea of the modified Phases II and III Mohammed presented to them. Instead of using small airplanes loaded with explosives, as Murad planned to do, Mohammed planned to use commercial airliners. Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah became the managers of the plot. During late 1996 and 1997, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stayed in the Czech Republic, as the Taliban allegedly did not approve of his womanising. German officials believe that the leaders of Al-Qaeda planned almost the entire September 11 plot in Afghanistan. Six of the hijackers that were chosen later down the line would have some say in the plot.

According to the September 11 Commission, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed envisioned a hijacking of eleven planes on both the East and West coasts, and for ten of them to be crashed into the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, the White House and the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, California, the Willis Tower (then Sears Tower) in Chicago, Illinois, and the Columbia Center in Seattle, Washington. The commission stated that Mohammed also wanted to personally hijack an eleventh airliner, kill all of the adult males on board, land the plane in the U.S., make a political speech, and then free all of the women and children on the plane.

In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to the president that Al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the USA, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft.

In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden summoned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Kandahar and gave approval for Mohammed to go forward with the plot. The plot was now referred to within Al-Qaeda as the "planes operation". In addition to flying planes into buildings, there was a plan to simultaneously crash additional planes in Asia, which could be done by operatives not granted a U.S. visa and without flight training. Bin Laden canceled the latter part of the planes operation in the spring of 2000, because of difficulties of coordination. The commission said that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed probably would have arranged to have six planes hijacked, even later on, if he was able to find more hijackers. He also considered a Phase II, but he and his colleagues spent so much time on the current plot that they could not plan a second phase.

A series of meetings occurred in spring of 1999, involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy Mohammed Atef. Bin Laden recommended four individuals for the plot, including Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Walid Muhammad Salih Bin 'Attash (Khallad), and Abu Bara al-Taizi. Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were both Saudi citizens, thus making it simple for them to obtain U.S. visas. Khallad and al-Taizi were both Yemeni citizens, thus not able to easily obtain visas to the United States. The two Yemenis were assigned for the Asia component of the plot. When Mohamed Atta and other members of the Hamburg cell arrived in Afghanistan, bin Laden was involved in selecting them for the plot, and assigning Atta to be the leader.

Several Al-Qaeda members are said to have attended a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from January 5 to January 8, 2000, that regarded the planning of the USS Cole bombing (which took place on October 12, 2000), and the forthcoming September 11, 2001 attacks. Hambali, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Tawfiq bin Attash attended the meeting. The men were also photographed when they came out of the meeting. U.S. investigators did not identify these men until much later. The meeting was not wiretapped but it was videotaped.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the head of Al-Qaeda's 'military committee'. He provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed explained to Fouda, "We had a large surplus of brothers willing to die as martyrs. As we studied various targets, nuclear facilities arose as a key option"... but the nuclear targets were dropped for concerns the plan would "get out of hand."

According to several captured Al-Qaeda members, the leaders decided that the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the United States Capitol were the targets, and that leaders rejected the White House as it was too difficult to see from the air. According to captured member Abu Zubaydah, the White House was the intended target of United Airlines Flight 93. According to his courtroom confession (which he recanted after being sentenced to life in prison) Zacarias Moussaoui intended to hijack a fifth plane with Richard Colvin Reid which would use GPS to find the White House.