15 January 2000

Posted on January 15, 2021February 2, 2021 by Featherproof Books

The first two hijackers associated with 9/11, Saudi nationals Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, arrive in the United States, 18 months before the attacks. The two arrive in Los Angeles on United Airline Flight 2 from Bangkok, Thailand.

Despite CIA admission (see January 13) that al-Mihdhar, a “known” al Qaeda operative, is on the loose, neither is ever put on any watchlist—that is, until days before the attacks in August 2001. But the real problem here is how the two could live in the United States for so long, even while the CIA and FBI exchange hundreds of emails and reports about them. (And then al-Mihdhar will actually leave the United States and return on another flight on July 4, 2001, a far more troublesome lapse for the counterterrorism watchers.

Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar told immigration authorities at LAX that they would be staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Los Angeles. The FBI later found that their names never appeared in the hotel’s records. Then the FBI searched the records of other hotels near the airport, as well as smaller establishments in Culver City, failing to find any trail of the two as they reconstructed the road to 9/11.

They are, in fact, picked up by an intelligence officer of Saudi Arabia and taken to San Diego, residing in the officer’s apartment from January 15 to February 2, 2000. But then that’s another story.

13 January 2000

Posted on January 13, 2021January 30, 2021 by William Arkin

A CIA operational cable, “Efforts to Locate al-Mihdhar,” is issued, admitting that “known” terrorist Khalid al-Mihdhar (spotted in the United Arab Emirates and in Malaysia, and then lost thereafter) is on the loose.

The CIA’s understanding of al-Mihdhar, and their evident lack of concern that the Saudi national possesses an American visa, is one of the great mysteries of 9/11.

The Agency sleuths state in their cable that Mihdhar flew to Bangkok, Thailand with at least two other al Qaeda operatives. The cable also speculated that Mihdhar met with an Iraqi Fedayeen Colonel in Malaysia, later found to be a case of false intelligence and mistaken identity. But the Iraqi connection would dog and confuse U.S. intelligence for another four years.

The CIA also speculated that Mihdhar was in Malaysia to discuss some kind of maritime attack plan (now known to be false), though “Khallad” (who was shepherding around Mihdhar and his partner Nawaf al-Hazmi) was later involved in the attack on the USS Cole.

8 January 2000

Posted on January 8, 2021January 30, 2021 by William Arkin

Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar leave Malaysia on a flight to Bangkok. It is the last time that the CIA “sees” the two. There is much written about the two: about the Malaysia meeting, about their visas, about intelligence not read, not passed on, and about mistakes in not recognizing their true purpose. It is worth a book in itself, but suffice it to say that the post-9/11 recriminations about the CIA not telling the FBI, and about the two not sharing information, is only a small piece of the multiple failures, ones that ultimately allowed everyone to say that domestic rules were to blame for the gigantic failure, rather than that the officers involved—and their bosses—just didn’t do their jobs, didn’t recognize the terrorists, didn’t understand the plotting, didn’t follow them into the United States, and didn’t, even a year later, see Mihdhar leaving the United States prior to 9/11 and then returning as a tourist in July 2001.

5 January 2000

Posted on January 5, 2021January 30, 2021 by William Arkin

The famous Malaysia meeting of “known” terrorists begins. Khalid al-Mihdhar, a Saudi national who was expected to be one of the 9/11 pilots, arrives in Kuala Lumpur from Dubai—going to Evergreen Park, a condominium complex 20 miles south of the city. There he is joined by Nawaf al-Hazmi, another Saudi (and another designated pilot); as well as by Walid bin Attash (“Khallad”), a bin Laden confidant.

The purpose of the meeting is still unclear, though the CIA was tipped off by Emirati intelligence that suspected terrorist al-Mihdhar was traveling via Dubai to an al Qaeda meeting. The Emiratis photograph his passport and provide it to U.S. intelligence—it contained a multiple-entry visa for the United States, something that no one seems to take note of until much later.

During the Kuala Lumpur meetings, Malaysian authorities provide surveillance and photographs of the participants. CIA officers in Malaysia write several contemporaneous reports over multiple days of an important al Qaeda meeting, and the meeting is prominent enough that FBI director Louis Freeh is personally briefed on February 6th. Somehow though, the FBI is never “formally” alerted as to Mihdhar’s American visa, and by the time the two (Mihdhar and Hazmi) fly from Malaysia to Thailand to Los Angeles, they are lost to U.S. intelligence, no one having thought of informing authorities to watchlist them.

Mihdhar and Hazmi would go on to San Diego a few days later and begin English-language and flight training. They would fail at both and were eventually converted into being “musclemen” aboard the hijacked airliners. There would be a last-minute flurry in August 2001 to locate the two.

12 December 2000

Posted on December 12, 2020December 23, 2020 by William Arkin

Hani Hanjour and Nawaf al-Hazmi arrive in Mesa, Arizona from San Diego in preparation for Hanjour—the pilot of the plane that hit the Pentagon—to renew his flight certification and practice handling the controls of large commercial airliners.

Hanjour and al-Hazmi rent apartment #10 on 2221 West Farmdale Avenue and Hanjour enrolls in refresher training. They move to apartment #2144, Indian Springs Village, 1031 South Stewart Street in Mesa in January.

Hanjour starts with classroom training at Arizona Aviation and then starts simulator training at Pan Am International Jet Tech through March 2001. The 9/11 Commission later said that flight instructors found his performance to be sub-standard and they discouraged Hanjour from continuing training.

8 December 2000

Posted on December 8, 2020December 23, 2020 by William Arkin

Hani Hanjour, pilot of the plane that attacked the Pentagon, arrives in San Diego, California from Dubai (via Paris and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport).

The Saudi is sent to San Diego by al Qaeda to pick up Nawaf al-Hazmi—part of the San Diego duo of Khalid al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, the original two planes’ operatives sent to the United States in January 2000. They had been picked as pilots by Osama bin Laden, but neither managed to obtain pilots licenses, and Mihdhar left the U.S. six months later (only to return in July 2001). Nawaf, who could not speak English, needed a chaperone, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed feared that his closeness to the Muslim community ran the risk of exposing him, not to the FBI but to Saudi intelligence.

Hanjour, the only hijacker/pilot with experience in the United States, then drives with al-Hazmi to Arizona, where he had previously lived, and undertakes additional flight training to brush up on his skills. The two then relocate to Northern Virginia.

12 October 2000

Posted on October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 by William Arkin

In Aden, a small bomb-laden boat approaches the destroyer USS Cole at midship and the two suicide bombers detonate their explosives, killing 17 sailors and injuring at least 40 others.

The destroyer, en route to the Persian Gulf, was making a prearranged fuel stop, part of a Central Command (CENTCOM) initiative to improve relations with the Yemen government. The blast ripped a hole in the side of the USS Cole approximately 40 feet in diameter. The attack occurs without warning, and the Navy vessel was never warned to expect a terrorist attack.

The subsequent FBI investigation revealed that the USS Cole bombing followed an unsuccessful attempt on January 3, 2000, to bomb another U.S. Navy ship, the USS The Sullivans. In this earlier incident, the boat sank before the explosives could be detonated. The boat and the explosives were salvaged and refitted, and the explosives were tested and reused in the USS Cole attack.

The “story” of the aftermath, favorable to a supposedly do-no-wrong FBI, is later told in Lawrence Wright’s Looming Tower, and the attack becomes an emotional debating point in the Bush-Gore presidential election. The outgoing Clinton administration is reluctant to retaliate against al Qaeda—the clear perpetrator—because an election is just a month away. But the Bush administration also does not take any military action, told by the CIA that it did not have enough “proof” of al Qaeda direction.

Yemeni authorities establish that Tawfiq bin-Atash (known as Khallad), who had been a trainer at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and worked as an Osama bin Laden bodyguard, was not only one of the commanders but that he had been present at the January 2000 meeting of al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia. Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, the San Diego duo who would go on to be “musclemen” on 9/11, were also present.

According to the 911 Commission Report (p. 191), back in Afghanistan, bin Laden anticipated U.S. military retaliation and ordered the evacuation of al Qaeda installations, fleeing to the desert area near Kabul, then to Khowst and Jalalabad, and eventually back to Kandahar. In Kandahar, he rotated between five to six residences, spending one night at each residence. In addition, he sent his senior advisor, Mohammed Atef, to a different part of Kandahar and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, to Kabul so that all three could not be killed in one attack.

In writing his autobiography, George Tenet says that “neither our intelligence nor the FBI’s criminal investigation could conclusively prove that Usama bin Ladin and his leadership had had authority, direction, and control over the attack. This is a high threshold to cross… What’s important from our perspective at CIA is that the FBI investigation had taken primacy in getting to the bottom of the matter.” (At the Center of the Storm, p. 128).