Tag: Ramzi Binalshibh

2 December 2000

Posted on by William Arkin

 

Ramzi Binalshibh, the fourth of the Hamburg Four, and the only one unable to obtain a U.S. visa (because of his being Yemeni, not because of terrorism suspicions) arrives in London from Germany (the FBI believes to meet with Zacarias Moussaoui). The Frenchman flew into London from Pakistan.

Moussaoui was arrested on August 16, 2001 and charged with an immigration violation. He had aroused suspicion of the FBI while in flight training in Eagan, Minnesota. During his trial, federal prosecutors said that he was to have been a replacement for Binalshibh, the so-called 20th hijacker. Though there is no doubt that Moussaoui was in the U.S. to prepare for some al Qaeda planes operations, there is no evidence (other than the London meeting) connecting him to 9/11.

29 November 1999

Posted on by William Arkin
Khalden terrorist training camp

 

Mohammed Atta travels from Hamburg, Germany to Karachi, Pakistan via Istanbul, spending the night in Turkey. Despite the African embassy bombings in August 1998, American military retaliation, and CIA covert operations, he and his compatriots have no trouble reaching Afghanistan.

Atta is already the leader of the Hamburg Four, and together with Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi Binalshibh, they travel to Kandahar and then on to Khalden camp, where they meet with the al Qaeda operational commander Abu Hafs (Mohammed Atef) and Osama bin Laden. Abu Hafs spotted them immediately as special, according to various accounts, especially the three who would go on to pilot the 9/11 planes (Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah). They were educated, had technical skills, could speak English, and had learned how to live in the West. They also came from countries—Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates—where they wouldn’t have trouble obtaining U.S. visas. By the time they leave Afghanistan, they have their broad assignments.

25 November 1999

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The “Hamburg Four” begin their journey to join al Qaeda, ultimately being assigned to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s “planes operation.”

Ziad Jarrah flies from Hamburg, Germany to Karachi, Pakistan via Istanbul, on Turkish Airlines flight 1662 and the 1056, the first of the “Hamburg Four” to fly to Afghanistan. He stays in Pakistan for two months.

According to the interrogations of Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the four (and now in Guantanamo), sometime in 1999, the four decided to act on their beliefs and to pursue jihad against the Russians in Chechnya. They were advised that it was difficult to get to Chechnya and that they should go to Afghanistan first. The four then traveled separately to Quetta in Pakistan, meeting with a trusted representative, who arranged their passage to Kandahar.

In Afghanistan, the four have an audience with Osama bin Laden and pledge loyalty, knowing that they were volunteering for a martyrdom operation. They were instructed to enroll in flight training. Mohammed Atta was chosen to lead the group, and before they left Afghanistan, he met with bin Laden and received a preliminary list of targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. (See 911 Commission, p. 166; 911 Commission, Staff Statement 16, p. 3)

1 November 1998

Posted on by William Arkin
54 Marienstrasse in Hamburg, Germany

 

Mohammed Atta, Said Bahaji and Ramzi Binalshibh move into a four bedroom apartment at 54 Marienstrasse in Hamburg, Germany. It becomes known as the house of martyrs and over the 28 months that Atta’s name is on the lease, 29 Middle Eastern and North African men live in the apartment or register it as their home address.

Up to six men at a time live at the apartment, including other al Qaeda operatives, particularly Atta’s partner Marwan al-Shehhi. Atta, Binalshibh and al-Shehhi (together with a fourth of the “Hamburg Group,” Ziad Jarrah) travel to Afghanistan together to participate in jihad and are recruited for the plane’s operation. Binalshibh would relocate to Berlin after this and become a middle-man to the pilot hijackers in the United States, unable to obtain an American visa.

Marientstrasse would become famous later for the Islamic activity going on under the noses of German authorities. Many of its residents would later be arrested.

9 October 1999

Posted on by William Arkin
Bahaji wedding

 

A wedding is held, at the Quds mosque in Hamburg, Germany and it’s attended by Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah: the three pilots who would go on to lead the 9/11 attacks.

A videotape of the October 9, 1999 wedding of Said Bahaji, a German-born Muslim of Moroccan descent, is recovered by German authorities after 9/11. It also depicts Ramzi Binalshibh—now at Guantanamo—giving a speech denouncing Jews as a problem for all Muslims. Binalshibh reads a Palestinian war poem, and al-Shehhi participates in singing a jihadi song. German investigators believe that other men attending were part of the “Hamburg four’s” network of support. Among them was Mohammed Heidar Zammar, another German of Moroccan descent who is believed to have recruited for al Qaeda.

James Bamford writes in Pretext for War (p. 172): “By October 1999 at the latest, the members of the group under Atta’s leadership had decided to participate in jihad through a terrorist attack on America and kill as many people as possible.”

23 September 1995

Posted on by William Arkin
Ramzi Binalshibh

 

Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the original “Hamburg four,” and the only one of four to be denied a visa for the United States, first arrives in Germany with a plea for political asylum, claiming illegal detention and torture in his native Sudan.

He is granted asylum in Germany, but in fact, Binalshibh was born in Yemen. That is the reason for his ultimately being denied a visa to the U.S. The poorer Yemenis, in contrast with Saudis and Gulf state nationals, were generally thought to be seeking to come to the United States to illegally emigrate. Denied a visa, from his German base Binalshibh would become the communications link between Mohammed Atta (the leader of the hijackers in the United States) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the mastermind of the plot, located in Pakistan). Thus the German location would prove fortuitous, for communications between the U.S. and Germany were not routinely monitored and the German location helped the hijackers evade detection. Binalshibh would ultimately leave Germany on September 5, just days before the 9/11 attacks, traveling to Afghanistan before being captured a year later.

On September 11, 2002, two al Qaeda suspects were killed and five were captured after Pakistani police stormed an apartment in Karachi. Binalshibh is subsequently transported to “black sites” and tortured, eventually moved to Guantanamo Bay, where he is held today.