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Al Qaeda Had Even Bigger Plans
NY Daily News ^ | 6.17.2004 | Helen Kennedy

Posted on 06/17/2004 3:58:44 PM PDT by NYC GOP Chick

WASHINGTON - If he couldn't hit the World Trade Center, hijacker Mohamed Atta planned to turn the nose of his giant passenger jet down into the canyons of Manhattan and plow the plane into the streets.

That revelation was just part of yesterday's terrifying 9/11 Commission report detailing for the first time the original dimensions of the plot.

As spectacular and deadly as the attacks turned out to be, they originally were going to be much, much bigger:

Ten planes crashing at once in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Seattle, possibly targeting the Capitol building while Congress was in session, Seattle's Space Needle and unnamed nuclear plants.

And amid all the carnage and hysteria, a TV network would have gotten a phone call from one of the hijacked planes, still aloft. On board, mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed would denounce U.S. Mideast policies as all the men aboard were being killed.

Based on previously secret interrogations of Mohammed, the commission's report detailed a plot that took years of planning, that was nearly sunk by squabbling and would-be hijackers who got cold feet. The plan eventually was scaled down, even though it still resulted in the most devastating attack on U.S. soil.

An early part of the plan - pushed hard by Osama Bin Laden - was to carry out the plot when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was visiting the White House in the early summer of 2001.

The report portrayed Bin Laden as antsy and demanding, always trying to move up the date of the attacks and hit more targets.

Earlier, Bin Laden wanted the hijackings carried out in mid-2000, incensed by Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

"The Al Qaeda leader wanted to punish the United States for supporting Israel," the report says flatly - a far more concrete reason for the attacks than has been profferred until now.

The hijackers were not ready, though.

Some had just arrived in the United States, others still were on the way. The pilots still were learning to fly.

Mohammed kept putting Bin Laden off. He told interrogators he never bothered to tell Atta or the other pilots about the pressure from Bin Laden "because he knew they would move forward when they were ready."

The wheels had been in motion for years by then.

Mohammed, a jihadist since the age of 16, had been thinking about using planes as weapons since 1994, when he plotted with his nephew Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, to blow up a dozen planes simultaneously over the Pacific.

In 1996, he went to Afghanistan to meet with Bin Laden and pitch a new idea: crashing 10 hijacked planes into buildings.

It took Bin Laden until 1999 to give the okay. He summoned Mohammed back to Kandahar to give him four men eager to martyr themselves and draw up a list of targets. There was some argument: Bin Laden preferred hitting the White House, Mohammed the Capitol.

(As late as two days before Sept.11, 2001, the target had not been fixed. But the report said Atta chose the second week of September so that the Congress would be in session.)

Early scenarios included also flying planes into American targets in Japan, Singapore or Korea and blowing up planes in midair over the Pacific as jets were crashing in the U.S.

Coordination between so many time zones finally was deemed too difficult. And Bin Laden personally scrapped Mohammed's idea of piloting one of the planes himself, killing all the men, landing it and holding a press conference.

Training began. Mohammed taught some of the operatives basic English and showed them how to make travel reservations, use the Internet and encode communications.

"They also used flight simulator computer games and analyzed airline schedules to figure out flights that would be in the air at the same time," the report said.

The first hijackers to arrive in the U.S. - Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar - landed in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000.

But they were lousy students. They enrolled at three different language schools but never went to class and were dismal failures at flying school.

There were other setbacks.

At least nine would-be hijackers - Bin Laden originally envisioned 26 - failed to get into the U.S. Squabbling between the group leader, Mohamed Atta, and pilot Ziad Jarrah got so bad that Jarrah almost packed up and went home. He was different from the others: He drank beer, frosted his hair, went to nightclubs and had a serious girlfriend in Hamburg.

Khalid Mohammed began to groom another jihadist, Zacarias Moussaoui, who is in custody - to take Jarrah's place. Mohammed messaged a coordinator to send "the skirts" to "Sally" - code for money for Moussaoui.

In the end, they convinced Jarrah, pilot of Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, to go through with it.

Back in Afghanistan, Bin Laden was fending off Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who did not want any attacks inside the United States, fearing retaliation.

In the last week before the attacks, as the teams were gathering in place, Atta flew back and forth for final meetings.

On Sept. 7, he went from Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore to meet with the team that would crash Flight 77 into the Pentagon. They were staying at a hotel in Laurel, Md., and filling their final days with workouts at a nearby gym.

Zooming north through Maryland on I-95 to his team's staging area in Newark, Jarrah got busted for speeding just after midnight on Sept. 9.

That day, Atta flew to Boston to check in with the team heading for Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower.

He then drove to Portland, Maine, with one of his henchmen. The two men would take a commuter flight back to Boston on the day of the attacks to throw off suspicion at Logan Airport before boarding Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower.

The detour almost cost them the connection in Boston. As it was, their luggage never made it onto the doomed plane.

The bags, found later, contained a folding knife and pepper spray - "presumably extra weapons the two conspirators decided they didn't need," the report said.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia; US: New York; War on Terror
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 06/17/2004 3:58:45 PM PDT by NYC GOP Chick
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To: hellinahandcart; sauropod; cyborg; Clemenza; Cacique; Oschisms; NYCVirago; Gabz; lavrenti; ...
Before the devastation of Sept. 11, 2001, Islamic fanatics tested airport security and airline flight schedules.

2 posted on 06/17/2004 3:59:14 PM PDT by NYC GOP Chick (Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! -- RIP, President Reagan)
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To: NYC GOP Chick

A picture. Imagine that.


3 posted on 06/17/2004 4:01:44 PM PDT by Rebelbase ( aka Gassybrowneyedbum)
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To: NYC GOP Chick
"The Al Qaeda leader wanted to punish the United States for supporting Israel," the report says flatly - a far more concrete reason for the attacks than has been profferred until now.

I knew it was Israel's fault!

An attack proposed in 96 and approved in 99 was obviously an entirely justifiable response to something Israel did in 2000.

4 posted on 06/17/2004 4:02:34 PM PDT by Restorer
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To: NYC GOP Chick

Something isn't right here. During the Clinton Administration didn't Vice President Gore headed a program that took care of airport security.


5 posted on 06/17/2004 4:16:43 PM PDT by Burf
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To: NYC GOP Chick

And until the Bush Administration starts enforcing the immigration laws of this country and securing the ports and borders; there is no "homeland security", there is no "war on drugs" and there definitely is no "war on terrorism." PERIOD!

Semper Fi,
Kelly


6 posted on 06/17/2004 4:30:49 PM PDT by kellynla (U.S.M.C. 1/5 1st Mar Div. Nam 69&70 Semper Fi http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com)
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To: Restorer
An attack proposed in 96 and approved in 99 was obviously an entirely justifiable response to something Israel did in 2000.

Yep, wasn't al Qaeda originally supposedly angry at us for having troops in Saudi Arabia? We don't hear too much about that one any more, do we? This is just like Zarqawi beheading Nick Berg, and then checking the newspapers for that week's headlines for something to blame it on. That week it happened to be Abu Ghraib.

7 posted on 06/17/2004 4:34:06 PM PDT by jennyp (http://crevo.bestmessageboard.com)
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To: NYC GOP Chick

Anyone who could even remotely think we were in any way wrong in any of this is plain nuts! We were attacked and we had a President who had the courage to stand up and defend our country. Thank God for GWB. To those who dont'like him or it I say: "Deal with it." I'm tired of people trying to attack our country, our President and anyone else who is looking out for our well being. If they don't like it here then let them move to Iraq and see how freely they can speak against their government. They wouldn't last. We know it and they know it. You could NEVER speak against leaders of those countries. For God sakes...if the mass graves and other things don't prove that I dont' know what will. Thank God we have a country where we can voice our opinions and not be killed for it or have your family tortured.


8 posted on 06/17/2004 4:37:27 PM PDT by cubreporter (I trust Rush...he will prevail in spite of the naysayers)
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To: glock rocks; NormsRevenge; WestCoastGal; steveegg

FYI


9 posted on 06/17/2004 4:55:48 PM PDT by ChefKeith (NASCAR...everything else is just a game!(Except War))
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To: glock rocks; NormsRevenge; WestCoastGal; steveegg

FYI


10 posted on 06/17/2004 4:55:50 PM PDT by ChefKeith (NASCAR...everything else is just a game!(Except War))
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To: jennyp

I think they're still trying to get back at us for the Barbary Pirate incident. Maybe they don't even remember why they want to attack us. Just that it's the thing to do.


11 posted on 06/17/2004 4:58:22 PM PDT by HungarianGypsy
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To: cubreporter
Re: Anyone who could even remotely think we were in any way wrong in any of this is plain nuts!

"Back in Afghanistan, Bin Laden was fending off Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who did not want any attacks inside the United States, fearing retaliation."

Does anyone really understand the story behind this story and where it leads? It begins and ends with Operation Mountain Storm, Wakil Muttawakil and Tohir Abdukhalilovich Yuldashev (IMU) and shows that America woefully ignored what lead to 9/11.

12 posted on 06/17/2004 10:58:51 PM PDT by endthematrix (To enter my lane you must use your turn signal!)
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