September 11, 2001: The brains and executors of the shocking attacks

The diary showed September 11, 2001. The United States is in mourning. Al Qaeda terrorists who had hijacked passenger planes passed through the Twin Towers.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 bore the signature of the then al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden and will forever be associated with his name but behind him there was a small group of people who orchestrated them and of course the 19 terrorists who boarded the planes and used them as flying bombs.

The preparation and execution of the attacks – which shocked the world, shook a superpower and then led to war – cost al Qaeda less than half a million dollars, according to a bipartisan commission report on 9/11. USA.

The 19 perpetrators were killed inside the planes while later some other fighters were killed Al Qaeda killed by US forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Others remain in the US prison at Guantanamo.

Members of the Hamburg terrorist cell played a critical role in the attacks.

They had arrived in Germany as students in the 1990s.

Egypt’s Mohamed Ata, who flew the Boeing 767-223 of Flight 11 at the North Tower of the World Trade Center, is considered their leader.

Muslim students were meeting and discussing with increasing intensity the jihad (“holy war”) against the “infidels”.

At a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan in 1999, members of the group were recruited by bin Laden for his long-planned airstrikes.

September 11, 2001: Who were the hijacked pilots?

• Mohamed Ata: He piloted a hijacked Boeing 767 and dropped it on the North Tower of the World Trade Center. This American Airlines plane was the first of four used in the attacks. Born in 1968, Ata studied in Hamburg from 1992 to 1999. He came from a middle-class Egyptian family and seems to have radicalized in Germany. In 1999 he traveled to Afghanistan for “jihad”. According to the American authorities, he had met bin Laden live several times during that period. Ata began pilot training in the United States in 2000.
• Marwan al-Sehi: Born in 1978, he was the pilot of a United Airlines plane that crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. He was Ata’s confidant, originally from the United Arab Emirates and had gone to Bonn in 1996 on a military scholarship to Germany and then studied in Hamburg.
• Hani Hanjour: Born in 1972, he shot down American Airlines Flight 77 at the Pentagon at the Pentagon. He first went to the US from Saudi Arabia in 1991 to learn English. In 1999 he received his pilot’s license in the USA. In 2000 he was in Afghanistan, probably in a terrorist training camp. It was there that al Qaeda leaders learned he had a pilot’s license and selected him for the attack. He entered the United States on a student visa.
• Ziad Jara: Born in Lebanon in 1975 to a wealthy family, he began language courses in 1996 in Greifswald, Germany. He went to a party and had a partner until the end. Since 1997 he has been studying aeronautics at a Hamburg College of Technology. He hijacked and flew United Airlines Flight 93, probably to the Capitol or the White House in Washington. During the flight, some passengers revolted to stop the hijacker. Shortly before the passengers revolted, Tzara asked an accomplice, according to the cockpit recorder, “is this? I mean, should we throw it away? ‘ Shortly afterwards, the plane crashed at high speed in a field in the state of Pennsylvania.

The pilots’ accomplices

In addition to the pilots, the execution of this horrific plan required accomplices to immobilize the aircraft crew, invade the cockpit and bring the passengers under control.

The American report, as broadcast by the Athens News Agency, states that the accomplices of the terrorist pilots were 15. Some barely spoke English. There were four accomplices on three of the planes where the hijacking took place.

There were only three accomplices of the terrorist pilot on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

The brains of the attacks

Osama bin Laden: Born in 1957 in Saudi Arabia, he is one of the 57 children of Mohamed Awad bin Laden, a building builder who made a fortune during the country’s boom.

In 1979, bin Laden joined the Mujahideen or Fighters of God movement, which was fighting the Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan. In the years that followed, it became even more radical, with the turning point being said to be the Gulf War in 1991, when American troops were deployed in Saudi Arabia. He immigrated to Sudan and in 1996 to Afghanistan, where he became an ally of the Taliban.

In the late 1990s, attacks on al-Qaeda, including those targeting US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attracted the attention of the international community.

The US FBI described bin Laden as a wanted terrorist, but without success. The United States has not been able to capture him in Afghanistan.

The Taliban refused to hand him over. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan, but bin Laden escaped.

Many armed Islamists deified him and eagerly recorded his messages, both audio and visual. He was killed by US special forces in 2011 during an operation in Pakistan.

Khalid Sikh Mohammed: He grew up in Kuwait and his family is believed to have come from the Iran-Pakistan border area. He graduated from a university in the United States in 1986. The report on the attacks describes him as an educated Muslim who persuaded bin Laden to carry out attacks in the United States using planes at a 1996 meeting in Afghanistan. It is said that he later officially joined al-Kanda. He is considered the main planner of the attacks, who organized the communication part as well as the financing of the attacks.

Sikh Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. He was then questioned by the CIA. According to a US Senate report, he was tortured during interrogations and drowned 183 times. In this way of torture, water is poured on the victim’s face to such an extent that he can not breathe and thinks that he is drowning. In 2006, Sikh Mohammed was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. There he will be tried by a military court for his role in the attacks.

Another Guantanamo detainee is Ramzi bin al-Sib, another member of the Hamburg core. Born in 1972, the Yemeni did not obtain a US visa prior to the attacks. For this reason, he provided logistical and financial support for the organization’s plans from Europe, according to the report, and kept in touch with Sikh Mohammed. Shortly after the attacks he left Hamburg. A year later he was arrested in Pakistan and found in American hands. He too was tortured by the CIA and his trial before a military court has been frozen for years.

On trial in Germany

Munir el-Motasdek: Born in 1977, he was a Moroccan student and a close friend of the three Hamburg hijackers. Motasadek was arrested on November 28, 2001, on charges of providing logistical support to the organization. On February 19, 2003, the Hamburg Regional High Court sentenced him to 15 years in prison for participating in more than 3,000 murders and for participating in a terrorist organization in the world’s first trial for the 9/11 attacks. In March 2015, the verdict was overturned by the German Federal Supreme Court. Many more trials followed until he was finally sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2018, shortly before completing their sentence, he was deported to Morocco. It is said that he lives there free.

Abdelgani Moody: Born in 1972 and he is Moroccan. He was arrested in Hamburg on October 10, 2002. He is said to have had close ties to Ata’s group and to have provided them with logistical support. From August 2003 onwards, he was charged with involvement in 3,066 murders and involvement in a terrorist organization. In 2004 he was acquitted due to lack of evidence.