On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists took control of four commercial aircraft and used them as suicide weapons in a series of four coordinated acts of terrorism to strike the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and an additional target in Washington, D.C. Two aircraft hit the World Trade Center while the third hit the Pentagon.
Together with Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian-Jordanian who influenced bin Laden, they formed Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) in 1984, to provide support for Arab mujahideen who came to join the jihad in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden wanted to train the mujahideen in terrorist tactics, but Azzam strongly disagreed with this approach, issuing a fatwa saying that it would violate Islamic law.
He noted that key figures Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, and William Cohen, who were all Jewish, "drove Washington's undoubtedly pro-Israel policy" during the Clinton administration.
"[10] Bin Laden cited grievances including the presence of U.S. kafirun (soldiers) in the Saudi Arabian holy land, the Iraqi people's suffering due to sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf War, and U.S. support of Israel.
"[11] The attacks were influenced by the Bojinka plot, a terrorist operation planned by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his nephew Ramzi Yousef, who was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Yousef tested the plan by planting a bomb aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434 on December 11, 1994, which detonated but only killed one passenger.
[5][13] According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed envisioned hijacking ten airplanes on both the East and West coasts, and for nine of them to crash into the World Trade Center in New York City; The Pentagon, United States Capitol, CIA Headquarters, and FBI Headquarters in the DC metropolitan area; the tallest buildings in California and Washington State (then the US Bank Tower, which at the time was known as Library Tower, in Los Angeles and Columbia Center in Seattle, respectively); and an unspecified nuclear power plant.
[5][9] In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the U.S., including training personnel to hijack aircraft.
[15] In late-1998 or early-1999, bin Laden summoned Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Kandahar and gave his approval for him to proceed with a scaled back version of the "planes operation.
[16] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wanted to hit the World Trade Center, while bin Laden prioritized the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the Pentagon because he believed that it would lead to the political collapse of the U.S. federal government.
"[20] Mohammed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah came into the picture in 1999, when they arrived in Kandahar from Germany.
Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Said Bahaji, Zakariyah Essabar, and fifteen others were all members.
[21] While in Germany, he was drawn to al-Quds Mosque in Hamburg, which then adhered to a "harsh, uncompromisingly fundamentalist, resoundingly militant" version of Sunni Islam.
[24] Initial plans for the 9/11 attacks called for bin al-Shibh to be a hijacker pilot, along with Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah.
After his failure to enter the U.S., bin al-Shibh assumed more of a "coordinator" role in the plot and as a link between Atta in the U.S. and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Afghanistan.
Atta, Jarrah, and bin al-Shibh returned to Hamburg early in 2000, while al-Shehhi went back to the United Arab Emirates to obtain a new passport and a U.S. visa.
In March 2000, Mohamed Atta contacted the Academy of Lakeland in Florida by e-mail to inquire about flight training, "Dear sir, we are a small group of young men from different Arab countries.
[37] The 9/11 Commission stated in its final report that the "9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack" but the "origin of the funds remains unknown."
"Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida in the weeks before the deadliest acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead [...] Syed also is described as a key figure in the funding operation of Al-Qaeda, the network headed by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
"[40] CNN later confirmed that it was "Ahmed Umar Syed Sheikh, whom [sic] authorities say used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to suspected hijacker Mohammad Atta, who then distributed the money in the United States.
[citation needed] The Wall Street Journal was one of few Western news organizations to follow up on the story,[citation needed] citing the Times of India: "U.S. authorities sought [Gen. Mahmud Ahmed's] removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 [was] wired to WTC hijacker Mohamed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the insistence of Gen Mahmud.
"[42] The Daily Excelsior reported, "The FBI’s examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Gen. Mehmood Ahmed.
And as the FBI investigators delved deeper, sensational information surfaced with regard to the transfer of $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, one of the pilots who flew a Boeing into the World Trade Center.
[45][46][47][48] Lt. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed then led a six-member delegation to the Afghan city of Kandahar in order to hold crisis talks with the Taliban leadership, supposedly in an attempt to persuade them to hand over Osama bin Laden.
[49] In May 2002, former FBI agent Robert Wright, Jr. delivered a tearful press conference apologizing to the families who lost loved ones on September 11.
[52] One month after September 11, the U.S. government officially identified Yassin al-Qadi as one of Osama bin Laden's primary financiers and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
"[54] The Muwafaq Foundation, which U.S. authorities confirmed was an arm of bin Laden's terror organization, was headed by Yassin al-Qadi,[55] who was also known as the owner of Ptech[56] – a company that has supplied high-tech computer systems to the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Congress, the United States Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the White House.
Also sitting on Ptech's board of directors was Yacub Mirza – "a senior official of major radical Islamic organizations that had been linked by the U.S. government to terrorism."
[57] According to Senator Bob Graham, then-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, "Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the U.S. that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship", as reported by the Miami Herald: "And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, obtained by The Herald Saturday, he made clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that the administration blocked from release, despite pleas from leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees.