Just after 9:03 a.m., United 175 crashed into the World Trade Center's South Tower. Ramzi bin al-Shibh was also there, teaching occasional classes, and became Atta's friend. Air traffic controller Danielle O'Brien was at the Dulles Tower outside Washington, D.C., that morning. After Jarrah's team hijacked Flight 93, flight attendants and passengers started making phone calls from the back of the plane. [3] After they arrived, they were selected by Al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef as suitable candidates for the "planes operation" plot. [108], Atta's father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, a retired lawyer in Egypt, vehemently rejected allegations his son was involved in the September 11 attacks, and instead accused the Mossad and the United States government of having a hand in framing his son. [16] Atta traveled twice to Las Vegas on "surveillance flights" rehearsing how the 9/11 attacks would be carried out. But, he agreed, it raised a host of questions, most notably one that remains unanswered: Why were the two novice pilots flying into a heavily trafficked airport on such a busy day? A voice believed to be that of al Qaeda hijack leader Mohamed Atta urged passengers to . Officials at Signature did not respond to several telephone requests to find out whether anyone at the company remembered Mr. Atta or Mr. Shehhi. During his trip to Las Vegas, he is thought to have used a video camera that he had rented from a Select Photo outlet back in Delray Beach, Florida. [73] The absence of other hotel stays, signed receipts or credit card stubs has led investigators to believe that the men may have met in a safe house provided by other al-Qaeda operatives in Spain. The next day, he received a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the United States embassy in Berlin. Months later both he and Jarrah enrolled at flying schools in America. The next winter, they moved into an apartment at Marienstrasse 54 in the borough of Harburg, near the Hamburg University of Technology,[50] at which they enrolled. [51] They met three or four times a week to discuss their anti-American feelings and to plot possible attacks. [8][29] Among other odd jobs to supplement his income, Atta sometimes worked at a cleaning company and sometimes bought and sold cars. He stayed there until 1998. Don't try to make any stupid moves." I have been planning and working with Bin Laden on the destruction of certain American targets. Atta's bags were later recovered in Logan International Airport, and they contained airline uniforms, flight manuals, and other items. The hour-long tape places him in Afghanistan at a decisive moment in the development of the conspiracy when he was given operational command. Mohamed Atta is shown in this photo released Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001, in a State of Florida Division of Motor Vehicles photograph. The 9/11 Commission Report speculated that the now-convicted terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was being trained as a possible replacement for Jarrah. Atta grew up in Egypt and studied urban planning in Germany. There hasn't been a successful attack against commercial aviation in the U.S. in the 20 years since 9/11, and outside experts agree that while there is still room for improvement, the TSA has been . On the morning of 9/11, Atta and Al-Omari drove to Portland International Jetport and boarded a 6 a.m. commuter flight to Boston's Logan International Airport. [24] Atta was averse to modern development. [86][89] The plane's transponder was switched off at 8:21a.m. At 8:24:38a.m., a voice believed to be Atta's was heard by air traffic controllers, saying: "We have some planes. He shopped for flights from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles and from Boston to Los Angeles, all departing around 8:00 a.m. on the morning of September 11. Ziad Jarrah should demonstrate that intelligence collection needs to be a holistic endeavor and is highly complicated. The FBI found a 9/11 hijacker's airplane ticket floating to the ground only moments after the north tower collapsed. Atta was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 1,600 people during the attacks. Between August 17 and September 5, he rented airplanes on 11 separate occasions in Florida, practicing his pilot skills. They had problems following instructions and were both very upset when they failed their Stage 1 exam at Jones Aviation. "This begs the question of why the pilots had not punched in the hijack code of 7500, also known as Squawking, if things were happening on the plane before the hijackers gained entry to the . Did he meet with somebody in Portland who helped him with the attack? In Hamburg, Atta became involved with the al-Quds Mosque, where he met Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ziad Jarrah, together forming the Hamburg cell. [83][84][85], Atta and al-Omari arrived early the next morning, at 5:40a.m., at the Portland International Jetport, where they left their rental car in the parking lot and boarded at 6:00a.m. Colgan Air (US Airways Express) BE-1900C flight to Logan International Airport in Boston. She observed Muslim customs, taking taxis to and from the office so as not to come into close physical contact with men on buses. He inquired about flight training, "Dear sir, we are a small group of young men from different Arab countries. Although the marriage never happened, Atta's father mentioned they liked each other.[18]. Since these were domestic flights, there was no particular means at the time for the intelligence community to receive a tip-off of a reservation. At 8:26 a.m., Flight 11 makes . The leader of the nineteen was Mohamed Atta, and they were divided into four groups, one for each plane, each with a pilot who served as group leader: Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Samir Jarrah . Born and raised in Egypt, Atta studied architecture at Cairo University, graduating in 1990, and continued his studies in Germany at the Hamburg University of Technology. Newsweek is reconstructing the road to 9/11 as it was constructed 20 years ago, day by day. The date for the planes operation is set. [31][32] Further, after the Egyptian government had imprisoned droves of political activists, he knew better than to trust it not to target him too, with his social and political beliefs being such as they were. refused to comment on whether any official investigation had ever been started against the two men, citing the criminal investigation into the hijackings. In the summer of 2001, Mohamed Atta, the operational leader of the 9/11 conspiracy, drove another conspirator, Ziah Jarrah, to Miami's main airport so that Mr. Jarrah could fly to Germany to visit . The Mohamed Atta Files. [75] Yosri Fouda, who interviewed bin al-Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) before the arrest, believes that Said Bahaji and KSM may have also been present at the meeting. That month, Atta and Shehhi stayed in hotels and rented rooms in New York City on a short-term basis. Thirty minutes later, Marwan al-Shehhi hit the South Tower. Atta, an Egyptian, and Omari, a Saudi, held $2,400 first-class tickets to fly from Portland to Boston to Los Angeles. ", "Staff Report "We Have Some Planes": The Four Flights a Chronology", National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, "The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks Staff Statement No. Throughout the summer, Atta met with Nawaf al-Hazmi to discuss the status of the operation on a monthly basis. Readers may recall the shaving custom from the media coverage of 9/11. THE LAST NIGHT. He moved into a nearby apartment in the Wilhelmsburg district, where he lived with Said Bahaji and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Miami International is controlled, that is, the tower controls the movement of all airplanes on the airfield. ''Any time the tower calls, they are not in the best of moods.''. On 12 April 1986, Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta . A voice believed to be that of al Qaeda hijack leader Mohamed Atta urged passengers to . [77] On July 19, Atta returned to the United States, flying on Delta Air Lines from Madrid to Fort Lauderdale, via Atlanta. [3][56] On his return journey, Atta left Karachi on February 24, 2000, by flight TK1057 to Istanbul where he changed to flight TK1661 to Hamburg. And they then took action, eventually making their way into the cockpit, forcing the plane down. There seem to be two primary reasons for his choosing that particular day: that it fell after Labor Day when most Americans (and the George W. Bush administration) would be back at work, maximizing the impact in terms of killing people; and that it was a Tuesday when air travel was easier and the planes less full (that is, fewer hostile passengers to deal with). The two al-Shehri brothers selected seats 2A and 2B in first class. In the end though, those international calls and Emails open a window to the falsehood of greater authority to intercept communications. Once Atta's commuter flight landed in Boston, phone records show he took a call from another 9/11 hijacker, Marwan Al-Shehi. FBI investigators have officially concluded that 11 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the aircraft on 11 September did not know they were on a suicide mission, Whitehall . Bin Laden asked them to pledge loyalty and commit to suicide missions, which Atta and the other three Hamburg men all accepted. "[1][95], In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the names of the hijackers were released. ''A guy said, 'Hey, some of your pilots are down here and they left the plane on the causeway,' '' Mr. Kraus recalled. In the aftermath of the attack, law enforcement agents discovered a four-page document in Mohamed Atta's baggage. The hijacked airliner came down . Mohamed Atta had varied his name on documents, also using "Mehan Atta", "Mohammad El Amir", "Muhammad Atta", "Mohamed El Sayed", "Mohamed Elsayed", "Muhammad al-Amir", "Awag Al Sayyid Atta", and "Awad Al Sayad". [90][6] The crash instantly killed all 92 people on-board, murdered hundreds more inside the building, and left at least 800 workers trapped in the upper floors of a burning quarter-mile high skyscraper. [26] While in Syria, he met Amal, a young Palestinian woman who worked for a planning bureau in the city. It is only Jarrah's connection to Bin al-Shibh and others that would have connected him to any plot, including his attendance at the al Quds mosque in Hamburg. The date for the planes operation is set. The second chapter showed Atta and Ziad Jarrah reading their wills together ten days later on January 18. [8] In his will, written in 1996, Atta gives his name as "Mohamed the son of Mohamed Elamir awad Elsayed". [45], After leaving Plankontor in the summer of 1997, Atta disappeared again and did not return until 1998. The will was signed by el-Motassadeq and a second person at the mosque. "[46][47] At the winter break in 1997, Atta left and did not return to Hamburg for three months. [34] His friends in Germany described him as an intelligent man in whom religious convictions and political motives held equal sway. The couple explained at dinner that they ran an exchange program and invited Atta to continue his studies in Germany; they also offered him room and board at their home in the city. [6] Atta was not heard from again for nine minutes until 8:33:59, when he was heard to say: "Nobody move, please. On December 29 and 30, Atta and Marwan went to the Opa-locka Airport where they practiced on a Boeing 727 simulator, and they obtained Boeing 767 simulator training from Pan Am International on December 31. "He said he was an engineer and he wanted to build a chemical . But with more than 200,000 warrants pending on minor offenses in Broward County, he was never picked up. Bryant said "the picture that came out in the newspaper, that's exactly what that man looked like. Atta, who piloted the first plane into the world trade center, flew to Las Vegas on June 28, rented a car, then spent . The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda.They hailed from four countries; 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and one from Lebanon.To carry out the attacks, the hijackers were organized into four teams, each led by a pilot-trained hijacker who would commandeer the . This document is divided into three sections; the first is a fifteen point list providing detailed instructions for the last night of a martyr's life, the second gives instructions for travelling to the plane and the third from the time between boarding the plane and martyrdom. During that period, his roommates grew annoyed with him. They learned of a massive terrorist attack underway, concluding that they had to take action to down the plane: it was not being hijacked to land and for demands to be made. He led the team of hijackers who took control of American Airlines flight 11 and flew it into the north tower of New York City's World Trade Center. Jarrah had arrived in the United States on June 27, 2000, after his flight landed at Newark, New Jersey, and Jarrah had decided to go with Shehhi and Atta to search for different flight schools in the US. That aircraft hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. United Flight 175, also from Boston, hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. "One of the things we did at the White House was push the FBI to focus on Portland to determine whether or not there were people there that they might have met with, Cressey said. Atta was seated in business class, in seat 8D. Bin Laden also asked that other operatives not be informed of the specific data until the last minute. [86] In Portland, Mohamed Atta was selected by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which required his checked bags to undergo extra screening for explosives but involved no extra screening at the passenger security checkpoint. 8:24 am - Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control (apparently in an attempt to communicate with the plane's cabin). Phillpott said that Shaffer was "relying on my recollection 100 percent," and the Defense Department Inspector General's report indicated that Philpott "may have exaggerated knowing Atta's identity because he supported using Able Danger's techniques to fight terrorism. Bin al-Shibh was worried that Jarrah might even abandon the plan. The timing of the incident also apparently came near the end of the time Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi spent in Venice and the start of the months they spent in South Florida before the attacks. He used his credit card to purchase two Swiss Army knives and some chocolate in a shop at the Zrich Airport. Mr. Kraus said Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi told him they had not been aware that they needed to radio the tower for instructions. A separate section of the video shows Osama bin Laden addressing his followers at a complex near Kandahar. They may have helped arrange and host the meeting in Tarragona. The timing of the Afghanistan training was outlined on August 23, 2002, by a senior investigator. They continued to inquire about flight schools and personally visited some, including Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma, which they visited on July 3, 2000. He was the only pilot who was married, to a German national of Turkish descent. Report Suggest Cover-Up of 9/11 Findings", "Father Denies 'Gentle Son' Could Hijack Any Jetliner", "Father insists alleged leader of attack on WTC is still alive", "He Never Even Had a Kite" Mohamed Atta's father talks about his son, the alleged hijacker, " 11 ", New video shows 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta, Ziad Jarrah at Al-Qaida meeting., Interviews with those who interacted with Atta prior to 9/11, October 2001 interview with Dittmar Machule, "MUGSHOTS: Mohammed Atta - Soldier of Terror", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohamed_Atta&oldid=1140797922, Four Corners, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, broadcast November 12, 2001, Documentary series from Court TV (now TruTV), This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 21:12. Unable to restart the engine, the two men shut the plane down, flipped off the lights and, by one account, walked off. They drove to Cambrils, where they spent a night at the Hotel Monica. In late 1999, Atta, Shehhi, Jarrah, Bahaji, and bin al-Shibh decided to travel to Chechnya to fight against the Russians, but were convinced by Khalid al-Masri and Mohamedou Ould Salahi at the last minute to change their plans. ; Azrbaycanca; Catal; etina; Dansk; Deutsch; Espaol; ; Franais; ; Hausa; Bahasa Indonesia; Italiano; . '', See the article in its original context from. [35][36] He was also angry and bitter at the elite in his native Egypt, who he believed hoarded power for themselves, as well as at the Egyptian government, that cracked down on the dissident Muslim Brotherhood. After six months, they asked him to leave.[20][21][22]. Instead, he went to Central Office & Travel in Pompano Beach to purchase a ticket for a flight to Newark, leaving on the evening of August 7 and schedule to return in the evening on August 9. [23] He kept to himself to such an extent that he would often react to simple greetings with silence. On American Airlines Flight 11, Atta joined four other hijackers. Apr. The Egyptian Mohamed Atta arrived at the Florenc bus terminal in Prague, from Germany, on June 2, 2000. . Each day a new story will be published here. [76], During the meetings in Spain, Atta and bin al-Shibh had coordinated the details of the attacks. [3] Immediately after returning to Germany, Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to discard travel visas to Afghanistan. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 plot says they began talking about the "planes operation" in 1995. [7] In Germany, he registered his name as "Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta", and went by the name Mohamed el-Amir at the Hamburg University of Technology. Atta was believed to have used a payphone at the airport to phone a number "linked to al-Qaeda" after Qahtani was denied entry.[78]. According to The Sunday Times, "American and German investigators have struggled to find evidence of Atta's whereabouts in January 2000 after he disappeared from Hamburg. Atta earned his private pilot certificate in September, and then he and Shehhi decided to switch flight schools. Skies, Plot Leader Met bin Laden", "Video of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta posted by British news site", "FBI Informant Says Agents Missed Chance to Stop 9/11 Ringleader Mohammed Atta", "Flight Path Study American Airlines Flight 11", "Personal Stories Who Were They? Bin al-Shibh later explained that they believed it would contribute to operational security for Atta to fly out of Prague instead of Hamburg, where he traveled from previously. Mr. Kraus noted that the two men had been trained on smaller, ''uncontrolled'' airports that operate without flight towers. "There's a real question there because he took a tremendous risk in going to Portland the night before and then having to catch a commuter flight to Boston, said Roger Cressey, who was director of transnational threats for President Bush's National Security Council. He . Bouthayna and Mohamed married when she was 14, via an arranged marriage. [112], There are multiple, conflicting explanations for Atta's behavior and motivation. The academic team inquired into the effects of redevelopment in the Islamic Cairo, the old quarter, which the government undertook to remodel for tourism. The luggage included a copy of Atta's will, written in Arabic, as well as a list of instructions, called "The Last Night". The 9/11 Commission obtained details about the meeting, based on interrogations of bin al-Shibh in the weeks after his arrest in September 2002. Mahmoud Atta was 14 years older than Atta. According to Bryant, Atta wanted to finance the purchase of a crop-duster. Mr. Pursell described the incident at the Miami airport as a nuisance more than a serious violation, an assessment shared by many others in general aviation. He also said he assumed that they had taxied the plane back to the hangar; he was not aware, he said, that they apparently abandoned the plane and walked away. There are two separate concourses in Terminal B; the south concourse is mainly used by US Airways and the north one is mostly used by American Airlines. They had never been pictured together before. An airport incident report indicates that the Piper Cherokee stalled at 5:45 p.m. and was removed from the taxiway by 6:20 p.m. "[105][106], Five witnesses who had worked on Able Danger and had been questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General later told investigative journalists that their statements to the IG were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report, or the report omitted essential information that they had provided. The third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that took off from Dulles Airport . Financial records and bank video show Atta and Al-Omari made two ATM withdrawals in Portland, and the men were reportedly spotted at an area Wal-Mart, as well as in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut restaurant. He criticized how the newfangled skyscrapers and other modernizing projects were disrupting the fabric of communities by blocking common streets and altering the skyline. Wail al Shehri (28), Saudi Arabia - Elementary school teacher (brother of Waleed) Waleed al Shehri (22), Saudi Arabia - Student. Twenty-three minutes later, Atta flew that plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. In June 2000, Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi arrived in the United States to learn how to pilot planes, obtaining instrument ratings in November. On July 26, Atta traveled via Continental Airlines to Newark, New Jersey, checked into the Kings Inn Hotel in Wayne, New Jersey, and stayed there until July 30 when he took a flight from Newark back to Fort Lauderdale. [74], On July 22, 2001, Atta rented a Mitsubishi Galant from Alamo Rent a Car, putting 3,836 miles (6,173km) on the vehicle before returning it on July 26. before the crash, the . [30][41] Atta returned to Hamburg on October 31, 1995,[40] only to join the pilgrimage to Mecca shortly thereafter. Although estimates range from 18 [13][14] In 1985, Atta enrolled at Cairo University and focused his studies on engineering. Something is not right. Some say it was the makeup of Jarrah's team, that he had only three instead of four muscle men (because the 20th hijacker and his fourth was denied entry into the U.S.). In the first attack at 8.46am, American Airlines Flight 11, travelling from Boston to Los Angeles and piloted by plot leader Mohamed Atta, smashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in . [96] Mahmoud Atta, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was subsequently deported from Venezuela to the United States, extradited to Israel, tried and sentenced to life in prison. Atta flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. TERRORIST: Mohammed Atta's mum claims her son is still alive and in Guantanamo Bay . During his time in the United States, Jarrah left five times to visit his wife in Germany and he constantly communicated with her, both over the phone and in email. Other hijackers traveled to Las Vegas at different times in the summer of 2001. Jarrah was the first of the Hamburg group to enter the United States, settling in Venice, Florida, where he began flight training. According to the interrogations of KSM and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh (his interlocutor in Germany), Mohammed Atta was worried about the communications, Atta's real concern being that Jarrah might be unable to break away from his wife, that it would just be too painful in the end for him to follow through with his suicide flight. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, had already gotten a cellphone call from Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi. American Airlines Flight 11: Mohamed Atta, Egypt (33) - Tactical leader of 9/11 plot and pilot. Undated photos of suspected hijackers of United Airlines flight #93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania, released by the FBI September 27, 2001 in Washington, DC. [91] The angle at which Atta crashed into the North Tower severed all means of escape from Floor 92 or higher, ensuring that no one on those floors was able to make it out alive before the building collapsed 102 minutes later at 10:28 A.M.[92], Because the flight from Portland to Boston had been delayed,[93] his bags did not make it onto Flight 11. But none of them were so flagged. 2) Make sure you know all aspects of the plan well, and expect the . A passenger revolt kept Flight 93 from hitting the Capitol. On July 25, Atta dropped Ziad Jarrah off at Miami International Airport for a flight back to Germany. In this series, Newsweek maps the road to 9/11 as it happened 20 years ago, day by day. Mohamed Atta", "In Egypt, some see war on terror as a war on Islam", "Interview with Professor Dittmar Machule", "Four Corners Ralph Bodenstein interview", "Will Gives a Window into Suspect's Mind", "Germans Lay Out Early Qaeda Ties to 9/11 Hijackers", "Video showing Atta, bin Laden is unearthed", "Zacarias Moussauoi v. the United States (trial testimony)", "Transcript of Johnelle Bryant Interview", "Hijacker tried to get U.S. loan to buy plane", "Algerian accused in Britain of training hijackers", "Atta recibi en Tarragona joyas para que los miembros del 'comando' del 11-S se hiciesen pasar por ricos saudes", "War Without Borders The Madrid Bombing", "Search for Sept. 11 Suspect Focuses on a Visit to Spain", "Sept. 11 hijacker raised suspicions at border", Document links al Qaeda paymaster, 9/11 plotter, "NewsMine.org hijackers traced to huffman aviation.txt", "While America Slept: The True Story of 9/11", "A Mundane Itinerary on the Eve of Terror", "9/11 mystery: What was Atta doing on 9/10? By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He had made no progress on his thesis. There, Atta and bin al-Shibh held a meeting to complete the planning of the attacks. In the Czech Republic, some intelligence officials say the source of the purported meeting was an Arab informant who approached the Czech intelligence service with his sighting of Atta only after Atta's photograph had appeared in newspapers all over the world. Former Metro Sheriff Jerry Keller recounts the time 9/11 terrorists spent in Las Vegas. Almost all of these points discuss spiritual preparation, such as prayer and citing religious scripture. Waleed purchased his ticket online with his debit card. Atta was at the controls when the 767 collided with the . "Nothing they said or did raised any suspicions at all," he told the commission's investigators. He was therefore treated favorably and not scrutinized. [16][60] On July 6, 2000, Atta, Jarrah and Shehhi enrolled at Huffman Aviation in Venice, where they entered the Accelerated Pilot Program. [32] Atta Sr. rejected media reports that stated his son was drinking wildly, and instead described his son as a quiet boy uninvolved with politics, shy and devoted to studying architecture. He harbored anger and resentment toward the U.S. for its policy in Islamic nations of the Middle East, with nothing inflaming his ire more than the Oslo Accords and the Gulf War in particular. In January, after flying from Miami to Madrid, he was allowed to re-enter the United States despite overstaying his previous visa. "[15] For his thesis, Atta concentrated on the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo. the suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackings and the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, was a homosexual. ''They said I'd hear back from them, which I never did.''. During the meeting, Atta and bin al-Shibh also decided on the targets to be hit, ruling out a strike on a nuclear plant. That raises a larger issue, and that is: At any point did anybody in the U.S. knowingly help any of the 19 terrorists prepare for the attack? Twelve minutes later, at 8:46:40a.m., Atta crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Some, like the 9/11 plot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Florida, checking into the King's Inn Motel in Wayne for a few days and then leaving and then returning days later. And that may have been what he was doing. The 30million CSI-style probe has taken seven years. This was the last transmission heard from Flight 11. They instead traveled to Afghanistan over a two-week period in late November. There was some confusion regarding who Mohamed Atta was, and cases of mistaken identity. But more likely it is that the origination of his flight in Newark, delayed on the ground for 40 minutes, that made his flight more vulnerable. On the way, Atta stopped in Reus to pick up Ramzi bin al-Shibh at the airport. Atta and Amal appeared to be attracted to each other, but Atta soon decided that "she had a quite different orientation and that the emancipation of the young lady did not fit." ET (approx.) [16], On August 4, Atta is believed to have been at Orlando International Airport waiting to pick up suspected "20th Hijacker" Mohammed al-Qahtani from Dubai, who ended up being held by immigration as "suspicious." Newsweek is reconstructing the road to 9/11 as it was constructed 20 years ago, day by day. "He wanted to finance a twin-engine, six-passenger aircraft and remove the seats," Bryant told ABC's World News Tonight. [8] He then worked for several months at the Urban Development Center in Cairo, where he joined various building projects and dispatched diverse architectural tasks. And so, we still don't know what he was doing there.".