The 9/11 RINGLEADER... A Brief Bio of MOHAMED ATTA

On September 11th, 2001, terrorists took control of four commercial airplanes with the intention of using them as suicide missiles in a fully planned terrorist attack against the United States. Three of the planes hit their intended targets – the Twin Towers and the Pentagon – while which was likely planned for the capitol building crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, saving countless lives, thanks to a passenger revolt. Still, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks. The news coverage quickly revealed the mastermind behind the attack – Osama Bin Laden – one of the founders of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that planned and executed the operation.

Bin Laden had been planning the attack since the mid-90’s with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who had more ambitious ideas. At one point, they involved up to ten hijacked planes on both the east and west coasts with planes crashing not only into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Capitol but also the CIA and FBI headquarters, the Washington D.C. metro, a nuclear power plant and the tallest buildings in California and Washington State. These plans were determined too elaborate by Bin Laden who thought the chance of success would be higher if they were simplified. Over several meetings during the late 90’s and early 2000’s before the attack, everything was meticulously ironed out. The exact participants had to be selected, including a ringleader. The man selected by Bin Laden to lead the attacks on U.S. soil would be an Egyptian by the name of Mohammad Atta.

Atta was not always a radical religious fanatic. He grew up in a respected family in Egypt. His father was a lawyer and his mother was also well educated and came from a wealthy family. His father did not allow him to play with the local children and he instead spent much of his time indoors studying. He excelled in school and ended up attending Cairo University, from which he graduated in 1990 with an degree in Architecture. At this point in time, Atta was religious but not a fanatical extreme. Then, the Gulf War began to plant the seeds of anger and resentment towards the United States. Atta decided, at he insistence of his father, to go abroad for graduate school. The country he would go would be Germany in 1992. He studied urban planning at the Technical University of Hamburg.

While in Germany, his religion grew more and more fanatical and he grew angrier with both the United States and his own country, Egypt. By 1995, he had grown a full beard to display his status as a devout Muslim. The Mosque he was attended adhered to a “harsh, uncompromisingly fundamentalist, and resoundingly militant” version of Sunni Islam. After a pilgrimage to Mecca in late 1995, Atta returned to Germany more more fanatical than ever.

In 1998, Atta moved in to an apartment with some friends who had similar radical views. The would meet up, along with other local extremists, to discuss their hatred for the United States and Israel and to plan potential attacks. The group became known as the Hamburg Cell. In 1999, Atta, along with three other members of the Hamburg Cell – Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah – traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, as candidates to potentially participate in an upcoming attack on the United States.

Bin Laden’s deputy, Mohammed Atef, determined that the men were good candidates for the mission, since they were well-educated, spoke English, had knowledge of Western Society, and were eligible for Visas. They were sent to meet with Bin Laden, who further interviewed the men and ensured that they pledged their loyalty to the mission and were willing to see it through to their deaths. Bin Laden agreed that they were the right men for the job. They accepted the mission and Atta, the oldest in the group, was chosen by Bin Laden to be the leader. The selection process included others besides those in the Hamburg Cell and a total of 20 hijackers were ultimately selected, but the Hamburg Cell men would each by the leader of their individual planes while Atta would be the overall ringleader.

Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah were successful in obtaining new passports, but Ramzi bin al-Shibh ran into problems as his applications for a Visa were repeatedly denied, because he was a Yemeni Citizen. Citizens from the poor country of Yemen were known to illegally overstay their visit in the United States and were therefore often denied a Visa. Eventually, he was removed as one of the hijackers, but served as a coordinator and continued to support the plot financially. The other three began a process to appear less radical by keeping their distance from their fellow extremists and changing their appearance. Meanwhile, Hani Hanjour was identified at a an Afghanistan Training camp as a competent pilot and was selected to participate in the attacks and be the 4th leader.

In March of the year 2000, Atta sent the same e-mail to over 50 flight training schools in the United States. His e-mail said:

“Dear sir, we are a small group of young men from different Arab countries. Now we are living in Germany since a while for study purposes. We would like to start training for the career of airline professional pilots. In this field we haven't yet any knowledge but we are ready to undergo an intensive training program."

Atta arrived in the United States on June 3rd, 2000, flying in to Newark International from Prague. After arrival in the United States, Attah, Jarrah and Shehhi visited several aviation schools including Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma. They eventually enrolled at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida, entering into the Accelerated Pilot Program. Atta and Shehhi originally stayed with the Huffman Aviation bookkeeper and his wife in a spare room, but were asked to leave after only a week due to their rudeness. They moved into a small house nearby where they stayed while training at Huffman. Atta opened a bank account at SunTrust Bank, where he received wire transfers in order to fund the plot in the United States.

Atta’s intense flight training program began on July 6th, 2000 and within two months, he was flying solo. He earned his private pilot certificate in September. Atta and Shehhi then changed flight schools, enrolling at Jones Aviation in Sarasota, where they attempted to learn more about multi-engine planes, trying to learn as much as they could in a short amount of time. They claimed a job was waiting for them in the country upon completion of training. Atta received a commercial pilot’s license in December from the Federal Aviation Administration. The men continued to train on U.S soil, preparing to use their new piloting skills to attack the country that trained them. In December of 2000, 9 months before the attack, Atta and Shehhi applied to Eagle International in order to train for large jet and simulator training for McDonnel Douglas DC-9 and Boeing 737-300 models.

As Atta trained, he also assisted in bringing the rest of the hijackers into the country. On August 4th, Atta was at Orlando International Airport to pick up who is believed to be the 20th Hijacker, Mohammed al-Qahtani, but Qahtani was held by immigration as “suspicious.” He was eventually denied entry and Atta used a payphone at the airport to call a phone number later linked to al-Qaeda to inform them of Qathtani’s failure to enter the country. As it turned out, there would be a total of 19 hijackers. On August 23rd, Atta’s U.S. Driver’s License was revoked for failing to show up in court for an earlier citation of driving without a license. That same day, the Mossad – the national intelligence agency of the state of Israel – gave Atta’s name to the CIA as one of 19 US residents suspected of planning at attack against the U.S.

On September 10th, Atta picked up Abdulaziz al-Omari from the Milner Hotel in Boston. Omari was one of the hijackers who would be on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston along with Atta. But they did not go directly to the airport; instead driving first to South Portland, Maine in a rented Nissa Altima. They spent the night in Portland and then drove to the Portland International Jetport to take a flight into Boston. Atta was selected by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System and his bags were checked but nothing suspicious was found and he was allowed through. They took a flight into Logan International Airport in Boston, where they would connect to Flight 11 out of Boston to Los Angeles. Of course, it would never get close to L.A.

Atta and Omari at an ATM in Portland, Maine

Normally, with a connecting flight, there is no need to pass through security again as the passenger will already be in a secure area, but this particular connection between the two flights at Logan was different as passengers had to leave the secured area, go outdoors and cross a roadway to enter a separate building to catch their next flight. This detail was overlooked by the terrorists and Atta, being so close, became angry when told of the additional security screening that had to take place before he could enter the building to take Flight 11. The ticket staffer became uneasy and suspicious of Atta’s behavior, but did not act on those suspicions for fear of being accused of racial profiling. Atta was able to move through security and board Flight 11 along with Omari and three other hijackers who arrived together. The plane was carrying 81 passengers.

Only fifteen minutes into the flight, at approximately 8:14 AM, the hijacking began. Atta was able to reach the cockpit and at 8:24, could be heard by ATC – Air Traffic Control - telling the passengers to be quiet and stay put. This message was supposed to only be heard by the passengers, but Atta pressed the wrong button, tipping off ATC. He took control of the plane, turning it southbound towards New York City and made his last transmission at 8:33.

“We are going back to the airport. Don’t try to make any stupid moves.” Just 12 minutes later, Mohamed Atta crashed Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center between floors 93 and 99 in a suicide mass murder, instantly killing all passengers on the plane and hundreds more inside the tower. More than 800 people were in the building above Floor 92 and had no means to escape. They would all perish once the tower collapsed at 10:28 AM.

Atta had also helped plan, coordinate and lead the three other planes that were hijacked. Flight 175, led by Shehhi, also out of Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the South Tower, killing 65 passenger and crew along with countless others outside the plane. The South Tower, even though it was hit after the North, collapsed first at 9:58 A.M. Hani Hanjour crashed American Airlines Flight 77 from Dulles International in North Virginia to Los Angeles into the Pentagon, killing 64 on board and 125 in the building. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, never reached its destination as the passengers, who had gotten word of the terrorist attack, fought back, storming the cockpit and forcing Ziad Jarrah to crash the plane into a field in Pennsylvania. All passengers died but saved countless lives by preventing Jarrah to crash the plane into a government building – perhaps the Capitol – in Washington D.C.

Atta’s luggage never made it onto Flight 11 and his bags were recovered in Boston. They contained a airline uniforms, flight manuals and his will, which included a list of instructions called “The Last Night,” detailing the instructions for the last night of a martyr’s life, citing spiritual and religious scripture.

Multiple psychologists have tried to explain the behavior of Mohamed Atta. Criminal Justice Professor Adam Lankford, the author of The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers, believes that the evidence shows Atta struggled with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame hopelessness and rage. He believes Atta experienced the same struggles as those who commit murder-suicides in the more conventional sense. In Lankford’s view, Atta’s political and religious views caused him to commit suicide in the way he did, but that they were not the underlying causes of his behavior.

All 19 hijackers, who all perished on 9/11, were eventually identified. Ramzi Al-Shibh, who was unable to obtain a passport but participated in the attack as a coordinator, was captured exactly one year after the attack on September 11th, 2002 and to this day is being held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Mohammed al-Qahatani, the 20th hijacker, who was not allowed entry into the United States, was captured in the Battle of Tora Bora in December of 2001. He was detained at Guantanamo Bay for more than 20 years. On March 6th, 2022, he was flown back to Saudi Arabia and transferred to a Mental Health Clinic. The mastermind, Osama Bin-Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, in an operation carried out by a team of U.S. Navy Seals.