2000-September 11, 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Living in US Make Many Calls to Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Other Countries

While living in the US, the 9/11 hijackers make at least 206 international phone calls. In 2006, these calls will be mentioned in a German intelligence report based on telephone records obtained from the FBI. There are 66 calls to Syria, 32 calls to Saudi Arabia, and 29 calls to Germany. A majority of the call are made from a cell phone registered to hijacker Marwan Alshehhi. Additional details on who was called, who else made the calls, when the calls were made, what other countries were called, etc… have not been made public. The Chicago Tribune will later note that the calls to Germany are not surprising since Alshehhi and some others were living there, but “the hijackers’ connections to Saudi Arabia and Syria are far from fully explained.” [Chicago Tribune, 3/8/2006] It is unknown when these calls were discovered, but reports suggest at least some of the hijackers’ international calls were being monitored by US intelligence as they were made (see Summer 2001, September 10, 2001, and Early 2000-Summer 2001).