Al Jazeera television broadcasts video footage in which bin Laden appears to take credit for the 9/11 attacks. Some of the video footage shows some 9/11 hijackers, including Ahmed Alnami, Hamza Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, Waleed Alshehri, and Wail Alshehri, talking with each other and studying maps and flight manuals. At one point, hands are shown over maps of the US and the Pentagon, but no faces are shown as this happens. One section of the video is hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari reading last will and testament in which he praises Osama bin Laden (see September 9, 2002). Al Jazeera says the video was filmed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in early 2001. Additional footage has bin Laden hailing the hijackers as heroes, but there is no video footage of him saying this, only his voice over still photographs of the hijackers. The Financial Times will report, “But analysts cited the crude editing of the tapes and the timing of the broadcasts as reasons to be suspicious about their authenticity. The skepticism was deepened by Al Jazeera’s silence yesterday about how it had obtained the videos.” [Financial Times, 9/11/2002] Al Jazeera shows an interview of al-Qaeda leaders Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) around the same time (see September 8-11, 2002). Yosri Fouda, who allegedly was the one who interviewed bin al-Shibh and KSM several months earlier, will later claim that parts of the documentary were narrated by bin al-Shibh, although the voice is not identified as his. And bin al-Shibh was working on the documentary when the interview took place. [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 158-159]
October 21, 2002: 13 Hijackers Were Never Interviewed by US Consular Officials
The General Accounting Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, releases a report asserting that at least 13 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were never interviewed by US consular officials before being granted visas to enter the US. This contradicts previous assurances from the State Department that 12 of the hijackers had been interviewed. It also found that, for 15 hijackers whose applications could be found, none had filled in the documents properly. Records for four other hijackers (the four non-Saudis, i.e., Ziad Jarrah, Mohamed Atta, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, and Marwan Al Shehhi) could not be checked because they were accidentally destroyed. [National Review Online, 10/21/2002; United States General Accounting Office, 10/21/2002 
; Washington Post, 10/22/2002] The State Department maintains that visa procedures were properly followed. In December 2002, Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) state in a chapter of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that “if State Department personnel had merely followed the law and not granted non-immigrant visas to 15 of the 19 hijackers in Saudi Arabia… 9/11 would not have happened.” [Associated Press, 12/19/2002; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. pp. 653-673 ]
March 2004: CIA Finds 9/11 Hijackers Used 364 Aliases and Name Variants
After investigating the 9/11 hijackers, the CIA finds that the 19 operatives used a total of 364 aliases, including different spellings of their own names and noms de guerre. Although some examples are made public, the full list is not disclosed. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 1, 5 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ] However, an FBI timeline of hijacker movements made public in 2008 will mention some of the aliases. For example: 
Hani Hanjour and Ahmed Alghamdi rent a New Jersey apartment using the names Hany Saleh and Ahmed Saleh. (Saleh is Hanjour’s middle name.) [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 144, 205 ] Fayez Ahmed Banihammad uses the aliases Abu Dhabi Banihammad and Fayey Rashid Ahmed. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 167, 174 ] Nawaf Alhazmi uses the aliases Nawaf Alharbi and Nawaf Alzmi Alhazmi. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 60 ; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 248 ] Mohamed Atta frequently likes to use variants of the name El Sayed, for instance calling himself Awaid Elsayed and even Hamburg Elsayed. Marwan Alshehhi also uses the Elsayed alias. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 125, 126 ] When Majed Moqed flies into the US on May 2, 2001, the name Mashaanmoged Mayed is on the flight manifest. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 139 ]
In contrast to this, many reports emphasize that the hijackers usually used their own names. For example, the 9/11 Commission will say, “The hijackers opened accounts in their own names, using passports and other identification documents.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 22 ] In addition, a Commission staffer will tell UPI: “They did not need fake passports. The plotters all used their own passports to get into the country and once here, used US-issued ID documents whenever possible.” [United Press International, 8/17/2005]
March 2006: Apparently Dead 9/11 Hijackers Still on No-Fly List
When journalists Joe and Susan Trento obtain a copy of the US international no-fly list, which the Transportation Security Administration uses to prevent known terrorists from flying to the US and other countries, they find that 14 of the alleged 9/11 hijackers are still on it. They are: Satam Al Suqami, Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Hamza Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ahmed Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri, Majed Moqed, Hani Hanjour, Salem Alhazmi, Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alnami, and Ahmed Alhaznawi. Shortly after 9/11, it was reported that some of the hijackers were still alive (see September 16-23, 2001) and this may be the reason for the apparent error, although the set of hijackers reported to be still alive and the set of 14 hijackers still on the no-fly list only partially overlap. [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 189-192] The no-fly list also contains manifold problems and at least one other dead terrorist is on it (see March 2006).
February 2008: Considerable Video Footage of 9/11 Hijackers Remains Unreleased
An FBI timeline of the 9/11 hijackers’ activities compiled in late 2001 and released this month indicates that considerable video footage of the hijackers has yet to be released. Most of the footage appears to come from surveillance video discovered after the 9/11 attacks. So far, the only known footage made public has been two video stills of Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed using an ATM machine, one still each of Waleed Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami, several stills of Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in Portland the night before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001), and a few more stills and footage of several hijackers in airports on the morning of 9/11 (see (Between 5:45 a.m. and 5:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and 7:18 a.m. September 11, 2001). But the FBI’s timeline reveals video footage that has never even been publicly hinted at: Mohamed Atta used an ATM in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 19, 2001. Salem Alhazmi and Ahmed Alghamdi used an ATM in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 2. Hanjour and Mojed used a Kinko’s for half an hour in College Park, Maryland, on August 10. Moqed and Nawaf Alhazmi shopped at an Exxon gas station in Joppa, Maryland, on August 28. Waleed and Wail Alshehri wandered around a Target store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 4. Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were in a Florida bank lobby on September 4, and the audio of Atta calling Saudi Arabia was even recorded in the process. Fayez Ahmed Banihammad used an ATM on September 7 in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Salem Alhazmi was at the Falls Church DMV on September 7. Low quality surveillance video at the Milner Hotel in Boston showed Marwan Alshehhi and possibly Mohand Alshehri on multiple occasions in the days just before 9/11. Ziad Jarrah and possibly Saeed Alghamdi were videotaped using a Kinko’s for about an hour near Newark on September 10. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001 ] Additionally, an FBI document will later be made public that indicates there is footage of Saeed Alghamdi entering the Marriott Hotel at the Newark International Airport on September 8, carrying a black roll along bag (he will not have any checked luggage on 9/11). This same document indicates Ziad Jarrah is also seen on videotape shortly after midnight on September 8 at the same Marriott Hotel, making credit card and cash payments for two hotel rooms. He is accompanied by two young men, who most likely are Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami. [Investigative Services Division, FBI Headquarters, 4/19/2002]
