CIA Kuala Lumpur station

Two of the operatives attending al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit make short trips to neighboring countries, returning to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, within 24 hours. The two operatives are Nawaf Alhazmi and Khallad bin Attash and the two countries they visit are Thailand and Singapore, but it is not definitively known which operative goes to which country. [9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004, pp. 4 ] However, an associate of bin Attash’s, Fahad al-Quso, arrives in Thailand around this day (see January 5-6, 2000). [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 269 ] In addition, Alhazmi will later be said to have visited Singapore. [San Diego Union-Tribune, 1/4/2003] Presumably, therefore, it is bin Attash that travels to Thailand, whereas Alhazmi goes to Singapore. The 9/11 Commission will later say of these two trips, “After the fact, efforts were made to track them. US officials in Kuala Lumpur wondered if one of these Arabs was the still mysterious Nawaf. Both returned to Kuala Lumpur within the next 24 hours, though the authorities did not know it at the time.” [9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004, pp. 4 ] Khalid Almihdhar is also said to visit Singapore, and both he and Alhazmi are said to travel to Indonesia around this time as well, but the circumstances of these additional trips, if they are actually made, are not known. [San Diego Union-Tribune, 1/4/2003] Almihdhar’s passport was copied by intelligence services on the way to Malaysia (see January 2-5, 2000) and a similar operation to obtain Alhazmi’s passport details failed (see January 2-4, 2000). These two trips represent opportunities to obtain Alhazmi and bin Attash’s passport details, but this is apparently not done, even though the two are under surveillance at this point (see January 5-8, 2000).