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]
April 14, 2011: Imam to 9/11 Hijackers’ Hamburg Cell Is Pardoned in Morocco
Mohammed Fazazi, the imam to some of the 9/11 hijackers in Hamburg, Germany, is freed in Morocco as part of a larger pardon of prisoners. Fazazi was the imam at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, Germany, in the 1990s up until not long before the 9/11 attacks (see 1993-Late 2001). Most of the al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, including 9/11 hijackers like Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, frequently attended that mosque. Later, Fazazi was convicted in Morocco for a role in the 2003 Casablanca bombings and sentenced to 30 years in prison (see May 16, 2003). In April 2011, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI pardons or reduces the sentences of 190 prisoners, most of them allegedly linked to Islamist militancy. The move is believed to be in response to increased pressure for political reform and openness. After his release, Fazazi says he used to preach jihad, but he no longer supports violent attacks. He claims he never knew any of the 9/11 hijackers or their plans, and he denies having any connection to the Casablanca bombings. [New York Times, 4/27/2011]
November 2018: Former Associate of Several 9/11 Hijackers Denies Being Involved in the 9/11 Plot
Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born German national who was captured by Kurdish fighters in Syria earlier this year, denies any involvement in the 9/11 attacks or ever having foreknowledge of them, despite knowing several of the alleged hijackers. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 11/23/2018; Washington Post, 11/30/2018] Zammar was arrested in December 2001 while visiting Morocco and then sent to Syria (see October 27-November 2001 and December 2001). In 2007, after being held in Syria for several years, a Syrian court sentenced him to 12 years in prison for membership in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group (see February 11, 2007). He was released, however, in 2013 as part of a prisoner exchange. He then joined the militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He was captured earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia, during its ongoing operations against ISIS (see (March 2018)). [BBC, 4/19/2018; Daily Telegraph, 4/20/2018; Washington Post, 11/30/2018] He is now being held in a jail run by the Kurdish intelligence service in northeastern Syria. This month, he is interviewed by Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine and then the Washington Post. These interviews are the first time he has talked publicly since 2001. In them, he talks in detail about his experiences, including his association with several of the 9/11 hijackers. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 11/23/2018; Washington Post, 11/30/2018]
Zammar Admits Bringing Together Three Hijackers – In the 1990s, Zammar held regular gatherings with small groups of young Muslim men at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, Germany, which was regularly attended by future 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah (see Early 1996). [Associated Press, 8/9/2010; Washington Post, 11/30/2018] He met these three men and other members of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell at the time. He now admits being responsible for bringing Atta, Alshehhi, and Jarrah together. He also tells Der Spiegel that, after 9/11, he told German police that he had “read the Koran together with Atta and the others [in the Hamburg cell], and that we had eaten and gone to the mosque together.” He says the members of the Hamburg cell were “my best friends” and describes Atta as a “good guy” who had “high moral standards.” [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 11/23/2018; Washington Post, 11/30/2018]
Zammar Persuaded the Hijackers to Visit Afghanistan – In 1998, Zammar encouraged the members of the Hamburg cell to participate in jihad and persuaded them to go to Afghanistan for military training. But after Atta, Alshehhi, and Jarrah returned from there, he had little further contact with them. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 164, 167; Washington Post, 11/30/2018] “I had hardly any contact with the three of them in the two years prior” to 9/11, he tells Der Spiegel.
Zammar Denies Having Foreknowledge of 9/11 – Despite knowing three of the alleged perpetrators, Zammar denies any involvement in the 9/11 attacks. As evidence, he points out that he chose to return to Germany from a visit to Turkey shortly after the attacks occurred. If he had been involved in the attacks, he says: “I wouldn’t have come back to Germany from Turkey. I would have fled to Afghanistan or somewhere else.” He also says he had no foreknowledge of 9/11. “God knows, and in all honesty, I did not know anything about the 9/11 strike,” he tells the Washington Post. The members of the Hamburg cell “did not tell me anything,” he adds. “They probably kept me in the dark so as not to drag me into anything,” he comments. He says he was “as surprised as anyone when the attacks occurred” and initially thought they were carried out by the Japanese as revenge for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. When the names and photos of his three friends from Hamburg were released, he “couldn’t believe it,” he says, because he “didn’t think they were capable of that.”
Zammar Calls Bin Laden a ‘Good Person’ – As well as knowing three of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, Zammar met Osama bin Laden during one of his regular visits to Afghanistan in the 1990s. He now describes bin Laden as “a very likeable, good person,” but stresses that he never pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, even though this has been claimed. American investigators never reached a firm conclusion about Zammar’s potential involvement in the 9/11 plot and suspected that he may have been too talkative to be trusted with knowledge of it, according to Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent. German investigators were similarly “unable to prove any involvement or complicity on his part,” according to Der Spiegel. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 11/23/2018; Washington Post, 11/30/2018]
