Several of the hijackers have tickets to continue from the destinations of their 9/11 flights. However, they do not take the flights, as all air traffic has been grounded in the US (see (9:26 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and they are presumed to have died in the 9/11 attacks. Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi, and Flight 175 hijackers Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Mohand Alshehri, and Hamza Alghamdi are to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Flight 93 hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi is to continue from San Francisco to San Diego, whereas Ziad Jarrah is to continue to Las Vegas. Alghamdi also has tickets for flights later in September (see September 20-29, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 233, 238, 242 246, 288 
]
September 11-13, 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Leave a Clear Trail of Evidence
Investigators find a remarkable number of possessions left behind by the hijackers: 
Two of Mohamed Atta’s bags are found on 9/11. They contain a handheld electronic flight computer, a simulator procedures manual for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft, two videotapes relating to “air tours” of the Boeing 757 and 747 aircraft, a slide-rule flight calculator, a copy of the Koran, Atta’s passport, his will, his international driver’s license, a religious cassette tape, airline uniforms, a letter of recommendation, “education related documentation” and a note (see September 28, 2001) to other hijackers on how to mentally prepare for the hijacking. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/15/2001; Boston Globe, 9/18/2001; Independent, 9/29/2001; Associated Press, 10/5/2001] Author Terry McDermott will later comment, “Atta’s bag contained nearly every important document in his life… If you wanted to leave a roadmap for investigators to follow, the suitcase was a pretty good place to start.” [McDermott, 2005, pp. 306] Marwan Alshehhi’s rental car is discovered at Boston’s Logan Airport containing an Arabic language flight manual, a pass giving access to restricted areas at the airport, documents containing a name on the passenger list of one of the flights, and the names of other suspects. The name of the flight school where Atta and Alshehhi studied, Huffman Aviation, is also found in the car. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001] A car registered to Nawaf Alhazmi is found at Washington’s Dulles Airport on September 12. This is the same car he bought in San Diego in early 2000 (see March 25, 2000). Inside is a copy of Atta’s letter to the other hijackers, a cashier’s check made out to a flight school in Phoenix, four drawings of the cockpit of a 757 jet, a box cutter-type knife, maps of Washington and New York, and a page with notes and phone numbers. [Arizona Daily Star, 9/28/2001; Cox News Service, 10/21/2001; Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002] The name and phone number of Osama Awadallah, a friend of Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in San Diego, is also found on a scrap of paper in the car (see September 12, 2001 and After). [CNN, 2/1/2002] A rental car is found in an airport parking lot in Portland, Maine. Investigators are able to collect fingerprints and hair samples for DNA analysis. [Portland Press Herald, 10/14/2001] A Boston hotel room contains airplane and train schedules. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/15/2001] FBI agents carry out numerous garbage bags of evidence from a Florida apartment where Saeed Alghamdi lived. [CNN, 9/17/2001] Two days before 9/11, a hotel owner in Deerfield Beach, Florida, finds a box cutter left in a hotel room used by Marwan Alshehhi and two unidentified men. The owner checks the nearby trash and finds a duffel bag containing Boeing 757 manuals, three illustrated martial arts books, an 8-inch stack of East Coast flight maps, a three-ring binder full of handwritten notes, an English-German dictionary, an airplane fuel tester, and a protractor. The FBI seizes all the items when they are notified on September 12 (except the binder of notes, which the owner apparently threw away). [Miami Herald, 9/16/2001; Associated Press, 9/16/2001] In an apartment rented by Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed Alhaznawi, the FBI finds a notebook, videotape, and photocopies of their passports. [Miami Herald, 9/15/2001] In a bar the night before 9/11, after making predictions of a attack on America the next day, the hijackers leave a business card and a copy of the Koran at the bar. The FBI also recovers the credit card receipts from when they paid for their drinks and lap dances. [Associated Press, 9/14/2001] A September 13 security sweep of Boston airport’s parking garage uncovers items left behind by the hijackers: a box cutter, a pamphlet written in Arabic, and a credit card. [Washington Post, 9/16/2001] A few hours after the attacks, suicide notes that some of the hijackers wrote to their parents are found in New York. Credit card receipts showing that some of the hijackers paid for flight training in the US are also found. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001] A FedEx bill is found in a trash can at the Comfort Inn in Portland, Maine, where Atta stayed the night before 9/11. The bill leads to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, allowing investigators to determine much of the funding for 9/11. [Newsweek, 11/11/2001; London Times, 12/1/2001] A bag hijackers Alhazmi and Almihdhar left at a mosque in Laurel, Maryland, is found on September 12. The bag contains flight logs and even receipts from flight schools from San Diego the year before (see September 9, 2001). On 9/11, in a Days Inn hotel room in Newark, New Jersey, investigators find used plane tickets for Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ahmed Alnami. The tickets are all from a Spirit Continental Airlines flight from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Newark on September 7. Also, flight manuals for Boeing 757 and 767 airplanes are found in English and Arabic. [Investigative Services Division, FBI Headquarters, 4/19/2002]
The hijackers past whereabouts can even be tracked by their pizza purchases. An expert points out: “Most people pay cash for pizza. These [hijackers] paid with a credit card. That was an odd thing.” [San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/3/2002] “In the end, they left a curiously obvious trail—from martial arts manuals, maps, a Koran, Internet and credit card fingerprints. Maybe they were sloppy, maybe they did not care, maybe it was a gesture of contempt of a culture they considered weak and corrupt.” [Miami Herald, 9/22/2001] The New Yorker quotes a former high-level intelligence official as saying: “Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the FBI to chase” (see Late September 2001). [New Yorker, 10/8/2001]
After September 11, 2001: German Law Enforcement Agency Provides DNA Sample for Alleged Flight 93 Pilot
The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), Germany’s federal anticrime agency, obtains a DNA sample for one of the 9/11 hijackers, alleged Flight 93 pilot Ziad Jarrah, after a search of the home of his girlfriend, Aysel Senguen. After the BKA sends the sample to the FBI, the bureau matches it with the DNA profile of one of four sets of unknown human remains recovered from the site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed. According to an FBI report provided to the 9/11 Commission, presumably sometime between 2003 and 2004, no relatives of the alleged 9/11 hijackers provide the bureau with DNA samples for comparison. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2003]
Shortly After September 11, 2001: Three More 9/11 Hijacker Passports Recovered
According to the 9/11 Commission, the passports of two hijackers are discovered in the wreckage of Flight 93. One passport, belonging to Saeed Alghamdi, is damaged but still readable. The other passport, belonging to Ziad Jarrah, is burned most of the way through, but part of his photograph is still visible. In addition, the passport of hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari is recovered because apparently it was put in Mohamed Atta’s luggage and the luggage did not get put on the flight Alomari and Atta were hijacking before it took off (see September 11-13, 2001). The recovery of these passports will not be made public at the time and will only be mentioned in passing in 2004 by the 9/11 Commission. A fourth passport, that of Satam Al Suqami, was also recovered on a street near the WTC (see After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). That did become immediate news and caused skepticism by many who wondered how a paper document could survive such a crash (see After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 1/26/2004]
Shortly After September 11, 2001: Hamburg Agency Shows Surprising Amount of Knowledge of Al-Qaeda Hamburg Cell; It May Have Had Informant
The LfV, the security service for the Hamburg region, shows a surprising amount of knowledge about the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell, suggesting that the agency may have had an informant close to the cell. In 2004, Manfred Murck, deputy director of the LfV, will claim that the LfV’s greatest regret is that it never monitored the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg. [Vanity Fair, 11/2004] However, shortly after 9/11, a photograph is found in the house of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s girlfriend Aysel Senguen that was taken at Jarrah and Senguen’s non-legally binding wedding in April 1999 (see (April 1, 1999)).
Notes on the Photo – Eighteen out of 22 men in the picture are soon identified; many of them are members of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell. Seven of the men are easily identified. Eleven more are identified by the LfV, and 10 of them by name, including 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, and hijacker associates Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abdelghani Mzoudi, and Mounir El Motassadeq. Investigators at other German intelligence agencies don’t know where the photo was taken, but the LfV reveals that it was taken inside the Al-Quds mosque. In 2003, the Frankfurt newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung will conclude that the LfV had an informant who knew details about the Al-Quds mosque and its attendees. The newspaper will base this on the LfV notes about the photo written just after 9/11. These notes show that not only does the LfV know that the picture was taken inside Al-Quds (when its agents were never supposed to go inside a mosque), but it knows the picture was taken in early 1999, because the carpet shown in the picture was changed shortly after that time. Furthermore, the LfV photo notes show knowledge of “even seemingly trivial details” about some of the people in the picture. For instance, the notes mention that hijacker associate Mzoudi “cleans and cooks together with Abderrasak Labied in the Al-Quds mosque.” [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003] (Labied is another suspected member of the Hamburg cell.) [Washington Post, 9/11/2002] Some men in the photo left Hamburg later in 1999, but the LfV notes are still able to identify them.
Knowledge of Mohamed Atta’s Group – The LfV also shows detailed knowledge about some of the 9/11 hijackers. For instance, starting in 1999, Atta led an Islamic study group at the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg known as “Islam AG.” The LfV is able to identify which of the men in the picture attended this study group. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003]
Informant or Some Other Source of Knowledge? – The LfV notes indicate that if the LfV did not have an informant involved with the Al-Quds mosque since 1999, at the very least it has a great deal of knowledge about the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell members.
September 12, 2001 and Shortly After: 9/11 Hijackers’ Effects Found at Flight 93 Crash Site
Several effects apparently belonging to Flight 93 hijackers are recovered from the crash site in Somerset County. They are: A Saudi Arabian ID card of Ahmed Alnami; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] A Saudi Arabian Youth Hostel Association card of Ahmed Alnami; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Two passport sized photographs of Ahmed Alnami; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] A charred section of Ziad Jarrah’s passport; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Saeed Alghamdi’s Saudi Arabian passport; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] A business card of Assem Jarrah, Ziad Jarrah’s second cousin (who allegedly has been a spy for three governments (see September 16, 2002)). It has Ramzi bin al-Shibh’s Hamburg address written on the back (see September 24, 2002); [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/7/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Part of Ahmed Alnami’s Florida driving license; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] A red bandana (a passenger on Flight 93 described the hijackers as using red bandanas, though this could have been someone else’s bandana (see (9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006]
Mid-September-Late 2001: Imam to 9/11 Hijackers’ Hamburg Cell Is Investigated but Allowed to Leave Germany
German intelligence investigates Mohammed Fazazi, the imam at the Al-Quds mosque attended by most members of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell, including three of the 9/11 hijackers (see 1993-Late 2001 and Early 1996). Fazazi is monitored, and he is seen meeting with an unnamed hijacker associate. However, no charges are brought against him and he leaves Germany for the last time in late 2001. Fazazi is a Moroccan citizen, his wife and children live in Morocco, and in recent years he has been preaching on and off at a mosque in Morocco at the same time he preached at Al-Quds in Hamburg, so he goes to Morocco and stays there. He will later be convicted for a role in the 2003 bombings in Casablanca, Morocco (see May 16, 2003).
Private Meetings with Hijackers – In 2005, it will be reported that two regular attendees of the Al-Quds mosque say Fazazi sometimes had private meetings with key members of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell. One witness will say there was frequent contact between Fazazi and the three 9/11 hijackers in Hamburg: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah. It is not known what he discussed with them. However, he preached an extremely radical and militant version of Islam. For instance, in early 2001, he was recorded preaching that all non-Muslims in the world should be killed (see Early 2001). [Los Angeles Times, 7/6/2005]
September 27, 2001: Photos of All 19 9/11 Hijackers Released for First Time
The photos of all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers are released by the FBI for the first time. Some photos have been released by the media already; for instance, a photo of Mohammed Atta became very well known a couple of days after the 9/11 attacks. But this is the first time all of the hijackers are seen. The FBI also gives out some details about the hijackers, but these details are scanty. For instance, the only detail mentioned for Ahmed Alhaznawi is, “Possibly lived in Delray Beach, Florida.” Interestingly, one detail mentioned for Khalid Almihdhar is, “May be an assumed name; there are reports he is still alive.” It also is noted that the identities of Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Mohand Alshehri, Salem Alhazmi, and Saeed Alghamdi are in dispute, and some of the information about them may be confused with other people with similar names. [CNN, 9/27/2001]
November 11, 2001: Hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s ‘Farewell Letter’ Intercepted
Authorities in the US discover a letter apparently written by Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah. It is believed the four-page letter, dated September 10, was written just hours before the 9/11 attacks. It is part of a package Jarrah mailed from the US to his Turkish girlfriend Aysel Senguen, a medical student living in the western German city of Bochum. The letter says, “I have done what I had to do.… You should be very proud, because it is an honor and in the end you will see that everyone will be happy.” It adds, “Hold on to what you have until we see each other again.” The package arrived in Germany shortly after September 11. However, due to Jarrah having made an error in writing the address, it was returned to the US and ended up in the hands of the FBI. Oddly, considering the letter is supposedly Jarrah’s farewell to Senguen, the rest of his package reportedly includes papers about his flight training and scuba-diving instructions. It is believed to also contain some small presents. Ziad’s uncle Jamal Jarrah says he thinks the letter is fabricated, and that it is suspicious that the address on it contained a mistake, as Ziad had known his girlfriend for five years and would not have made such an error. [Associated Press, 11/17/2001; Los Angeles Times, 11/18/2001; Observer, 11/18/2001; Daily Telegraph, 11/18/2001; BBC, 11/19/2001]
December 14, 2001-September 28, 2005: Media Accounts Differ on What the US Knew and Did about 9/11 Hijacker Jarrah’s Detention in Dubai
On December 14, 2001, it is first reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah was stopped and questioned at Dubai airport (see January 30-31, 2000); a controversy follows on when the US was told about this and what was done about it.
Initial Account – The story of Jarrah being detained at Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), first appears in the Chicago Tribune on December 14. This initial report says that Jarrah was stopped because he was on a US watch list. US officials refuse to comment on the matter. (Note that this report and most other early accounts place the incident on January 30, 2001 (see January 31, 2000 and After), but this appears to be incorrect and later reports say it happened exactly one year earlier, on January 30, 2000.) [Associated Press, 12/14/2001]
Did the US Tell the UAE to Stop Jarrah? – Jane Corbin reports the same story for the BBC in December 2001 and then repeats it in a book. Once again, US officials refuse to comment on the story. In her account, UAE officials claim Jarrah was stopped based on a tip-off from the US. A UAE source tells Corbin: “It was at the request of the Americans and it was specifically because of Jarrah’s links with Islamic extremists, his contacts with terrorist organizations. That was the extent of what we were told.” [BBC, 12/12/2001; Corbin, 2003] One day after the BBC report, a US official carefully states that the FBI was not aware before 9/11 that another US agency thought Jarrah was linked to any terrorist group. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/13/2001]
CNN Revives the Story, Has More Sources – In August 2002, CNN also reports that Jarrah was stopped because he was on a US watch list. It claims this information comes not only from UAE sources, but from other governments in the Middle East and Europe. It also still refers to the incorrect January 31, 2001 date. For the first time, a CIA spokesperson comments on the matter and says the CIA never knew anything about Jarrah before 9/11 and had nothing to do with his questioning in Dubai. [CNN, 8/1/2002]
Denials Are Helped by Confusion over Date – Regarding the denials by US authorities, author Terry McDermott point outs: “It is worth noting, however, that when the initial reports of the Jarrah interview [came out,] the Americans publicly denied they had ever been informed of it. As it happened, Corbin had the wrong date for the event, so the American services might have been technically correct in denying any knowledge of it. They later repeated that denial several times when other reports repeated the inaccurate date.” Based on information from his UAE sources, McDermott concludes that the stop occurred and that the US was informed of it at the time. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 294-5]
FBI Memo Confirms US Was Notified – In February 2004, the Chicago Tribune claims it discovered a 2002 FBI memo that discusses the incident. The memo clearly states that the incident “was reported to the US government” at the time. This account uses the January 30, 2000 date, and all later accounts do so as well. [Chicago Tribune, 2/24/2004]
9/11 Commission Downplays Incident – In July 2004, the 9/11 Commission calls the incident a “minor problem” and relegates it to an endnote in its final report on the 9/11 attacks. It does not mention anything about the US being informed about Jarrah’s brief detention at the time it happened. In this account, Jarrah was not on a US watch list, but he raised suspicion because of an overlay of the Koran in his passport and because he was carrying religious tapes and books. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496]
Vanity Fair Adds New Details – A November 2004 Vanity Fair article adds some new details. In this account, UAE officials were first suspicious of Jarrah because of a page of the Koran stuck in his passport, then they searched his luggage and found it full of jihadist propaganda videos. Six months earlier, the CIA had asked immigration throughout the region to question anyone who might have been to a training camp in Afghanistan, which gave the UAE even more reason to question him. Jarrah was asked about his time in Afghanistan and revealed that he intended to go to flight school in the US, but he was let go. The UAE told the CIA about all this, but German officials say the CIA failed to pass the information on to German intelligence. [Vanity Fair, 11/2004]
German and More FBI Documents Also Confirm US Was Involved – McDermott has access to German intelligence files in writing his book published in 2005. He says that German documents show that the UAE did contact the US about Jarrah while he was still being held. But the US had not told the Germans what was discussed about him. Other FBI documents confirming the incident are also obtained by McDermott, but they indicate the questioning was routine. UAE officials insist to McDermott this is absolutely untrue. McDermott suggests that the CIA may not have told the FBI much about the incident. He also says that while UAE officials were holding Jarrah, US officials told them to let Jarrah go because the US would track him (see January 30-31, 2000). [McDermott, 2005, pp. 294]
Continued Denials – In September 2005, US officials continue to maintain they were not notified about the stop until after 9/11. [Chicago Tribune, 9/28/2005] Original reporting on the incident will not occur much in the years after then.
