In 2003, New Jersey state police officials say 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta lived in the Wayne Inn, in Wayne, New Jersey, for an unspecified 12-month period prior to 9/11. He lives with one other hijacker who is presumably his usual partner hijacker Marwan Alshehhi. (Alshehhi is seen eating in nearby restaurants with Atta.) [Bergen Record, 6/20/2003] In 2004, an unnamed whistleblower involved in the Able Danger program will claim that prior to 9/11, Able Danger discovered that Atta and Alshehhi were renting a room at the Wayne Inn, and occasionally meeting with Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar at the inn or near it (see (Before September 2000)). From March 2001 onwards, other hijackers, including Alhazmi and Almihdhar, live in Paterson, New Jersey, only one mile away from Wayne (see March 2001-September 1, 2001). Nawaf Alhazmi and Salem Alhazmi rent mailboxes in Wayne at some unknown point before 9/11. Nawaf Alhazmi and Hani Hanjour rent cars from a Wayne car dealership between June and August 2001. There is also evidence Nawaf Alhazmi and Marwan Alshehhi shop in Wayne. [CNN, 9/26/2001; New York Times, 9/27/2001] The 9/11 Commission does not mention any hijacker connection to Wayne. This long-term stay in Wayne is surprising because Atta and Alshehhi have generally been placed in Florida most of the time from July 2000 until shortly before 9/11. However, this discrepancy may be explained by one account which states Atta had “two places he lived and 10 safe houses” in the US (see Mid-September 2001).
Autumn 2000: FBI Informant Learns 9/11 Hiacker Living with Him Is Working Illegally, Doesn’t Tell His FBI Handler
Abdussattar Shaikh, an FBI informant who is also the landlord to two future 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego, California, learns that one of the hijackers is working illegally, but does not tell his FBI handler about it. Hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi lives in Shaikh’s house from May to December 2000 (see May 10-Mid-December 2000), and fellow hijacker Khalid Almihdhar lives there until June (see June 10, 2000). In the autumn of 2000, Alhazmi begins working at a local Texaco gas station (see Autumn 2000). In a 2004 interview with the 9/11 Commission, Shaikh will say that he becomes aware that a local man named Mohdar Abdullah helped Alhazmi get a job at the gas station. Shaikh will say he is disturbed about this because he knows Alhazmi doesn’t have a work permit. He is concerned that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will hear about this, and that it will reflect negatively upon himself. He warns Alhazmi that he could be deported. But Alhazmi says he is not worried because Abdullah has been working at the gas station for some time with other illegal workers. Shaikh never tells his FBI handler Steven Butler about this, and apparently even asks Alhazmi not to discuss his employment at the gas station with him. [9/11 Commission, 4/23/2004] It will later turn out that both the manager and the owner of the gas station have already been investigated by the FBI about Islamist militant links (see Autumn 2000), and some of the other employees at the gas station, including Abdullah, may have foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks (see Early 2000 and Late August-September 10, 2001).
Autumn 2000: 9/11 Hijacker Alhazmi Works at San Diego Gas Station that Is Linked to Other Possible Islamist Militants
9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi works at a gas station while living in San Diego where other suspected Islamist militants work. This is the only apparent instance of any of the hijackers having a job while in the US. He and 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar frequently socialize at the gas station, but only Alhazmi works there for pay on and off for about a month at some point after Almihdhar has gone overseas in June 2000. [Washington Post, 12/29/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 
]
Gas Station’s Owner Was Investigated – The Texaco gas station, Sam’s Star Mart, is owned by Osama “Sam” Mustafa. [San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/25/2003] Mustafa was first investigated by the FBI in 1991 after he told a police officer that the US needed another Pan Am 103 attack and that he could be the one to carry out the attack. He also said all Americans should be killed because of the 1991 Iraq War. In 1994, he was investigated for being a member of the Palestinian organizations PFLP and PLO and for threatening to kill an Israeli intelligence officer living in San Diego. The investigation was closed, but reopened again in 1997 when he was tied to a possible plot in North Carolina. Apparently, it was closed again before 9/11. He also associates with Osama Basnan and others who have contacts with the hijackers. Witnesses later claim he cheered when he was first told of the 9/11 attacks. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 ]
Gas Station’s Manager Was Also Investigated – The gas station is managed by Ed Salamah (who apparently is also known as Iyad Kreiwesh). [Washington Post, 12/29/2001; San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/25/2003] In January 2000, the brother of an unnamed, known al-Qaeda operative was under surveillance and was seen chatting with Salamah. The Los Angeles FBI office was investigating this operative, and it called Salamah about the person. Salamah refused to come to Los Angeles for an interview, and refused to give his home address to be interviewed there. Faced with a reluctant witness, the FBI dropped the matter. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 ; Newsweek, 7/28/2003]
Other Gas Station Employees May Know of 9/11 Plot – Mohdar Abdullah, a friend of Alhazmi and Almihdhar, also works at the gas station around this time. He may have learned of the 9/11 plot as early as the spring of 2000 (see Early 2000). Additionally, according to one witness, Abdullah, Osama Awadallah, Omar Bakarbashat, and other gas station employees will appear to show foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks one day before they take place (see Late August-September 10, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 219-220, 249-50, 532]
FBI Informant Stays Silent – The hijackers are living with an FBI informant named Abdussattar Shaikh who is aware of their contact with at least Mustafa, and Shaikh has given reports about Mustafa to the FBI in the past. However, Shaikh fails to tell the FBI about their contacts with him. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will later strongly imply that Salamah and Mustafa assisted the hijackers with the 9/11 plot, but the FBI will appear uninterested in them and will maintain that the hijackers received no assistance from anyone. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. xii, 11-12, 143-146, 155-157 ] Shaikh will also later admit that he knew Alhazmi was working illegally at the gas station, but he didn’t tell his FBI handler about this (see Autumn 2000).
Autumn 2000: CIA Front Company Leads to Suspicions CIA Is Attempting to Infiltrate Florida Cell
Writing in 2004, veteran British intelligence officer Colonel John Hughes-Wilson will note that, at the same time as hijacker pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi are learning to fly at Huffmann Aviation in Venice, Florida (see July 6-December 19, 2000), “A CIA front company called Air Caribe was also operating out of the very same hangar at Venice airport.” He will go on to comment that “this highly curious coincidence must inevitably raise some suspicions of just how much the CIA really did know before 9/11. Was the CIA trying to infiltrate and ‘double’ the US-based al-Qaeda cell, in the hope of using it against Osama bin Laden’s organization in the future?” [Hughes-Wilson, 2004, pp. 391] The Air Caribe story is originally broken by investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who will publish a book about Atta’s time in Florida in 2004 (see March 2004).
Autumn 2000: 9/11 Hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi Predicts He Will Become Famous
While working at a San Diego gas station (see Autumn 2000), future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi predicts to another gas station employee that he will become famous. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 222]
Autumn 2000: San Diego Associate Helps 9/11 Hijacker Alhazmi Contact a Florida Flight School
A close associate of future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in San Diego helps Alhazmi contact a flight school in Florida. An unnamed FBI team leader of the 9/11 investigation will later be interviewed by the 9/11 Commission. This FBI agent will say that Mohdar Abdullah knew that both Alhazmi and Almihdhar were interested in learning to fly. At one point, Abdullah calls an unnamed flight school in Florida for Alhazmi. Alhazmi presumably needs help because his English isn’t very good. Abdullah is about to use the phone inside the Texaco gas station where he and Alhazmi work (see Autumn 2000), but Alhazmi asks him to call from outside, so he uses a pay phone next to the station. This FBI agent will also say that he doubts Abdullah was a witting part of the 9/11 plot, but he believes that if anyone in San Diego had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, it would be Abdullah. Abdullah helped the two hijackers with many tasks in San Diego, and he may have known in early 2000 that they were planning to crash a plane into a building (see Early 2000). [9/11 Commission, 11/18/2003] It will not be mentioned when this incident takes place, but the autumn of 2000 is likely, since this is when Alhazmi and Abdullah both work at the gas station (see Autumn 2000). Hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah are attending flying school in Florida at the time (see July 6-December 19, 2000 and (June 28-December 2000)).
September 2000-September 10, 2001: Pentagon Clinic Develops Emergency Plan, Significantly Aiding Response on 9/11
Over the 12 months preceding September 11, the Army’s DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic (DTHC) at the Pentagon works to develop its mass casualty (MASCAL) plan. This work will significantly and fortuitously help the clinic when it has to implement the plan in response to the Pentagon attack on 9/11. Major Lorie Brown, the chief nurse at the DTHC, is the chairperson for the DiLorenzo Action Response Team (DART). As she will later recall, over this 12-month period, the DART team works “on developing that [MASCAL] plan, really creating a whole new plan. We sat down and met on numerous occasions with the Air Force clinic [also based in the Pentagon], civilian EMS [Emergency Medical Services], Pentagon and [Department of Defense] hierarchy, DPS [the Defense Protective Service], and with the other civilian medical agencies.” They work through various issues, such as “what would happen in the event of a MASCAL, what each of our roles would be.” The DART team, Brown says, participates “in several large tabletop exercises with these external bodies, to include FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and the others I just mentioned. We even did our own internal exercise where we made up the scenario of a plane crashing into the building.” [Marble and Milhiser, 9/2004, pp. 7] This “internal exercise” is likely a reference to an exercise held by the DTHC in May 2001 (see May 2001). [US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. B17 ] Another exercise Brown participates in over this period is the Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise in October 2000 (see October 24-26, 2000), which also includes a scenario of a plane hitting the Pentagon. [MDW News Service, 11/3/2000] Brown will later credit this work developing the MASCAL plan as being of great benefit when the Pentagon is hit on 9/11, and the plan is initiated (see Soon after 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). She will say: “[O]ur planning truly made such a huge difference on that day. Our commander had the foresight to focus on MASCAL prep and gave us the time and budget to really revamp our old MASCAL plan. I can’t say enough about how critical this was to our success.” [Marble and Milhiser, 9/2004, pp. 7]
September 2000: Al-Qaeda Defector Tells US about Pilot Training
Al-Qaeda defector L’Houssaine Kherchtou (see Summer 2000) tells the FBI that between 1992 and 1995 he trained in Nairobi, Kenya, to be a pilot for al-Qaeda. His training ended when he began to drift away from al-Qaeda in 1995. Kherchtou, who began working with MI6 before the African embassy bombings (see Mid-Summer 1998), is a key prosecution witness at the bombing trial in early 2001, where he repeats the information in public. He will later go into the witness protection program. [Washington File, 2/22/2001; American Prospect, 6/19/2005]
September 2000: Neoconservative Think Tank Writes ‘Blueprint’ for ‘Global Pax Americana’
The neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century writes a “blueprint” for the “creation of a ‘global Pax Americana’” (see June 3, 1997). The document, titled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, was written for the George W. Bush team even before the 2000 presidential election. It was written for future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor and Bush’s brother Jeb Bush, and Cheney’s future chief of staff Lewis Libby. [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000, pp. iv and 51 ]
Plans to Overthrow Iraqi Government – The report calls itself a “blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” The plan shows that the Bush team intends to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power and should retain control of the region even if there is no threat. It says: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The report calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the internet, the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and other countries. It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool” (see February 7, 2003). [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000 ; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002]
Greater Need for US Role in Persian Gulf – PNAC states further: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
‘US Space Forces,’ Control of Internet, Subversion of Allies – PNAC calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the Internet, and the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, and other countries.
Bioweapons Targeting Specific Genotypes ‘Useful’ – It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”
‘A New Pearl Harbor’ – However, PNAC complains that thes changes are likely to take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/12/2003]
Bush Will Claim a ‘Humble’ Foreign Policy Stance – One month later during a presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush will assert that he wants a “humble” foreign policy in the Middle East and says he is against toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq because it smacks of “nation building” (see October 11, 2000). Around the same time, Cheney will similarly defend Bush’s position of maintaining President Clinton’s policy not to attack Iraq, asserting that the US should not act as though “we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.” [Washington Post, 1/12/2002] Author Craig Unger will later comment, “Only a few people who had read the papers put forth by the Project for a New American Century might have guessed a far more radical policy had been developed.” [Salon, 3/15/2004] A British member of Parliament will later say of the PNAC report, “This is a blueprint for US world domination—a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world.” [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002] Both PNAC and its strategy plan for Bush are almost virtually ignored by the media until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).
September 2000: Jordan Tells US of Connection Between Al-Marabh, Hijazi, and 9/11 Hijacker
Raed Hijazi, Nabil al-Marabh’s former Boston roommate, is tried and convicted in Jordan for his role in planned millennium bombings in that country. (Hijazi is tried in absentia since he has yet to be arrested, but will later be retried in person and reconvicted.) In the wake of the trial, Jordanian officials send information to US investigators that shows Nabil al-Marabh and future 9/11 hijacker Hamza Alghamdi are associates of Hijazi. The Washington Post will report, “An FBI document circulated among law enforcement agencies [just after 9/11] noted that Hijazi, who is in a Jordanian jail, had shared a telephone number with [9/11] hijacker, Hamza Alghamdi.” Apparently this document is created when Jordan sends the US this information in late 2000. [Washington Post, 9/21/2001] The Boston Globe will later report that an FBI investigation found that “al-Marabh had, in the report’s language, a ‘telephone connection’ with one of the suspected hijackers, according to a federal source involved in the investigation. However, the source was uncertain whether the connection involved telephone conversations between al-Marabh and the unidentified suspect, or whether it involved their sharing a telephone number.” This is a probable reference to the same FBI report mentioning the Alghamdi-Hijazi phone link, especially since the same Globe article mentions that around the this time al-Marabh tells his coworkers that the FBI has been asking him about his links to bin Laden (see Late August 2000). [Boston Globe, 10/15/2001] It appears that Alghamdi is not put on any kind of watch list and will not be stopped when he will arrive in the US by January 2001 (see January or July 28, 2001) nor again on May 23, 2001 (see April 23-June 29, 2001). The 9/11 Commission Final Report will fail to mention any investigation into Alghamdi and will give no hint that his name was known to US authorities before 9/11.
