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Venesky-Brown Sign The People Matter Charter
Venesky-Brown have pledged their commitment to the Supply Chain Sustainability School's People Matter Charter. The People Matter Charter was created to encourage organisations up and down the supply chain to treat people responsibly. There is eight commitments that have been produced and as a signatory, Venesky-Brown are able to evidence each of the commitments and…..Read More
Venesky-Brown Become a Partner of the Supply Chain Sustainability School
Venesky-Brown are delighted to become a partner of the Supply Chain Sustainability School. The Supply Chain Sustainability School is led by a dynamic group of partners who set the strategic direction of the School and identify key issues to address, new training to develop, supplier day and workshop content, and, just as importantly, ensure the…..Read More
Successful ISO 45001 Migration
Venesky-Brown Recruitment are delighted to have successfully migrated from OHSAS 18001 to the new ISO 45001 standard for Occupational Health and Safety. Venesky-Brown have developed an effective occupational health and safety management system to improve employee safety, reduce workplace risks and create better, safer working conditions. Venesky-Brown now hold ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO…..Read More
Venesky-Brown's Skydive
On Saturday 7th September 2019 at Skydive St Andrews, two members of our amazing team will be overcoming their fears and jumping from the sky to raise money for our chosen charity Health in Mind. For this unique challenge, our team will experience freefall from around 10,000ft and get to take in the breath taking…..Read More
Venesky-Brown's Fantasy Premier League 2019-20
COMPETITION TIME Do you fancy yourself as the next Alex Ferguson, how about competing with your colleagues and contemporaries in the managerial hot seat of your very own fantasy team? Join the Venesky-Brown Fantasy Football league for the 2019-20 Premier league season. The competition is free to enter and will start on Friday 9th August…..Read More
Venesky-Brown Celebrate Success with Building Trades Agency Staff Framework
Venesky-Brown is celebrating yet another success with its recent placement on six of the Building Trades Agency Staff Framework councils in Scotland. The Edinburgh-based recruitment agency and project solutions company have recently been awarded a new contract with the Building Trades Agency Staff Frameworks, to manage staffing projects for six Scottish councils, including East Ayrshire…..Read More
Venesky-Brown Recruitment Secure a Place on the Crown Commercial Service's Framework
Venesky-Brown Recruitment are delighted to announce that they have been appointed as a supplier on the Crown Commercial Service's Non Clinical Temporary and Fixed Term Staff Framework for IT Professionals throughout the UK. This new framework is in collaboration with NHS Procurement in Partnership and is open to NHS contracting authorities and all UK public…..Read More
We have signed the Scottish Business Pledge…..have you?
The Scottish Business Pledge is a values-led partnership between the Scottish Government and businesses. Aimed to boost productivity, competitiveness, sustainable employment, and workforce engagement and development which collectively, contribute to Scotland's future. Our vision is to make our business forward thinking and to make a stronger Scotland. By signing the Scottish Business Pledge we have…..Read More
Venesky-Brown Recruitment Secure a place on Scottish Government Frameworks
Venesky-Brown Recruitment is delighted to announce their appointment to two of the Scottish Governments latest Staff Services Frameworks. The Frameworks involve the sourcing and provision of interim staff services in the IT Services sector and Professional Services sector from 13th April 2019 to 12th April 2023, for Public Sector Bodies in Scotland. Four contractors have…..Read More
Contact us via WhatsApp!
Venesky-Brown have now launched a new messaging service where you can get in touch with us via WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a messaging service where you will be able to easily contact us with your questions and queries, we are available from Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm. To be able to contact us via WhatsApp,…..Read More


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Man Having Affair With Doll Is Saving Up For $10,000 Sex Robot
Fifty-eight-year-old engineer James may have been happily married for 36 years, but four times a week he indulges in a love affair with a blonde called April.
Except he isn't cheating on his wife… because April is a latex sex doll.
Standing at 153cm tall, she looks scarily realistic – and is one of three sex dolls that James owns, each costing a whopping £2,000 ($2,600).
But James isn't done collecting yet, as he's now saving up for an £8,000 ($10,600) robotic sex doll called Harmony, who can talk back to him, smile and will even be responsive during sex.
"Most manufacturers make them look something in the region of 20 years old," James says. "For a man of my age it's a fantasy because I will never be a Brad Pitt or something like that."
James also doesn't keep April locked behind closed doors, either.
"When I take April out it's usually to a hamburger place where we can stop and get a bite to eat, a lot of people don't even notice she is not a breathing person," he says.
"We usually have sex two to three, sometimes four nights a week routinely. It's amazingly like having sex with a real woman, the biggest difference is whatever position you want them in you have to put them in, as they will not get there on their own."
According to James, the sexual aspect is a very small part of it, as he says he also derives lots of pleasure from looking after the dolls, dressing them, putting on their make-up and interacting with them.
He explains: "Most doll owners, although they do go into it with the doll as a sex toy, they find they do develop a relationship with it. If I had to choose between April and my wife I honestly don't know what I would do."
Matt McMullen, of The Real Doll Company and its associated business Realbotix, is the creator of James' dream sex doll, Harmony, who can 'seduce' owners and respond to questions.
"My original intention was to create a unique piece of art, something that looks so convincingly real that people stop and look at it," Matt says.
"Potential clients were saying 'I love your work and the way this doll looks, but can I have sex with it?' It made me realise that this was going to be a business venture, not an art project."
"Fifty years from now, with the way technology is moving, it would not surprise me if sex robots were as commonplace as porn," he adds.
The stories are part of a new Channel 4 documentary, The Sex Robots Are Coming, which airs on Thursday 30 November at 10pm.
Well, each to their own. *Shrugs*

subset: commoncrawl


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The Emeralds snapped their 8 game winning streak with a 6-5 victory over the Hops. The TinCaps were swept in a doubleheader while both the Storm and the Missions lost by 1 run. Kyle Blanks continued his rehab as the T-Pads won 4-3. Hitting Prospect of the Day: Austin Hedges Pitching Player of the Day: […]Full Article
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Smart City lighting forecast 2020-2025
Connected Street Lights to hit 62.9mn units in 2025, 15.2% penetration in Smart City Platforms
Rethink Technology Research finds $5.2bn annual market still has massive potential, as LED lighting stocks can be retrofitted, with Smart City Platform adopters waking up to opportunity
The market for Connected Street Lights (CSL) has been largely driven by the introduction of LED lighting, which afforded adopters huge savings on their energy bills. However, now that the low-hanging fruit is dwindling, as old analog lights die off, the CSL market needs to wholeheartedly embrace the Smart City opportunity, to become inextricable partners in the formative years of the Smart City market – providing both a standalone application as well as the networking infrastructure on which to build additional functions.
To this end, there will be some 62.9mn CSL in 2025, in a market worth some $5.1bn. However, based on our research, the number of these lights that will be directly integrated into a Smart City Platform (SCP) and used in collaboration with other smart city applications will only reach 9.6mn, or 15.23% of all CSL units deployed – despite nearly a full decade of the majority of CSL tenders including some element of SCP functionality.
While this sounds discouraging, it is worth remembering that the street lighting market is quite slow moving, and that cities are not exactly fast movers. This early penetration level is not as disheartening as it might first appear, as these contracts typically span over twenty years, which presents a lengthy window to migrate these lights to an SCP. Of all the IoT markets that Riot tracks, Smart City does seem to be the gradual, but it has unmatched scale in terms of the economic weight it represents globally.
There are between 300mn and 500mn street lights globally, depending on how you define them. For pole-based lights, the number is closer to 300mn, likely around 350mn, with the rest of the upper estimate accounted for by lights on buildings, in street furniture, and some scene lighting. For cities, lighting has almost always been the largest ticket on the energy bill, and the sales pitch for the LED vendors was that simply swapping from old analog luminaires to new digital LEDs would save around half of the old energy bill. This freed up cash could then be spent elsewhere in the city, to the betterment of the taxpayers. It is thought that around 20% of the lighting stock has been converted to LED to date, meaning that there is a lot of room for growth in LED, as well as in the supporting CSL offering.
Street lighting is vital for a healthy city environment, helping citizens move through the city at night, to enjoy its facilities after the sun has set. Old gas lighting was a major driving force in the Industrial Revolution, helping to accommodate all those agricultural workers that migrated to the cities in the wake of the Agricultural Revolution. Street lighting helped societies tackle the rampant crime of the burgeoning cities, and over time, this has evolved to the point where residents can make use of the city at any time of day, in a relatively safe manner, surrounded by other citizens and motor vehicles.
With lighting being so important, it is not something that a city can skimp on. In the awkward transitional years between digital and analog lighting, there were a number of attempts to cut power bills by turning off street lights in quieter areas, leading to outcry from citizens who suddenly realized just how afraid of the dark they actually were. Now, LEDs alone have removed much of the concern that drove such abortive pilot projects, but CSL bring more to the table than just the cost of powering them.
CSL deployments let cities schedule and coordinate lighting levels to match the local conditions, to ensure that the city is always appropriately lit and not wasting power. The dimming capabilities of LEDs also allow for dynamic lighting choices, to illuminate areas of interest in cities with tourist attractions, create ambience in desired locations, and increase the brightness to respond to conditions on the ground. This would include increasing lighting levels at the request of the police force, responding to an incident, or turning the LEDs down to the bare minimum, when there are no citizens around who need illumination.
Those are the main examples of the application benefits that LED lights afford, but there is a significant operational benefit to be enjoyed too. LED units last much longer than older analog, and so involve significantly less truck-roll expenditure to support, meaning that the operational costs for a deployment can be dramatically reduced too. But what CSL brings to the table is the ability to slash this upkeep cost even further.
The connectivity lets the network identify luminaires that have failed, removing the need for manual inspections, so that an engineer only has to make visits to the necessary units. Anomalies in luminaires can be reported back to the Central Management System (CMS), which could indicate a looming failure that can be fixed preemptively. For many cities, CSL finally gives them a way to accurately see their lights' power usage, which can then be used to renegotiate contracts with their energy providers, as some regions rely heavily on unmetered connections for the street lights.
The CSL fleets also provide a foundation for other Smart City applications to be built on. In the past few years, the sales pitch was that the energy savings could provide the funds needed for new applications, such as environmental monitoring, traffic monitoring, and public transport and safety improvements, however, our industry conversations suggest that the enthusiasm for these projects from cities themselves is quite muted.
In many cases, the city wants a standalone application that can be treated in isolation, with many buyers wary of vendor lock-in and the problems of scaling that have plagued so many in the IoT. There seems to be a consensus among vendors that the adoption of SCP and then the integration of CSL into them is a long way away, and that the mentions of SCP capabilities in the tendering process are effectively token lip service.
But integrating CSL into a wider SCP could be transformative. The CSL's networking capabilities can be used by all manner of other smart city applications that might not be capable of justifying such a network deployment in isolation, but which could piggyback on the connections between these lights and the SCP.
This would include things like environmental sensing, particularly air quality and noise pollution, presence detection and footfall analysis, to guide dimming schedules as well as provide valuable data for the city to use in decision making, and more advanced data-heavy tasks like video analytics for traffic and pedestrian routing, and public safety – including flood and weather warnings. This network could also be opened up to community and citizen projects, which might not be able to afford to build or lease a network independently
All these applications could be built upon the foundation that CSL inside a SCP provides, but the lack of enthusiasm has to be overcome first. To do this, there needs to be proven returns on investments in the Smart City market, which is considerably more difficult when benefits here can be more easily measure in societal improvements rather than dollars.
This is the latest forecast in the Riot Research Archive, which now includes:
- Smart Buildings
- Commercial & Industrial Demand Response
- Residential Demand Response & HEMS
- Satellite IoT
- Smart Home Devices
- Cybersecurity Spending
- LPWAN Key Use Cases
- IoT Endpoint Security
- Smart Home as a Service
- AI: Show me the Money
Who should read this report and what will they get out of it?
This report is for any person at C-Suite and strategy level that is trying to improve energy efficiency in cities and municipalities, at anyone involved in the operation and installation of street lighting infrastructure, and the ecosystem of equipment and service vendors looking to use connected street lighting as a platform to expand into the smart city market with. Network operators, service providers, and infrastructure and construction firms will all want to know how this market is expected to move in the coming years.
The data contained within this report, and the wealth of additional in-formation you will find in the Riot Research and Riot archives, will enrich your understanding of the IoT technologies at play here, and the wider ecosystem in which they exist. Nearly every business can use this understanding to optimize capital and operational expenditures, improve worker productivity, and win more contracts.
This report should be read by C-Suite individuals, systems integrators, electrical utilities, smart city providers, those in the energy transmission business and power generation, and technology and software suppliers to all of the above. Government regulators, lobbying firms, and strategic decision makers should all study the data contained.
This report includes:
- Numbers you can drop straight into your business case
- An expectation of the number of connected street lighting penetration
- A clear understanding of the initial scope of this market, without hype
Companies mentioned in this report:
Acrospire, Acuity Brands, All Urban, Ameresco, Ameresco, ANSI, Artform, Aura Light, Bri-Tek, Candela Light, Cimcon Lighting, Cintelly, Cree, CU Phosco, DimOnOff, DW Windsor, E.ON, Eaton, Echelon (Adesto), Elko, Emerson, Eneltec, Energy Systems Group (ESG), Engie, Flashnet (Engie), GE Current (Daintree), Gewiss, Glamocell, gridComm, GS Lighting, Hubbell, iGuzzini, inteliLight, Inui, Itron, Johnson Controls, Kingfisher Lighting, Landis+Gyr, LoRa Alliance, Lucy Zodion, Lumena, Luxtella, Luxtra, Mayflower Controls (SSE), NEC, NEMA, Nichia, Noresco, Novah, Optelma Lighting, Optonica, Osram, Philips Lightning (Signify), PPL Electric Utilities, Public Spaces, RenewableOn, Reverberi Enetec, Rongwen , Samsung, Schreder, Semtech, Sensus (Xylem), Siemens, Sollatek, Tanko Lighting, TE Connectivity, Telematics Wireless (ST Engineering), Telensa, Tonya Light, Tridonic, Trilliant, Tvilight , Ubicquia, VeeLite, Vision Accendo, Wi-SUN Alliance.
For more information contact:
Natalia Szczepanek
Client Relations and Marketing Manager
Office phone: +44 (0)1179 257019


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This page can be viewed at http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a042400domesticnofly&scale=2
This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event April 24, 2000: KSM and Other Al-Qaeda Figures Put on New US Domestic 'No-Fly' List. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
In June 2001, a CIA cable describing background information on bin Laden's associates will mention that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) is regularly traveling to the US. The CIA's Renditions Branch had been looking for KSM since at least 1997. In July 2001, the source of this information will positively identify KSM's photo from a line up and clarify that the last known time KSM went to the US was in the summer of 1998 (see June 12, 2001). Presumably, KSM may have been more reluctant to travel to the US after the crackdown on al-Qaeda in the wake of the August 1998 embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 277, 533) In May 1995, the FBI learned that KSM had been in the US, had a current and valid US visa, and was planning to come back to the US, possibly to take flying lessons (see April-May 1995). Additionally, KSM will receive a new US visa on July 23, 2001, though it isn't known if he ever uses it (see July 23, 2001).
Al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash unsuccessfully applies for a US visa in Sana'a, Yemen. His application, which is made under the alias Salah Saeed Mohammed bin Yousaf, is denied because he fails to submit sufficient documentation in support of it. Three actual hijackers obtain US visas in Saudi Arabia on the same day and shortly after (see April 3-7, 1999). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 492)
Already Known to US Intelligence - Bin Attash is already known to the US intelligence community at this point (see Summer 1999), at least partly because he briefed Mohamed al-Owhali, one of the 1998 African embassy bombers who was captured after the attack, and helped him make a martyrdom video in Pakistan. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/9/1998 ) The US will begin to associate this alias with terrorist activity no later than early 2000, when bin Attash uses it to take a flight with Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, who are under US and allied surveillance at that point (see January 8, 2000). However, the alias will not be watchlisted by the US until August 2001 (see August 23, 2001). Apparently, when the US learns the alias is associated with terrorism there is no check of visa application records, and this application and the fact it was made by an al-Qaeda leader will not be discovered until after 9/11 (see After January 8, 2000, After December 16, 2000, and After August 23, 2001).
US Contact - On the application, bin Attash gives his reason for going to the US as getting a new prosthesis for his missing leg, and he says Bothell, Washington State, is his final destination. Bin Attash's contact in Bothell is a man named Sarbarz Mohammed. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 155-6, 492) Mohammed contacts a clinic in the area and speaks to bin Attash once on the phone, but bin Attash says the new leg would cost too much and hangs up. Mohammed, who will later change his name to Sam Malkandi, will deny knowing bin Attash was a terrorist and say that he thought he was just helping a friend of a friend. However, he will later admit lying on his green card application and be arrested in 2005. (Skolnik 10/17/2005)
Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi intelligence minister until shortly before 9/11 (see August 31, 2001), will later claim that around this time its external intelligence agency tells the CIA that hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar have been put on a Saudi terror watch list. The Saudis have been tracking the two men, as well as Nawaf's brother Salem, for some time (see March 21, 1999, April 4, 1999, April 6, 1999, and After Early April 1999). Saeed Badeeb, Turki's chief analyst, and Nawaf Obaid, a security consultant to the Saudi government, support Turki's account though Turki himself will later back away from it after becoming Saudi ambassador to the US (see August 21, 2005). In 2003, Prince Turki will say, "What we told [the CIA] was these people were on our watch list from previous activities of al-Qaeda, in both the [1998] embassy bombings and attempts to smuggle arms into the kingdom in 1997," (see 1997 and October 4, 2001). However, the CIA strongly denies any such warning, although it begins following Almihdhar and Alhazmi around this time (see January 2-5, 2000 and January 5-8, 2000). (Solomon 10/16/2003; Follman 10/18/2003; Wright 2006, pp. 310-311, 448) The US will not put Almihdhar and Alhazmi on its watch list until August 2001 (see August 23, 2001).
The CIA's Counterterrorism Center sends a cable reminding all its personnel about various reporting obligations. The cable clearly states that it is important to share information so suspected members of US-designated terrorist groups can be placed on watch lists. The US keeps a number of watch lists; the most important one, TIPOFF, contains about 61,000 names of suspected terrorists by 9/11. (Meyer 9/22/2002; McCaffrey 1/27/2004) The list is checked whenever someone enters or leaves the US. "The threshold for adding a name to TIPOFF is low," and even a "reasonable suspicion" that a person is connected with a US-designated terrorist group warrants being added to the database. (US Congress 9/20/2002) Within a month, two future hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, will be identified as al-Qaeda operatives (see December 29, 1999), but the cable's instructions will not be followed for them. The CIA will initially tell the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that no such guidelines existed, and CIA Director Tenet will fail to mention the cable in his testimony to the Inquiry. (Gerth 5/15/2003; US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 157 )
The NSA, monitoring a telephone in an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen (see Late August 1998 and Late 1998-Early 2002), has listened in on phone calls revealing that hijackers Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Salem Alhazmi are to attend an important al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000 (see Shortly Before December 29, 1999). Almihdhar's full name was mentioned, as well as the first names of hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Salem Alhazmi. On this day, the NSA shares this information with the CIA's Alec Station bin Laden unit. Other US intelligence agencies, including FBI headquarters and the FBI's New York field office, are told as well. Although Khalid Almihdhar's full name was mentioned in one call, the NSA only passes on his first name. Also, the NSA has already learned from monitoring the Yemen hub that Nawaf's last name is Alhazmi and that he is long-time friends with Almihdhar (see Early 1999). However, they either don't look this up in their records or don't pass it on to any other agency. (9/11 Commission 1/26/2004, pp. 6 ; US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 239 ; Wright 2006, pp. 310) An NSA analyst makes a comment that is shared between US intelligence agencies, "Salem may be Nawaf's younger brother." This turns out to be correct. (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 135 ; 9/11 Commission 1/26/2004, pp. 6 ) A CIA officer will later tell the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that information from the Africa embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998) was reviewed in late 1999 during a worldwide effort to disrupt millennium attack plots (see December 15-31, 1999) and "a kind of tuning fork… buzzed when two [of the hijackers] reportedly planning a trip to [Malaysia] were linked indirectly to what appeared to be a support element… involved with the Africa bombers." (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 135 ) The fact that they are connected to the Yemen communication hub already indicates some importance within al-Qaeda. It is learned they are connected to the embassy bombings in some way (see October 4, 2001 and Late 1999). (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 135 ; 9/11 Commission 1/26/2004, pp. 6 ) The NSA report about them on this day is entitled, "Activities of Bin Laden Associates," showing the clear knowledge of their ties to bin Laden. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 502; Zeman et al. 11/2004) The CIA will track Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi to the Malaysia summit (see January 2-5, 2000 and January 5-8, 2000).
About a dozen of Osama bin Laden's trusted followers hold a secret, "top-level al-Qaeda summit" in the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Ressa 8/30/2002; Eckert 9/27/2002) According to an unnamed senior CIA official, before the summit started, the CIA learned that "11 young guys" were going to attend, and "young guys" is slang for operatives traveling. (Bamford 2008, pp. 18) Plans for the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000) and the 9/11 attacks are discussed. (Kelley 2/12/2002; Ressa 8/30/2002) At the request of the CIA, the Malaysian Secret Service monitors the summit and then passes the information on to the US (see January 5-8, 2000 and Shortly After). Attendees of the summit are said to include:
Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar - The CIA and FBI will later miss many opportunities to foil the 9/11 plot through Alhazmi and Almihdhar and the knowledge of their presence at this summit. The CIA already knows many details about these two by the time the summit begins (see January 2-4, 2000), and tracked Almihdhar as he traveled to it (see January 2-5, 2000).
Yazid Sufaat - Sufaat is a Malaysian who owns the condominium where the summit is held. He is also a trained biologist and is said to be a leading figure in al-Qaeda's attempts to get a biological or chemical weapon. (Shenon and Johnston 1/31/2002; Isikoff and Klaidman 6/2/2002) Malaysian officials also recognize Sufaat from summit surveillance photos, as he is a long-time Malaysian resident (see Shortly After January 8, 2000). (Pereira 2/10/2002) A possibility to expose the 9/11 plot through Sufaat's presence at this summit will later be missed in September 2000 (see September-October 2000). Sufaat will travel to Afghanistan in June 2001 and be arrested by Malaysian authorities when he returns to Malaysia in late 2001 (see December 19, 2001). (Abuza 12/24/2002) He will be released in 2008 (see December 4, 2008).
Hambali - An Indonesian militant known as Hambali, or Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin (BBC 8/15/2003) , was heavily involved in the Bojinka plot, an early version of the 9/11 plot (see January 6, 1995 and June 1994). (Ressa 3/14/2002; Ressa 8/30/2002) The FBI was aware of who he was and his connections to the Bojinka plot at least by 1999 and identified a photograph of him by that time (see May 23, 1999). He will be arrested by Thai authorities in August 2003 (see August 12, 2003). (CNN 8/14/2003; CBS News 8/15/2003) Malaysian officials recognize Hambali from summit surveillance photos, as he is a long-time Malaysian resident. But the US does not tell them of his Bojinka connections, so they will not know to arrest him after the summit is over (see Shortly After January 8, 2000). (Pereira 2/10/2002)
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - Mohammed is sometimes referred to as "KSM," an al-Qaeda leader and the alleged "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks. The US has known KSM is an Islamic militant since the exposure of Operation Bojinka in January 1995 (see January 6, 1995), and knows what he looks like. US officials will state that they only realized the summit was important in 2001, but the presence of KSM should have proved its importance. (Fineman and Drogin 2/2/2002) Although the possible presence of KSM at this summit will be disputed by US officials, one counterterrorism expert will testify before the 9/11 Commission in 2003 that he has access to transcripts of KSM's interrogations since his capture, and that KSM has admitted leading this summit and telling the attendees about a planes-as-weapons plot targeting the US (see July 9, 2003). (Isikoff and Hosenball 7/9/2003; Blomquist 7/10/2003) Many other media reports will identify him as being there. (Gumbel 6/6/2002; Ressa 8/30/2002; Ressa 11/7/2002; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 10/29/2003) For instance, according to Newsweek: "Mohammed's presence would make the intelligence failure of the CIA even greater. It would mean the agency literally watched as the 9/11 scheme was hatched—and had photographs of the attack's mastermind… doing the plotting." (Isikoff and Hosenball 7/9/2003) In Hambali's 2008 Guantanamo file, it will be mentioned that KSM stays a week at Sufaat's condominium with Alhazmi and Almihdhar, which would seem to make clear that KSM is there for the entire duration of the summit (see Early January 2000). (US Department of Defense 10/30/2008)
Khallad bin Attash - Khallad bin Attash, a "trusted member of bin Laden's inner circle," is in charge of bin Laden's bodyguards, and serves as bin Laden's personal intermediary at least for the USS Cole bombing. (Klaidman, Isikoff, and Hosenball 9/20/2001 ) He is also thought to be a "mastermind" of that attack. Attash is reportedly planning to be one of the 9/11 hijackers, but will be unable to get a US visa. (9/11 Commission 6/16/2004, pp. 8) US intelligence had been aware of his identity as early as 1995. (US Congress 9/18/2002) A possibility to expose the 9/11 plot through bin Attash's presence at this summit will be missed in January 2001 (see January 4, 2001). Bin Attash had been previously arrested in Yemen for suspected terror ties, but was let go (see Summer 1999). (Abuza 12/1/2002) He will be captured in Pakistan by the US in April 2003 (see April 29, 2003). In 2008, Newsweek will report that bin Attash confessed during interrogation that, while staying at Sufaat's condominium, he and Alhazmi talked "about the possibility of hijacking planes and crashing them or holding passengers as hostages." (Hosenball 12/16/2008)
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri - Al-Nashiri is one of al-Qaeda's top field commanders and operates out of Malaysia while 9/11 is being prepared. (Los Angeles Times 10/10/2001; Gunaratna 2003, pp. 188; Graham and Nussbaum 2004, pp. 59) He was involved in an arms smuggling plot (see 1997) and the East African embassy bombings (see August 22-25 1998), in which his cousin was martyred (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). He also organized the attack against the USS The Sullivans (see January 3, 2000), and will be involved in the attacks against the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000) and the Limburg (see October 6, 2002). He will be arrested in the United Arab Emirates in November 2002 (see Early October 2002). An al-Qaeda operative identified a photo of al-Nashiri for the FBI in late 1998 (see August 22-25 1998). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 152-3) (Note: in the sources, al-Nashiri is referred to by two of his aliases: Muhammad Omar al-Harazi and Al Safani.) (CNN 12/11/2000; Central Intelligence Agency 9/6/2006)
Ramzi bin al-Shibh - Investigators believe he wants to be the 20th 9/11 hijacker. His presence at the summit may not be realized until after 9/11, despite the fact that US intelligence has a picture of him next to bin Attash, and has video footage of him. (Thomas 11/26/2001; Finn 7/14/2002; Elliott 9/15/2002; Schrom 10/1/2002; Ressa 11/7/2002) German police will have credit card receipts indicating bin al-Shibh is in Malaysia at this time. (McDermott 9/1/2002) Ulrich Kersten, director of Germany's federal anticrime agency, the Bundeskriminalamt, will later say, "There are indications that Ramzi bin al-Shibh was in Kuala Lumpur for the meeting." (Frantz and Butler 8/24/2002) Another account noting he was photographed at the summit will further note that he enters and leaves Thailand three times in the first three weeks of January 2000. (Drogin and Meyer 10/17/2001) Anonymous Malaysian officials will later claim he is at the summit, but US officials will deny it. Two local militants who serve as drivers for the attendees will later be arrested in Malaysia. They will be shown photos of the attendees, and confirm that bin al-Shibh was at the summit. (Sullivan 9/20/2002) One account will say he is recognized at the time of the summit, which makes it hard to understand why he is not tracked back to Germany and the Hamburg cell with Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers. (Gebauer 10/1/2002) Another opportunity to expose the 9/11 plot through bin al-Shibh's presence at this summit will be missed in June. It appears bin al-Shibh and Almihdhar are directly involved in the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 (see October 10-21, 2000). (Whitaker 10/15/2001; Finn 7/14/2002; Hosenball 9/4/2002)
Salem Alhazmi - Alhazmi, a 9/11 hijacker and brother of Nawaf Alhazmi, is possibly at the summit, although very few accounts will mention it. (Abuza 12/24/2002) US intelligence intercepts from before the summit indicate that he at least had plans to attend. (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 51 )
Abu Bara al-Taizi (a.k.a. Zohair Mohammed Said) - A Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, al-Taizi is reportedly meant to be one of the 9/11 hijackers, but will be unable to enter the US due to greater scrutiny for Yemenis. (9/11 Commission 6/16/2004, pp. 8) Al-Taizi will be captured in Pakistan in February 2002, and then sent to the US prison in Guantanamo a few months later (see February 7, 2002). According to his 2008 Guantanamo file, he traveled from Afghanistan to Malaysia with bin Attash about two weeks before the summit. Bin Attash was missing a leg, and he had a prosthetic leg fitted and then stayed in the hospital to recover from the surgery. Bin Attash and al-Taizi stay at Sufaat's house for the duration of the summit. Al-Taizi then flies to Yemen to visit his family there. (US Department of Defense 10/25/2008)
Others - Unnamed members of the Egyptian-based Islamic Jihad are also said to be at the summit. (King and Bhatt 10/21/2001) Islamic Jihad merged with al-Qaeda in February 1998. (James 11/17/2001) However, according to the Wall Street Journal, bin Attash and Fahad al-Quso are suspected of being Islamic Jihad members at one point, so this may just be a reference to them. (Cloud, Wartzman, and Tkacik 10/8/2001) Note that there are a total of 10 names mentioned above, and it will be reported that the CIA learned that 11 operatives were to attend, so either not all of them make it, or some names of attendees will remain unknown.
Summit Associates - The following individuals are probably not at the summit meetings, but are in the region and assisting or linked with the attendees at this time:
Fahad Al-Quso - Al-Quso is a top al-Qaeda operative who is involved in the bombing of the USS Cole. Some sources will indicate al-Quso is present in Malaysia, and a person who looks like him will later be seen in a photograph of the meeting (see June 11, 2001). (Klaidman, Isikoff, and Hosenball 9/20/2001 ) However, other sources will say al-Quso did not reach Kuala Lumpur, but met with bin Attash around this time in Bangkok, Thailand (see January 5-6, 2000 and January 8-15, 2000). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 159; Wright 2006, pp. 330) Although al-Quso apparently is not at the summit, there are a series of phone calls during the time of the summit between his hotel in Bangkok, a phone booth near the condominium where the summit is held, and his family home in Yemen (see (January 5-8, 2000)). Al-Quso will be arrested by Yemeni authorities in the fall of 2000 (see Late October-Late November 2000), but the FBI will not be given a chance to fully interrogate him before 9/11. He will escape from prison in 2003. (CNN 5/15/2003)
Ahmad Sajuli Abdul Rahman - An operative of Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate, Sajuli takes the visiting Arabs around Kuala Lumpur, but apparently does not attend the summit meetings. (US Congress 10/17/2002) According to the later Guantanamo file of summit attendee al-Taizi, one of the attendees Sajuli escorts around town is future 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar. Sajuli also helps arrange al-Taizi's transportation at the end of the summit. (US Department of Defense 10/25/2008) Sajuli will be arrested in Malaysia in December 2001 (see December 29, 2001).
Ahmad Hikmat Shakir - A suspected al-Qaeda agent of Iraqi nationality, Shakir is a greeter at Kuala Lumpur airport. He meets Almihdhar there and travels with him to the apartment where the summit is held, but he probably does not attend the summit meetings. (Associated Press 10/2/2002; Isikoff and Klaidman 10/7/2002; Abuza 12/24/2002; Landay 6/12/2004) After 9/11, he will be linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Bojinka plot. Jordan will arrest him and let him go after the US says it doesn't want to take custody of him (see September 17, 2001).
Dhiren Barot - Dhiren Barot (a.k.a. Abu Eissa al-Hindi) is a British citizen of Indian descent. According to a 2006 Observer article, Barot "is not believed to have been present" at the summit meetings. However, he does go to Kuala Lumpur during the time of the summit with summit attendee bin Attash. And shortly after the summit, Barot holds meetings with Hambali. It will later be reported that Barot is sent by KSM to New York City in early 2001 to case potential targets there, although whether this is part of the 9/11 plot or some other plot is unclear (see May 30, 2001). Barot will be arrested in 2004 in Britain for plotting attacks there, and sentenced to 30 years in prison (see August 3, 2004). (Doward 12/12/2006)
Another Unnamed Local Militant - Malaysian officials will say that two local Jemaah Islamiyah act as drivers for the attendees. These drivers apparently have no idea who the attendees are or what they are doing; they are just tasked to drive them around. In a 2002 Associated Press article, officials will not name these drivers, but will say that they are among the dozens of alleged Jemaah Islamiyah militants arrested in December 2001 and January 2002. Since Sajuli mentioned above is arrested at that time, he presumably is one of these drivers. It is not known who the other driver is. (Sufaat will be arrested at that time as well, but the Associated Press article will make clear Sufaat is not one of the drivers.) (Sullivan 9/20/2002)
Probably Not Involved: Mohamed al-Khatani - A Saudi, he allegedly will confess to attending the summit while being held in the US Guantanamo prison (see July 2002). He apparently will unsuccessfully attempt to enter the US in August 2001 to join the 9/11 plot (see August 4, 2001). However, al-Khatani will later recant his testimony and say he lied to avoid torture (see October 26, 2006). Furthermore, his 2008 Guantanamo file, leaked to the public in 2011, contains no hint of him even possibly attending the summit. The contents of the file must be treated with extreme caution, especially since he is repeatedly and brutally tortured (see August 8, 2002-January 15, 2003 and January 14, 2009). But according to the general narrative of the file, al-Khatani had no involvement with Islamist militancy in early 2000, only starts to get involved with militants in mid-2000, and first attends a militant training camp in Afghanistan in late 2000. (US Department of Defense 10/30/2008)
Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi who met 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, around the time of an al-Qaeda summit there, leaves the country (see January 5-8, 2000). The connection between Shakir and Almihdhar is unclear, as Shakir met Almihdhar while working as a greeter of Arab visitors at the airport, but then accompanied Almihdhar to the place he was staying and was videotaped with him there by the Malaysian authorities (see January 5, 2000). Shakir is said to have got the job at the airport with the help of an Iraqi intelligence officer, raising concerns of Iraqi involvement in 9/11. However, although Shakir is watchlisted before 9/11 (see August 23, 2001) and arrested and released twice afterwards (see September 17, 2001), his connection to Saddam Hussein's regime is found to be not as strong as alleged (see Before June 21, 2004). (Landay 6/12/2004; Pincus and Eggen 6/22/2004; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 502)
Acting on a tipoff by the CIA, Thai intelligence puts 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi on its watch list. In addition, it puts an alias al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash is using (Salah Saeed Mohammed bin Yousaf) on the watch list (see January 20, 2000). The CIA is aware that the three men arrived in Bangkok on January 8 (see January 8, 2000), but seems to be unable to locate them in Thailand (see January 13, 2000). The Thai authorities will note their departure from Bangkok on January 15, but will not stop them and apparently will not inform the CIA of this for some time (see January 15, 2000 and March 5, 2000). (Bamford 2004, pp. 230; 9/11 Commission 1/26/2004, pp. 6 ) The CIA is apparently unaware of Alhazmi's full name at this point (see January 8-9, 2000), but this does not prevent the watchlisting. The CIA will not add the three to the US watch list until late August 2001 (see August 23, 2001).
Following a request by the CIA, the NSA puts hijacker 9/11 Khalid Almihdhar on its watch list. This means that the NSA should pass details of any new monitored communications involving him to the CIA. (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 157 ; 9/11 Commission 1/26/2004, pp. 6 ) The CIA is looking for Almihdhar and knows he has a US visa (see January 13, 2000), but fails to add him to the State Department's watch list until 19 months later (see August 23, 2001). The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will later state: "In mid-January 2000, NSA queried its databases for information concerning Khaled [redacted]. These queries remained active until May 2000, but did not uncover any information." In fact, the NSA intercepts eight of Almihdhar's calls from San Diego to Yemen during this time and even gives some details about some of the calls to the FBI (see Spring-Summer 2000). However, they do not tell the CIA everything about them, despite the watch list requirement to provide the information. It is not clear why the NSA failed to share this with the CIA. It is also not known if or when Almihdhar was removed from the NSA watch list before 9/11. (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 157 )
Fifty to sixty CIA officers read cables reporting on travel by 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. The cables are generated in connection with al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit, which Almihdhar and Alhazmi attend and the CIA monitors (see January 5-8, 2000). Even though some of the cables state that Almihdhar has a US visa and Alhazmi has arrived in the US, the FBI is not informed of this (see, for example, January 6, 2000 and March 5, 2000), and the two men are not watchlisted until the summer of 2001 (see August 23, 2001). The cables are drafted at four field offices and at headquarters and are read by overseas officers, headquarters personnel, operations officers, analysts, managers, junior employees, CIA staff, and officers on attachment from the NSA and FBI. The CIA's inspector general will comment: "Over an 18-month period, some of these officers had opportunities to review the information on multiple occasions, when they might have recognized its significance and shared it appropriately with other components and agencies." (Central Intelligence Agency 6/2005, pp. xiv )
After being prompted by CIA colleagues in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to provide information about what happened to future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar and al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash after they flew from Malaysia to Thailand on January 8, 2000 (see January 8, 2000 and (February 25, 2000)), the CIA station in Bangkok, Thailand, sends out a cable saying that Alhazmi arrived in the US from Thailand with an apparently unnamed companion on January 15 (see January 15, 2000). This information was received from Thai intelligence, which watchlisted Almihdhar and Alhazmi after being asked to do so by the CIA (see January 13, 2000 and January 15, 2000). (New York Times 10/17/2002; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 181, 502)
Companion - The companion to whom the cable refers is presumably Almihdhar. According to later testimony of a senior FBI official, the CIA learns the companion is Almihdhar at this time: "In March 2000, the CIA received information concerning the entry of Almihdhar and Alhazmi into the United States." (US Congress 9/20/2002) The CIA disputes this, however. (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 157 ) If the companion the cable refers to is Almihdhar, then it is unclear why he would not be named, as the NSA has been intercepting his calls for at least a year (see Early 1999), he was under CIA surveillance earlier in January (see January 5-8, 2000), he is known to have a US visa (see January 2-5, 2000), he is associated with Alhazmi (see January 8-9, 2000), and this cable is prompted by another cable specifically asking where Almihdhar is (see February 11, 2000).
Missed Opportunity - Later, CIA officials, including CIA Director George Tenet and Counterterrorist Center Director Cofer Black, will admit that this was one of the missed opportunities to watchlist the hijackers. Black will say: "I think that month we watchlisted about 150 people. [The watchlisting] should have been done. It wasn't." Almihdhar and Alhazmi will not be added to the US watchlist until August 2001 (see August 23, 2001). (New York Times 10/17/2002; US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 157 )
Unclear Who Reads Cable - Although Tenet will tell the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that nobody at CIA headquarters reads this cable at this time (see October 17, 2002), the CIA's inspector general will conclude that "numerous" officers access this cable and others about Almihdhar. (US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria District 3/28/2006 ) These officers are not named, but Tom Wilshire, the CIA's deputy unit chief in charge of monitoring the two men at this time, will access it in May 2001 at the same time as he accesses other cables about Almihdhar from early 2000 (see May 15, 2001). The 9/11 Commission will say that the cables are "reexamined" at this time, suggesting that Wilshire may have read them before. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 267, 537) Wilshire certainly did access at least two of the cables in January 2000, indicating he may read the cable about the arrival of Alhazmi and the unnamed companion in the US in March 2000. (US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 240, 282 )
FBI Not Informed - The knowledge that Alhazmi has entered the US will be disseminated throughout the CIA, but not to the FBI or other US intelligence agencies (see March 6, 2000 and After). When asked about the failure by the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, Wilshire will be unable to explain it, saying: "It's very difficult to understand what happened with that cable when it came in. I do not know exactly why it was missed. It would appear that it was missed completely." (US Congress 9/20/2002)
TIPOFF is a US no-fly list of individuals who should be detained if they attempt to leave or enter the US. There are about 60,000 names on this list by 9/11 (see December 11, 1999). Apparently there had been no prohibition of travel inside the US, but on this day an FAA security directive puts six names on a newly created domestic no-fly list. All six are said to be associates of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, including his uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). On August 28, 2001, six more names will be added to this list. Apparently all 12 names are associated with al-Qaeda or other Islamic extremist groups. 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey will later note the discrepancy of the 60,000-name list with the 12-name list and comment, "seems to me, particularly with what was going on at the time, that some effort would have been made to make—to produce a larger list than [only 12 names]." (9/11 Commission 1/27/2004) The FAA's chief of security in 2001, Cathal Flynn, will later say that he was "unaware of the TIPOFF list" until after the September 11 attacks. 9/11 Commissioner Slade Gorton will say that this admission is "stunning, just unbeleivable," and an "example of absolute incompetence" at the FAA. Other FAA officials will say they are aware of the larger list, but do not make much use of it. (Shenon 2008, pp. 115) On the day of 9/11, two of the 9/11 hijackers will be on the 60,000-name TIPOFF list but not the 12-name domestic list, so airport security does not know to stop them from boarding the planes they hijack that day (see August 23, 2001).
Under interrogation after 9/11, al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash will claim he met some of the 9/11 hijackers at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan in the summer of 2000. Although he will not be able to recall all of them, he will say the group includes Satam Al Suqami, Waleed and Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Hamza Alghamdi, Salem Alhazmi, and Majed Moqed. He will say he was closest to Saeed Alghamdi, whom he convinced to become a martyr and whom he asked to recruit a friend, Ahmed Alghamdi, to the same cause. However, doubts will later be expressed about the reliability of such statements from prisoners like bin Attash, due to the methods used to obtain them (see June 16, 2004) (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 233-4) Al-Qaeda's division of passports and host country issues is based at the airport and it alters passports, visas and identification cards. Some people involved in the plot will later be reported to have altered travel documents (see July 23, 2001). (9/11 Commission 8/21/2004, pp. 56 ) 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alnami and would-be hijacker Mushabib al-Hamlan are also said to be at the same Kandahar camp, Al Farooq, and are assigned to guard the airport. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 526) By the late 1990s, the Kandahar airport will become the main logistics lifeline for al-Qaeda and the Taliban to the outside world. One Ariana pilot will later recall, "I would see Arabs with [satellite] phones walking around the terminal, in touch with the Taliban at the highest levels." On one occasion, he sees Taliban ruler Mullah Omar meeting in the middle of the airport with a rebel leader from Tajikistan, surrounded by aides. "There they were, cross-legged on their mats, chattering into cell phones." (Farah and Braun 2007, pp. 140) At this time, the Kandahar airport is being mainly used by Ariana Airlines, which has been completely co-opted by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and aircraft companies controlled by international arms dealer Victor Bout (see 1998).
After an informant identifies a photo of al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash for the CIA, indicating that he was at al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit (see January 4, 2001), the CIA fails to place him on the US watch list. The identification links bin Attash, who was involved in the attack on the USS Cole, to 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. The CIA has already been informed that Alhazmi entered the US in March 2000, yet once again they fail to watchlist either Alhazmi or Almihdhar. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will point out, "In January 2001, Khalid Almihdhar was abroad, his visa had expired, and he would have to clear a watch list check before obtaining a new visa to re-enter the United States." (Meyer 9/22/2002; US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 148-150 ) CNN later notes that at this point the CIA, at the very least, "could have put Alhazmi and Almihdhar and all others who attended the [summit] in Malaysia on a watch list to be kept out of this country. It was not done." (Ensor 6/4/2002) One of bin Attash's aliases, Salah Saeed Muhammed bin Yousaf, will be placed on the US watch list on August 23, at the same time as Alhazmi and Almihdhar (see August 23, 2001), but US authorities apparently will not be aware that this is actually one of his aliases at that point. (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 152 ; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 538; US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 302 )
In 2005 (see February 10, 2005), it will be revealed that of the FAA's 105 daily intelligence summaries between these dates, 52 mention bin Laden, al-Qaeda, or both. Most of the mentions are "in regard to overseas threats." None of the warnings specifically predict something similar to the 9/11 attacks, but five of them mention al-Qaeda's training for hijackings and two reports concern suicide operations unconnected to aviation. (Associated Press 2/11/2005) One of the warnings mentions air defense measures being taken in Genoa, Italy, for the July 2001 G-8 summit to protect from a possible air attack by terrorists (see July 20-22, 2001). However, the New Jersey Star-Ledger is virtually the only newspaper in the US to report this fact. (Cohen 2/11/2005) Despite all these warnings, the FAA fails to take any extra security measures. They do not expand the use of in-flight air marshals or tighten airport screening for weapons. A proposed rule to improve passenger screening and other security measures ordered by Congress in 1996 has held up and is still not in effect by 9/11. The 9/11 Commission's report on these FAA warnings released in 2005 (see February 10, 2005) will conclude that FAA officials were more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing air carriers' financial problems than preventing a hijacking. (Associated Press 2/11/2005) The FAA also makes no effort to expand its list of terror suspects, which includes only a dozen names by 9/11 (see April 24, 2000). The former head of the FAA's civil aviation security branch later says he wasn't even aware of TIPOFF, the government's main watch list, which included the names of two 9/11 hijackers before 9/11. Nor is there any evidence that a senior FAA working group responsible for security ever meets in 2001 to discuss "the high threat period that summer." (Lichtblau 2/10/2005)
Future 9/11 hijacker Saeed Alghamdi wires $1,360 from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to someone in Johannesburg, South Africa. The name of the person who receives the Western Union wire is Abdullah Abdulrahman Alghamdi, according to an FBI document of 9/11 hijacker activities made after the attacks. (Investigative Services Division, FBI Headquarters 4/19/2002) The name may be an alias for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), who uses very similar aliases and travels very widely in the years before 9/11 (see for instance June 1998). For example, around this same time KSM applies for a US visa using a passport with the name Abdulrahman al Ghamdi and a real photo of himself (see July 23, 2001). Also, a 2006 Guantanamo document will give one of his aliases as Abdul Rahman Abdullah Faqasi al-Ghamdi. (US Department of Defense 8/12/2006) A later Justice Department indictment will give one of his aliases as Abdulrahman Abdullah al-Ghamdi. (US District Court Southern District of New York 4/4/2011 ) There is no publicly known al-Qaeda presence in South Africa at this time. However, there is an intriguing mention in another intelligence document that an al-Qaeda operative linked to KSM told another al-Qaeda leader in early 2000 of an address in South Africa where a contact existed who could provide help (see Early January 2000).
The FAA conducts 27 briefings for airline companies in this time period. However, each briefing only addresses hijacking threats overseas. This is despite the fact that from March to May, the FAA conducted briefings for US airports that raised concerns about hijackings in the domestic US, and even told airports that if hijackers wanted to end a hijacking with a suicidal "spectacular explosion" it would make more sense to do it in the domestic US (see March-May 2001). Also during roughly the same May to September time period, about half of the FAA's daily intelligence briefings mention bin Laden or al-Qaeda, and one of those specifically referred to an al-Qaeda plot using planes as weapons. Even though some of these mentions are connected to domestic threats, airlines are only briefed about the overseas threats (see April 1, 2001-September 10, 2001). (Cohen 2/11/2005; Adcock and Berry 2/11/2005)
A CIA report says that a man named "Khaled" is actively recruiting people to travel to various countries, including the US, to stage attacks. CIA headquarters presume from the details of this report that Khaled is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). On July 11, the individual source for this report is shown a series of photographs and identifies KSM as the person he called "Khaled." (Diamond 12/12/2002; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 277, 533) This report also reveals that:
Al-Qaeda operatives heading to the US would be "expected to establish contact with colleagues already living there."
KSM himself had traveled to the US frequently, and as recently as May 2001.
KSM is a relative of bomber Ramzi Yousef.
He appears to be one of bin Laden's most trusted leaders.
He routinely tells others that he can arrange their entry into the US as well. However, the CIA doesn't find this report credible because they think it is unlikely that he would come to the US (in fact, it appears he had (see Summer 1998)). Nevertheless, they consider it worth pursuing. One agent replies, "If it is KSM, we have both a significant threat and an opportunity to pick him up." In July, the source clarifies that the last time he can definitely place KSM in the US was in the summer of 1998 (see Summer 1998). The CIA disseminates the report to all other US intelligence agencies, military commanders, and parts of the Treasury and Justice Departments. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will later request that the CIA inform them how CIA agents and other agencies reacted to this information, but the CIA does not respond to this. (US Congress 7/24/2003) It appears that KSM will send at least one and probably two operatives to the US after this time and before 9/11 (see August 4, 2001 and September 10, 2001). On July 23, 2001, the US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia will give KSM a US visa (he uses an alias but his actual photo appears on his application) (see July 23, 2001). Also, during this summer and as late as September 10, 2001, the NSA will intercept phone calls between KSM and Mohamed Atta, but the NSA will not share this information with any other agencies (see Summer 2001).
9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi flies from Newark to Miami and presumably meets the other hijackers there. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 243) Earlier in the month the CIA showed the FBI a photo of Alhazmi taken at a meeting in Malaysia with other al-Qaeda members, but refused to identify him in the photo (see June 11, 2001). The CIA will watchlist Alhazmi in August (see August 23, 2001), but his Florida trip apparently fails to lead US intelligence to the other hijackers. He obtains a Florida driver's license on June 25 (see April 12-September 7, 2001), giving the same address as two of the other Florida-based hijackers, but this will not be noticed before 9/11 either. (Bousquet and Ulferts 9/16/2001; 9/11 Commission 8/21/2004, pp. 26 ) Alhazmi purchased his ticket for the outward journey at Apollo Travel in Paterson, New Jersey, which was also used by Mohamed Atta (see March 2001-September 1, 2001), and perhaps some of the other hijackers (see July 2001). (CNN 10/29/2001)
On July 5, 2001, counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke gave a dramatic briefing to representatives from several domestic agencies on the urgent al-Qaeda threat (see July 5, 2001). However, the warnings given generally are not passed on by the attendees back to their respective agencies. The domestic agencies were not questioned about how they planned to address the threat and were not told what was expected of them. According to the 9/11 Commission, attendees later "report that they were told not to disseminate the threat information they received at the meeting. They interpreted this direction to mean that although they could brief their superiors, they could not send out advisories to the field." One National Security Council official has a different recollection of what happened, recalling that attendees were asked to take the information back to their agencies and "do what you can" with it, subject to classification and distribution restrictions. But, for whatever reason, none of the involved agencies post internal warnings based on the meeting, except for Customs which puts out a general warning based entirely on publicly known historical facts. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 258, 264) The FAA issues general and routine threat advisories that don't reflect the level of urgency expressed by Clarke and others (see January-August 2001). FAA Administrator Jane Garvey later claims she was unaware of a heightened threat level, but in 2005 it will be revealed that about half of the FAA's daily briefings during this time period referred to bin Laden or al-Qaeda (see April 1, 2001-September 10, 2001). (Johnston and Dwyer 4/18/2004) Clarke said rhetorically in the meeting that he wants to know if a sparrow has fallen from a tree. A senior FBI official attended the meeting and promised a redoubling of the FBI's efforts. However, just five days after Clarke's meeting, FBI agent Ken Williams sends off his memo speculating that al-Qaeda may be training operatives as pilots in the US (see July 10, 2001), yet the FBI fails to share this information with Clarke or any other agency. (Gellman 5/17/2002; Clarke 2004, pp. 236-37) The FBI will also fail to tell Clarke about the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui (see August 16, 2001), or what they know about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar (see August 23, 2001).
The G8 summit is held in Genoa, Italy. Acting on previous warnings that al-Qaeda would attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders, Italian authorities surround the summit with anti-aircraft guns. They keep fighter jets in the air and close off local airspace to all planes. (Los Angeles Times 9/27/2001) The warnings are taken so seriously that Bush stays overnight on an aircraft carrier offshore, and other world leaders stay on a luxury ship. (CNN 7/18/2001) No attack occurs. US officials state that the warnings were "unsubstantiated," but after 9/11, they will claim success in preventing an attack. (Los Angeles Times 9/27/2001) According to author Philip Shenon, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is involved in discussions about the precautions, and this is the only time she focuses on al-Qaeda threats in the summer of 2001. Shenon will add: "There is no record to show that Rice made any special effort to discuss terrorist threats with Bush. The record suggested, instead, that it was not a matter of special interest to either of them that summer." (Shenon 2008, pp. 154)
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) is granted a visa to enter the US, despite being under a federal terrorism indictment, having a $2 million reward on his head, and being one of only a dozen people in the world on a US domestic no-fly list (see April 24, 2000). There is no evidence that he actually uses his visa to travel to the US. Investigators speculate that he may have considered a trip to shepherd some aspect of the 9/11 plot. He applied for the visa using a Saudi passport and an alias (Abdulrahman al Ghamdi), but the photo he submitted is really of him. He uses the new, controversial Visa Express program that allows Saudis to apply for US visas without having to appear in person at any point during the application process (see May 2001). (Miller and Meyer 1/27/2004) Just a month earlier, the CIA passed a warning to all US intelligence agencies, certain military commanders, and parts of the Justice and Treasury Departments saying that Mohammed may be attempting to enter the US (see June 12, 2001). However, either this warning isn't given to immigration officials or else they fail to notice his application. (Miller and Meyer 1/27/2004)
The NSA has been intercepting calls between at least two 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, in the US and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Sana'a, Yemen, run by al-Qaeda operative Ahmed al-Hada over an approximately 18-month period before 9/11 (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). According to MSNBC, the final intercepted call comes "only weeks" before 9/11. (Myers 7/21/2004) Around the same time there is great alarm in the US intelligence community over a communications intercept in Yemen indicating there was going to be a major al-Qaeda attack against US interests (see June 30-July 1, 2001). Further, the investigation of the USS Cole bombing has reignited interest in Almihdhar and Alhazmi on the part of the US intelligence community since at least June 2001 (see June 11, 2001 and July 13, 2001). The two of them are placed on an international no-fly list in late August (see August 23, 2001).
An FBI agent detailed to the CIA's bin Laden unit locates CIA cables saying that future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi entered the US in early 2000. The agent, Margaret Gillespie, then checks with the US Customs Service and discovers that another future 9/11 hijacker, Khalid Almihdhar, entered the US on July 4, 2001, and there is no record he has left the country. As there is "an imperative to find anyone affiliated with al-Qaeda if they [are] believed to be in the US," Gillespie immediately contacts Dina Corsi, an FBI agent in its bin Laden unit. Gillespie, who has been examining the USS Cole bombing and al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit for some time, will later say that when she learns of their arrival in the US, "it all clicks for me." The Justice Department's office of inspector general will find that Gillespie's "actions on receipt of the information clearly indicate that she understood the significance of this information when she received it. She took immediate steps to open an intelligence investigation." Gillespie and Corsi meet with Tom Wilshire, a CIA officer involved in the investigation (see August 22, 2001), and Almihdhar and Alhazmi are soon watchlisted (see August 23, 2001). (US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 300-301, 313 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division 7/31/2006 )
FBI headquarters agent Dina Corsi learns that al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash attended a summit in Malaysia that was also attended by 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi (see January 5-8, 2000); an e-mail sent by Corsi on this date contains the first reference in FBI documents to bin Attash's presence at the Malaysia summit. Although it is her job to support the investigation into the attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000), which bin Attash commanded, and she is aware that bin Attash is important to the Cole investigation, even saying that she is focused on his identity and whereabouts, she fails to communicate this information to the agents investigating the bombing, who do not receive it before 9/11 (see August 30, 2001). After 9/11, she will say she cannot recall how she learned this information and an investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General will fail to find any documents that cast light on the matter. Although she does not do anything with this information before another FBI agent tells her Khalid Almihdhar is in the US (see August 21-22, 2001), she will later say that the information bin Attash was at the Malaysia summit was important, as it connected Almihdhar and Alhazmi to the Cole bombing. She will also say that CIA officers Tom Wilshire and Clark Shannon, who she discussed al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit with and who knew that bin Attash was in Malaysia with Alhazmi and Almihdhar (see Late May, 2001, Mid-May 2001 and June 11, 2001), did not give her this information. Although Corsi and others know that bin Attash is an important al-Qaeda leader, he is not watchlisted at this point, although one of his aliases is watchlisted in August (see August 23, 2001). (US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 280, 284, 286, 293, 296, 302 )
Thanks to the request of Margaret Gillespie, an FBI analyst assigned to the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center, the CIA sends a cable to the State Department, INS, Customs Service, and FBI requesting that "bin Laden-related individuals" Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, and Salah Saeed Mohammed bin Yousaf (an alias for Khallad bin Attash) be put on the terrorism watch list. All four individuals had attended the January 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000). The cable mostly focuses on Almihdhar, briefly outlining his attendance at the Malaysia summit and his subsequent travel to the US in January 2000 and July 2001. Since March 2000, if not earlier, the CIA has had good reason to believe Alhazmi and Almihdhar were al-Qaeda operatives living in the US, but apparently did nothing and told no other agency about it until now. The hijackers are not located in time, and both die in the 9/11 attacks. FBI agents later state that if they been told about Alhazmi and Almihdhar sooner, "There's no question we could have tied all 19 hijackers together" given the frequent contact between these two and the other hijackers. (Isikoff and Klaidman 6/2/2002; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 538; US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 32-36, 302) However, in what the Washington Post calls a "critical omission," the FAA, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and the FBI's Financial Review Group are not notified. The two latter organizations have the power to tap into private credit card and bank data, and claim they could have readily found Alhazmi and Almihdhar, given the frequency the two used credit cards. (Smith 7/25/2003) Furthermore, counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and his Counterterrorism Security Group are not told about these two operatives before 9/11 either. (Isikoff and Hosenball 3/24/2004) The CIA later claims the request was labeled "immediate," the second most urgent category (the highest is reserved for things like declarations of war). (Drogin, Lichtblua, and Krikorian 10/28/2001) The FBI denies that it was marked "immediate" and other agencies treated the request as a routine matter. (Drogin, Lichtblau, and Krikorian 10/18/2001; US Congress 9/20/2002) The State Department places all four men on the watch list the next day. (US Congress 7/24/2003 ) However, this watch list, named TIPOFF, checks their names only if they use international flights. There is another watch list barring suspected terrorists from flying domestically. On 9/11, it contains only 12 names, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other al-Qaeda figures, and some names are added as late as August 28, 2001. But none of these four men are added to this domestic list before 9/11.(see April 24, 2000). (9/11 Commission 1/26/2004)
When the US intelligence community watchlists the alias Salah Saeed Mohammed bin Yousaf, which is used by al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash (see August 23, 2001), it fails to realize that "bin Yousaf" is really bin Attash, who is known to be one of the masterminds of the USS Cole bombing (see Late October-Late November 2000 and November 22-December 16, 2000). The CIA knows that both bin Attash and "Salah Saeed Mohammed bin Yousaf" were in Malaysia with 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi in January 2000 (see January 5-8, 2000, January 8, 2000, and January 4, 2001). Furthermore, the CIA has a photo of bin Attash provided by the Yemeni government, and surveillance photos and video of bin Attash with Alhazmi and Almihdhar at an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000 and Shortly After and January 5, 2000). And when bin Attash applied for a US visa, he used the "bin Yousaf" alias (see April 3, 1999), so presumably a comparison of his photo from that application with other photos would reveal that "bin Yousaf" and bin Attash are one and the same person. However, apparently no check is made for any US visa of "bin Yousaf," even after he is watchlisted to prevent him from coming into the US, which would require a visa. Had a check been made, it would have been discovered that he applied for a visa at the same time as both Almihdhar and Alhazmi (see April 3-7, 1999), the very people who have been watchlisted together with him. Presumably, discovering that Alhazmi and Almihdhar had applied for US visas with one of the Cole masterminds would have greatly increased the urgency of finding them. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 538; US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 248, 300-3 ) The US missed other opportunities to learn more about this alias (see After January 8, 2000 and After December 16, 2000).
Hijacker Khalid Almihdhar buys his 9/11 plane ticket on-line using a credit card; hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi does the same two days later, and also buys a ticket for his brother Salem (see August 25-September 5, 2001). Both men were put on a terrorist watch list on August 23 (see August 23, 2001), but the watch list only means they will be stopped if trying to enter or leave the US. There is another watch list that applies to domestic flights that some of their associates are on, but they are only placed on the international watch list (see April 24, 2000). Procedures are in place for law enforcement agencies to share watch list information with airlines and airports and such sharing is common, but the FAA and the airlines are not notified about this case, so the purchases raise no red flags. (Lichtblau 9/20/2001; US Congress 9/26/2002) An official later states that had the FAA been properly warned, "they should have been picked up in the reservation process." (Washington Post 10/2/2002) On September 4 and 5, 2001, an FBI agent will attempt to find Alhazmi and Almihdhar in the US, but will fail to conduct a simple credit card check that should have revealed these purchases (see September 4-5, 2001).
A car rented by 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi is queried by police in Totowa, New Jersey. This incident is inputted into the NCIC, a widely used nationwide police database. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 10/2001, pp. 236 ) Alhazmi rented the car, a Chrysler Concorde, on August 20 in nearby Wayne, New Jersey. He used his Florida driver's license for ID. He stays in the area until September 1, when he returns the car and goes to Maryland. (Feyerick and Hirschkorn 9/26/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation 10/2001, pp. 229, 247 ) Alhazmi had been put on a terrorist watch list several days earlier along with his companion Khalid Almihdhar (see August 23, 2001), and the FBI has been tasked to search for them in the US. On September 5, 2001, FBI agent Robert Fuller will allegedly search the NCIC database, although evidence suggests he does not actually do so (see September 5, 2001). It is unknown how quickly this incident is added to the database and if it would be there in time for Fuller to discover.
The CIA finally tells the FBI that al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash attended an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000 with future 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi (see January 5-8, 2000). The CIA monitored the meeting and has known that bin Attash attended it for at least eight months (see January 4, 2001), but repeatedly failed to tell the FBI of this (see Shortly Before February 1, 2001, February 1, 2001, Mid-May 2001, and June 11, 2001). The CIA will later say that it thought the FBI knew of the identification in January 2001 (see January 5, 2001 and After), but a CIA manager asked for permission to pass the information to the FBI in July 2001, implying he knew the FBI did not have the information (see July 13, 2001). (US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 298, 305, 310 ) In addition, the text of the notifiction states, "We wish to advise you that, during a previously scheduled meeting with our joint source," bin Attash was identified in a surveillance photo. (US Congress 7/24/2003, pp. 150 ) The cable containing the information is for Rodney Middleton, acting head of the FBI's bin Laden unit, and also says that, if the FBI thinks it does not have all the photographs it needs of the Malaysia summit, it should ask the CIA for them. Middleton is aware that the FBI is investigating Almihdhar (see August 29, 2001), but there is no record of him or anyone else providing this information to either the agent investigating Almihdhar or the main investigation of the USS Cole bombing, which bin Attash commanded. The information was requested by FBI agent Dina Corsi and was passed through a CIA Counterterrorist Center representative to the FBI, presumably Tom Wilshire. Although one of bin Attash's aliases was watchlisted one week ago (see August 23, 2001), he is not watchlisted under his real name even at this point, meaning the commander of the USS Cole attack can enter the US under his own name as he pleases. (US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 298, 305, 310 )
With President Bush back in Washington after a long vacation, CIA Director George Tenet resumes personally delivering the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) to him. Tenet has one meeting with Bush on August 31, 2001, after Bush's return (see August 17 and 31, 2001), and then briefs him six more times in the first eight days of September. Bush is out of town the next few days, so he is briefed by other CIA personnel. (Agence France-Presse 4/15/2004) By this time, Tenet has been told about the arrest of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui (see August 23, 2001). But there is no evidence he mentions this to Bush before 9/11. Further, on August 23, 2001, the CIA watchlisted 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi and began looking for them in the US (see August 23, 2001), but there's no evidence Tenet or anyone else briefed Bush about this, either.
On September 4 and 5, 2001, FBI agent Robert Fuller attempts to find hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in the US. However, he fails to perform many basic checks, including a check of credit card usage (see September 4-5, 2001). In 2006, journalist Bob Woodward will report that CIA Director George Tenet believed that FBI could have potentially stopped the 9/11 attacks. Woodward will write, paraphrasing Tenet, "If the FBI had done a simple credit card check on the two 9/11 hijackers who had been identified in the United States before 9/11, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, they would have found that the two men had bought 10 tickets for early morning flights for groups of other Middle Eastern men for September 11, 2001. That was knowledge that might conceivably have stopped the attacks." (Woodward 2006, pp. 79-80) Alhazmi and Almihdhar did buy some tickets for themselves and Nawaf Alhazmi also bought a ticket for his brother Salem Alhazmi, but it has not been reported that they bought as many as ten tickets (see August 25-27, 2001 and August 25-September 5, 2001).
Khalid Almihdhar and Majed Moqed, two of the men who will allegedly hijack Flight 77, check in at the American Airlines ticket counter at Washington's Dulles International Airport. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 2-3; 9/11 Commission 8/26/2004, pp. 27) They are recorded by one of the airport's security cameras approaching the ticket counter, with Moqed pulling a large, dark, roller-type suitcase and Almihdhar pulling a smaller, dark, roller-type suitcase. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/19/2001) They are checked in by a female ticketing agent for American Airlines whose name is unstated. The ticketing agent will later recall Moqed giving her a small, old, leather suitcase to check in. Almihdhar, meanwhile, has a carry-on bag with him, she will say in one interview with the FBI. However, a week later she will tell the FBI he had no bags with him.
One Hijacker Seems Unable to Understand the Agent's Questions - Almihdhar and Moqed appear to be in a very good mood and are polite as they are checked in. They provide Virginia identification. One of them seems to be in charge and answers all of the ticketing agent's questions. He hesitates, though, before responding to the question, "Has anyone given you anything to carry on the flight?" The other man appears unable to understand the security questions he is asked. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/12/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/19/2001) After being checked in, the two men proceed to a security screening checkpoint (see 7:18 a.m. September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 8/26/2004, pp. 27) Almihdhar is pulling along his suitcase but Moqed does not have his suitcase with him at this point. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/19/2001) As they leave the ticket counter, they wave and smile at the ticketing agent. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/19/2001)
Hijackers Are Flagged by a Computerized Prescreening System - Almihdhar and Moqed are both flagged by CAPPS (the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System) when they check in. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 3) CAPPS is an FAA-approved automated system administered by commercial airlines that aims to identify passengers whose profile suggests they may pose more than a minimal risk to aircraft. Passengers selected by CAPPS have their baggage screened for explosives or held off the plane until they have boarded. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 84; Trento and Trento 2006, pp. 12) Almihdar's name was recently added to a terrorism watch list (see August 23, 2001). (Associated Press 7/22/2004; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 270) Almihdhar was recorded on video in a terminal at Dulles Airport at some time the previous evening, possibly accompanied by Salem Alhazmi, another one of the alleged Flight 77 hijackers (see September 10, 2001). (9/11 Commission 9/29/2003 ; Federal Bureau of Investigation 11/14/2003 )
Brothers Nawaf Alhazmi and Salem Alhazmi, two of the men who will allegedly hijack Flight 77, check in at the American Airlines ticket counter at Washington's Dulles International Airport. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 3, 452; 9/11 Commission 8/26/2004, pp. 27) They are running late. They "come running in the front door, looking around, and didn't know which way to go," Vaughn Allex, an employee at the ticket counter, will later describe. (CNN 9/8/2012; Hughes 9/10/2016) They are captured on security video pulling large, dark, roller-type suitcases as they approach the counter. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/19/2001) They are allowed to check in despite having missed the official deadline for doing so by a few minutes. (CNN 9/8/2012; Hughes 9/10/2016)
Trainee Checks in the Hijackers - Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi are checked in by Inga Hill, a trainee who is overseen by Allex. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/19/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/25/2001) Today is only her second day working at Dulles Airport. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/12/2001) Allex looks on while she confirms the brothers' tickets. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/25/2001) The Alhazmis check in two dark-colored bags, one of them a hard plastic suitcase, the other a soft bag, Hill will recall. One of the brothers has a carry-on bag, she will say. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/12/2001) Allex will recall the brothers having only one bag, which he considers to be "totally inappropriate for a trip to Los Angeles." The bag is "almost like a satchel" with straps across the top but which doesn't seal, he will say. (CNN 9/8/2012)
Hijackers Have Difficulty Answering Questions - Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi show passports for their photo identification but are unable to recall the country from which these were issued. They also have trouble answering the security questions that all passengers must answer. Allex therefore has to get involved and take over the task of questioning them, Hill will recall. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/12/2001) However, Allex will say he takes on the task of checking them in from the outset because they are running late. (CNN 9/8/2012) Nawaf Alhazmi is the only one of the brothers who speaks during the check-in, but his English is poor. Salem Alhazmi, meanwhile, acts "very anxious or excited," according to Allex. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/12/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/25/2001) "He was grinning, he was smiling, and he was dancing back and forth," Allex will say. (CNN 9/8/2012)
Hijackers Are Selected for Extra Scrutiny - Allex selects the two brothers for extra security scrutiny. He does this because he finds them suspicious, and one of them—probably Salem Alhazmi, according to the 9/11 Commission—has no photo identification and cannot understand English. However, the only consequence of the extra scrutiny will be that their bags are held off Flight 77 until it is confirmed that they have boarded it.
Employee Is Suspicious and Follows the Hijackers - After being checked in, Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi proceed to a security screening checkpoint (see 7:36 a.m. September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 3; 9/11 Commission 8/26/2004, pp. 27-28; Leshan 9/12/2016) They no longer have their suitcases with them when they leave the ticket counter. (Federal Bureau of Investigation 9/19/2001) Allex is still uncomfortable with the two men and follows them for a few steps. He stops himself, though, as he is concerned that his suspicion may be racially motivated. (CNN 9/8/2012) The name of Nawaf Alhazmi was recently added to a terrorism watch list (see August 23, 2001). (Associated Press 7/22/2004; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 270) An employee at Dulles Airport will recall encountering him and four other Middle Eastern men as they tried to get to a secure area of the airport the previous evening (see (Between 8:00 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.) September 10, 2001). (9/11 Commission 1/19/2004 ; Trento and Trento 2006, pp. 2-6, 43-44)
FBI Director Robert Mueller personally awards Marion (Spike) Bowman with a presidential citation and cash bonus of approximately 25 percent of his salary. (Tapper 3/3/2003) Bowman, head of the FBI's national security law unit and the person who refused to seek a special warrant for a search of Zacarias Moussaoui's belongings before the 9/11 attacks (see August 28, 2001), is among nine recipients of bureau awards for "exceptional performance." The award comes shortly after a 9/11 Congressional Inquiry report saying Bowman's unit gave Minneapolis FBI agents "inexcusably confused and inaccurate information" that was "patently false." (Grow 12/22/2002) Bowman's unit was also involved in the failure to locate 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi after their names were put on a watch list (see August 28-29, 2001). In early 2000, the FBI acknowledged serious blunders in surveillance Bowman's unit conducted during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations, including agents who illegally videotaped suspects, intercepted e-mails without court permission, and recorded the wrong phone conversations. (Bridis 1/10/2003) As Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and others have pointed out, not only has no one in government been fired or punished for 9/11, but several others have been promoted: (Tapper 3/3/2003)
Richard Blee, chief of Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit, was made chief of the CIA's new Kabul station in December 2001 (see December 9, 2001), where he aggressively expanded the CIA's extraordinary rendition program (see Shortly After December 19, 2001). Blee was the government's main briefer on al-Qaeda threats in the summer of 2001, but failed to mention that one of the 9/11 hijackers was in the US (see August 22-September 10, 2001).
In addition to Blee, the CIA also promoted his former director for operations at Alec Station, a woman who took the unit's number two position. This was despite the fact that the unit failed to put the two suspected terrorists on the watch list (see August 23, 2001). "The leaders were promoted even though some people in the intelligence community and in Congress say the counterterrorism unit they ran bore some responsibility for waiting until August 2001 to put the suspect pair on the interagency watch list." CIA Director George Tenet has failed to fulfill a promise given to Congress in late 2002 that he would name the CIA officials responsible for 9/11 failures. (Gerth 5/15/2003)
Pasquale D'Amuro, the FBI's counterterrorism chief in New York City before 9/11, was promoted to the bureau's top counterterrorism post. (Ratnesar and Burger 12/30/2002)
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Maltbie, who removed information from the Minnesota FBI's application to get the search warrant for Moussaoui, was promoted to field supervisor and goes on to head the Joint Terrorism Task Force at the FBI's Cleveland office. (Tapper 3/3/2003; Riley 3/21/2006)
David Frasca, head of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, is "still at headquarters," Grassley notes. (Tapper 3/3/2003) The Phoenix memo, which was addressed to Frasca, was received by his unit and warned that al-Qaeda terrorists could be using flight schools inside the US (see July 10, 2001 and July 27, 2001 and after). Two weeks later Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested while training to fly a 747, but Frasca's unit was unhelpful when local FBI agents wanted to search his belongings—a step that could have prevented 9/11 (see August 16, 2001 and August 20-September 11, 2001). "The Phoenix memo was buried; the Moussaoui warrant request was denied." (Ratnesar and Weisskopf 5/27/2002) Even after 9/11, Frasca continued to "[throw] up roadblocks" in the Moussaoui case. (Lewis 5/27/2002)
Dina Corsi, an intelligence operations specialist in the FBI's bin Laden unit in the run-up to 9/11, later became a supervisory intelligence analyst. (US Department of Justice 11/2004, pp. 279-280 ; CNN 7/22/2005) Corsi repeatedly hampered the investigation of Almihdhar and Alhazmi in the summer of 2001 (see June 11, 2001, June 12-September 11, 2001, Before August 22, 2001, August 27-28, 2001, August 28, 2001, August 28-29, 2001, and (September 5, 2001)).
President Bush later names Barbara Bodine the director of Central Iraq shortly after the US conquest of Iraq. Many in government are upset about the appointment because of her blocking of the USS Cole investigation, which some say could have uncovered the 9/11 plot (see October 14-Late November, 2000). She did not apologize or admit she was wrong. (Sepe 4/10/2003) However, she is fired after about a month, apparently for doing a poor job.
An FBI official who tolerates penetration of the translation department by Turkish spies and encourages slow translations just after 9/11 was promoted (see March 22, 2002). (CBS News 10/25/2002)
A report by the 9/11 Commission on the FAA and 9/11 is publicly released. The fact that the report reveals nearly half of all FAA daily briefings between April and early September 2001 mentioned al-Qaeda, bin Laden, or both causes headlines (see April 1, 2001-September 10, 2001). However, the report was actually completed in August 2004 but was held up by the Bush administration. Some speculate that the publication of the report was delayed until after the November 2004 presidential election to help Bush get reelected. For instance, 9/11 victim's relative Carol Ashley states, "I'm just appalled that this was withheld for five months. That contributes to the idea that the government knew something and didn't act, it contributes to the conspiracy theories out there." Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) asks for a hearing on whether the Bush administration played politics with the report's release, but the Republican-controlled House of Representatives does not allow such a hearing. (Associated Press 2/11/2005) Additionally, the released version of this report is heavily censored in some areas. The 9/11 Commission asserts that the whole report should be released, but the Bush administration is blocking their efforts to release the censored portions. Politicians, 9/11 victims' relatives, open-government advocates, and others call for the release of the entire report, but to no avail. (Lichtblau 2/11/2005)
The US interagency National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) maintains a watch list of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects, a number that has more than quadrupled since the the list was created in 2003 by merging other watch lists together. NCTC officials estimate that, due to aliases, some 200,000 individuals are represented on the list. The main US watch list at the time of 9/11 had 60,000 names on it (see December 11, 1999). An administration official says, "The vast majority are non-US persons and do not live in the US." However, officials refuse to state how many on the list are US citizens and how many names on the list were obtained through the controversial wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency (NSA). Civil liberties and privacy advocates claim that the scale of the list heightens their concerns that watch lists include the names of large numbers of innocent people. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that he cannot discuss specifics but says, "Information is collected, information is retained, and information disseminated in a way to protect the privacy interests of all Americans." A September 2003 presidential directive instructs agencies to supply data for the list only about people who are "known or appropriately suspected to be… engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism." Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says the scope of the NCTC list highlights the "false positive" problem, in which innocent people have been stopped from flying because their names are wrongly included or are similar to suspects' names. "If there are that many people on the list, a lot of them probably shouldn't be there. But how are they ever going to get off?" (Pincus and Eggen 2/15/2006) Numerous problems with the list will be found in 2006 (see March 2006).
A redacted summary of a report by the CIA's inspector general into some aspects of the agency's pre-9/11 performance is released. The report's main points are:
No CIA employees violated the law or were guilty of misconduct in the run-up to 9/11;
However, some officials did not perform their duties in a satisfactory manner. The report recommended accountability boards be convened to review their performance, but former CIA Director Porter Goss decided against this recommendation in 2005 (see October 10, 2005);
There was no "silver bullet" that could have prevented 9/11, but if officers had performed satisfactorily, they would have had a better chance of stopping the attacks;
The CIA had no comprehensive strategy to combat al-Qaeda before 9/11 (see After December 4, 1998 and Between Mid-December 2002 and June 2004);
Management of counterterrorism funds was poor (see 1997-2001);
Arguments between the CIA and NSA negatively impacted counterterrorism efforts (see December 1996, Late August 1998, and 2000);
Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was well-known to the CIA before 9/11, but his case was badly handled (see 1997 or After);
There were numerous failures related to the CIA's monitoring of al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit (see Mid-January-March 2000, 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000, Mid-July 2004, (After January 6, 2000), and March 5, 2000);
The CIA also missed "several additional opportunities" to watchlist Pentagon hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi (see January 8, 2000 and August 23, 2001). Such watchlisting could have led to them being denied entry, or being placed under surveillance in the US;
The CIA was confused about whether it was authorized to assassinate Osama bin Laden or not (see Mid-August 1998, December 24, 1998, December 26, 1998 and After, February 1999, February 1999, and December 1999);
There were various problems with assets and operations linked to foreign services. (Central Intelligence Agency 6/2005 )
The media picks various angles in commenting on the report (see August 21, 2007), which is criticized by current CIA Director Michael Hayden (see August 21, 2007) and former Director George Tenet (see August 21, 2007).
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