9/11: Evidence Consistent with the Official Story

By: Dr. Matthew Robinson

Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
Appalachian State University

The following is the evidence that Americans have been offered to corroborate the official story of 9/11. Would the following evidence, if offered in a court of law, be sufficient to sustain a criminal conviction? How much of the following evidence is second hand rumor and how much is the result of torture used against suspects in American custody? No one knows for sure, but some feel it is a pretty thin case. The evidence is much like that in the OJ Simpson murder case – mostly circumstantial and based on hearsay. Some of the evidence is very damning and directly implicates al Qaeda and UBL.

∙   April/May 2000 – Hijacker Marwan Alshehhi tells a Hamburg librarian: “There will be thousands of dead. You will think of me ... You will see. In America something is going to happen. Many people will be killed.” This is not reported until after 9/11.

∙   April/May 2000 – Mohamed Atta meets with Johnelle Bryant of the US Department of Agriculture. He asks for a loan of $650,000 to buy and modify a crop-dusting plane, says he wants to “build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting.” He admits he has just arrived from Afghanistan and uses his real name, he tells about his travel plans to Spain and Germany, he asks about security at the World Trade Center and other landmarks, he discusses al Qaeda and its need for American membership, and tells her UBL “would someday be known as the world’s greatest leader.” He asks to buy the aerial photograph of Washington DC from her wall and throws lots of cash at her when she refuses and even asks her in response to pointing to a building she used to work at: “How would you like it if somebody flew an airplane into your friend’s building?” He asks her: “How would America like it if another country destroyed Washington and some of the monuments in it like the citizens in my country [like buildings in my country] had been destroyed?” and “What would prevent me from going behind your desk and cutting your throat and making off with the millions of dollars” in the safe behind her. Three other men also try to get the same loan from her and all are turned down. Bryant reports none of it until after 9/11.

∙   March 2001 – All 13 “muscle” hijackers record a farewell video before leaving training in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Al Jazeera shows a video by Ahmed Alhaznawi where he pledges to give his life by martyrdom and swears to send a bloodied message to Americans by attacking them in their heartland. Another of Abdulaziz Alomari states: “I am writing this with my full conscience and I am writing this in expectation of the end, which is near .. God praises everybody who trained and helped me, namely the leader Sheikh Osama bin Laden.” Al Jazeera also shows video of Ahmed Alnami, Hamza Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, and Wail Alsheheri in Kandahar studying maps and flight manuals. US officials have claimed, however, that the 9/11 attacks were so secretive that many of these men did not even know they were going to die on 9/11; presumably they thought they were just hijacking planes.

∙   June/ July 2001 – Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi and another man are seen on at least two occasions at a Hamburg university where Atta studied with a white, three foot scale model of the Pentagon. More than 60 slides of the Sears building in Chicago and the World Trade Center are found missing from the library after 9/11.

∙   Summer 2001 – After being captured, KSM claims that just prior to the attacks, word spreads throughout al Qaeda that he was sending operatives to go to the US to attack. Also, UBL urges al Faruq camp trainees to pray for the success of an upcoming attack by 20 martyrs. In Afghanistan, US soldiers later find forged visas, altered passports, Flora flight school lists, and registration papers for a flight simulator in Afghanistan.

∙   August 13-15, 2001 – Zacarias Moussaoui in Minneapolis paid $8,300 for flight training, mostly in cash, to use a 747 aircraft simulator. He asked “how much fuel is on board a 747 and how much damage could it cause if it hit anything”? He has no aviation background, little previous training, and no pilot’s license, he wants to fly only as an ego-boosting thing, he is extremely interested in the operation of the plane’s doors and control panel, and wants to know how to communicate with flight tower. He is evasive and belligerent when asked about his background. He mostly practices flying in the air rather than taking off or landing. The flight school sends information to the FBI and receives little interest, so it contacts them again as says: “Do you realize how serious this is? This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon” Moussaoui is arrested and is ultimately connected to two of the 9/11 hijackers by a phone number found in his possession.

∙   August 20, 2001 – Would-be 20th hijacker Ramzi bin al-Shibh claims that around this date he gets an email from Mohamed Atta that says: “The first term starts in three weeks ... There are 19 certificates [pilots] for private studies and four exams [targets].” The exact date of the attacks is August 29, 2001. Hani Hanjour also makes test flights around the World Trade Center and Pentagon around this time. A notebook found in Afghanistan later suggests the attack was planned for later in the year but was moved up at the last minute.

∙   August 24-29, 2001 – The hijackers buy their plane tickets, using their real names, many over the Internet.

∙   August 29, 2001 – Ramzi bin al-Shibh claims that Mohamed Atta calls him from the US to Germany and asks him what is “two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down?” The answer is 11-9, the Arabic and European way of writing 9/11. Al-Shibh orders active al Qaeda cells to evacuate.

∙   September 1, 2001 – American Airlines warns its employees that crews had badges and uniforms stolen in Rome, Italy in April 2001. Two Flight 11 hijackers use these to hijack the plane. Mohamed Atta’s bag, which does not make in on the plane after he boards in Boston, has uniforms found inside.

∙   September 8-11, 2001 – “Mustafa Ahmed”/“Mustafa Ahmad”/“Ahamad Mustafa” in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sends money to and receives the left over money from Mohamed Atta in Florida, as well as Waleed Alshehri, and Marwan Alshehhi. He then flies from UAE using a Saudi passport to Pakistan with the money. He is allegedly Saeed Sheikh, the financial manager for UBL. This proves the money to pay for the hijackings came from a UBL agent.

∙   September 9, 2001 – UBL calls his stepmother on a satellite phone and says: “In two days, you’re going to hear big news and you’re not going to hear from me for a while.”

∙   September 10, 2001 – Two messages in Arabic from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan are intercepted by the NSA. On says: “The match is about to begin.” The other says: “Tomorrow is zero hour.” The messages are not translated until September 12.

∙   Before September 11, 2001 – CIA and FBI discover messages intercepted prior to September 11, 2001 that say “There is a big thing coming” “They’re going to pay the price” and “We’re ready to go.” The messages are not analyzed until after September 11.

∙   September 11, 2001, approximately 6:30am –A man has an argument with five Middle Eastern men over a parking space in the parking lot of Boston’s Logan Airport. After the 9/11 attacks, he reports it to authorities and a search of the car, rented to Mohamed Atta, finds a ramp pass which allows access to restricted airport areas. In Atta’s bag, that does not make the connecting flight, stolen airline uniforms are found. Two hijackers on Flight 11 used stolen uniforms and IDs to board the plane.

∙   September 11, 2001, 9:53 am – NSA intercepts a message from a UBL operative in Afghanistan to a phone in the Republic of Georgia that says the caller has heard good news and that another target is still to come. This is after three of the planes have crashed and 13 minutes prior to the crash of the last plane.

∙   September 11, 2001, 9:59 am – Dale Watson, FBI counterterrorism chief, tells White House Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke: “We got the passenger manifests from the airlines. We recognize some names, Dick. They’re al Qaeda.” Clarke replies: “How the fuck did they get on board then?” The original list only contains 18 names, including two incorrect Arabic sounding ones. Original list of hijackers on Flight 77 included wrong people (including Al-Mihammadi, a computer programmer in Saudi Arabia) and 1 dead man! Adnan and Amer Bukhuri were listed as hijackers after car found at Portland, Maine airport led to house in Vero Beach, Florida where pilot certificates were listed in their names ... Adnan is listed on Flight 11 manifest (but he is alive in Saudi Arabia) and his brother Amer was killed in a mid-air crash with a small plane on 9-11-00 ...

∙   September 11-13, 2001 – Hijackers leave a clear trail of evidence, including: 1) two bags of Mohamed Atta that contain a handheld electronic flight computer, a simulator procedures manual for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft, two videotapes related to air tours of Boeing 757 and 747 aircraft, a slide-rule calculator, a copy of the Koran, his passport, will, international driver’s license, a religious cassette tape, airline uniforms, a letter of recommendation, education related documents, and a note to other hijackers about how to mentally prepare themselves (this note is found in his bag, in the wreckage of Flight 93, and in a car parked in the parking lot of Washington Dulles Airport; 2) Marwan Alshehhi’s rental car in Boston’s Logan Airport that contains an Arabic language flight manual, a pass that gives access to restricted areas at the airport, a list of passengers on board one flight, the names of other suspects, and the name of the flight school where they studied; 3) Nawaf Alhazmi’s car at Washington Dulles Airport that contains a copy of Atta’s letter, a cashier’s check to a flight school, four drawings of the cockpit of a 757 jet, a box-cutter, maps of Washington and New York, and a page with notes and phone numbers; 4) A rental car in an airport in Portland, Maine; 5) A Boston hotel room with airplane and train schedules; 6) many bags of materials from a Florida apartment of Saeed Alghamdi; 7) A box cutter in a Deerfield Beach, Florida hotel room of Marwan Alshehhi, as well as many materials in a nearby dumpster, such as a duffel bag containing Boeing 757 manuals, three martial arts books, a stack of East Coast flight maps, a binder filled with handwritten notes, an English-German dictionary, and airplane fuel tester, and a protractor; 8) a notebook, videotape, and photocopy of passports in an apartment rented by Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed Alhaznawi; 9) a business card and copy of the Koran in a bar where men had openly predicted terrorist attacks the night before; 10) a box cutter, a pamphlet written in Arabic and a credit card in the parking garage at Boston’s Logan Airport; and 11) suicide notes written by some of the hijackers to their parents. Many question why the hijackers would have carried around and traveled with such materials, especially on the day of the attacks when they would have been useless.

∙   September 12, 2001 – Satam Al Suqami’s passport is found a few blocks from the World Trade Center

∙   October 2001 – Hijacker emails are recovered and published, and are unencrypted and open about attack details

∙   October 1, 2001 – An Afghan airline official claims the Taliban forced them to train pilots in air base in Afghanistan

∙   December 13, 2001 – A UBL video is broadcast after being found in Afghanistan and passed onto the CIA. It is made without his knowledge and supposedly shows him discussing and admitting to the attacks. Its authenticity is called into question, as is the accompanying translation.

∙   According to a 2002 interview with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was a member of the Hamburg, Germany al Qaeda cell along with hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah: “We had a meeting attended by all four pilots including Najaf Alhazmi, Atta’s right-hand man.” This means he flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon, not Hani Hanjour as reported by even the 9/11 Commission.

So, that’s it, plus some staff reports by the 9/11 Commission that go in a bit more depth than the Commission report. Yet, keep in mind the reports are based almost entirely on the testimony of two men (KSM and Ramzi bin al-Shibh) in the top secret custody of the US government. Other evidence has been selectively released by the US government.