Was 9/11 Preventable?: What the Moussaoui Trial Reveals

ZM was training on a Boeing 747 flight simulator, even though he had minimal flight experience

Minneapolis FBI Agent Harry Samit had this to say about ZM's flight training in his initial (8/15/01) memo: "His excuse is weak: he just wants to learn how to do it!! That's pretty ominous and obviously suggests some sort of hijacking plan."

French Intelligence (Legat Paris) says ZM was active in the Radical Isalmic Fundamentalist movement

In an 8/30/2001 communication to Minneapolis FBI, French Intelligence reported ZM "was wholly convinced of Jihad." The memo described ZM's "ardent and emotional preaching in favor of jihad," and quoted a source who described ZM as "extremely cynical, completely devoted to the Wahabite cause and concerned with progressing that cause."

ZM's Oklahoma friend's (Al Attas's) will:
"Death is approaching"

The FBI identified Hussien Bin Ali Al-Attas becaause he shared a room at the Residence Inn in Minnesota. Hussien Bin Ali Al-Attas, who drove ZM from Oklahoma to Minnesota in early August, allowed an FBI search of his Norman, Oklahoma residence. The search turned up a document in Arabic that, when translated, turned out to be Al-Attas's "Last Will and Testament." In it, Al-Attas (who was young and healthy) says "death is approaching" and "I hope that Allah will award me with paradise and keep me with the prophets, martyrs and pious." This document led the Minneapolis FBI to conclude that he and ZM were planning to participate in an imminent suicide attack on a U.S. target.

LINK TO LAST WILL

Bin Ali Al-Attas, arrested because of his association with ZM, describes Moussaoui as dangerous

FBI Agent Harry Samit, in an 8/22/2001 memo, quoted Al-Attas as telling the FBI that ZM "believes it is acceptable to kill civilians who harm Muslims and the he approves of martyrs." Al-Attas said that he might have heard ZM mention that he planned to "become a martyr." Samit tells Washington in his 8/22 memo, "Minneapolis opines that Moussaoui and Al Attas were, at the time of their arrest,involved in preparing for a terrorist attack involving a Boeing 747-400 aircraft at the direction of an as yet unknown international radical Islamic fundamentalist group."

When arrested on immigration charges, ZM denied authorities consent to search his property

ZM's refusal to allow a search of his property, while not conclusive, suggestst that he had something to hide. In an 8/24 memo to Washington, Minneapolis agent Samit noted that ZM's property inclused "a laptop computer, cellular telephone and numerous spiral notebooks and 747 flight manuals." In the 8/24 memo, Minneapolis requested--but was denied--approval from FBI headquarters in Washington to obtain an emergency search warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that would have revealed the phone number of the Al Qaeda operative in Germany who arranged payments for flight classes for many of the 9/11 hijackers.

Bin Al-Attas, in a call from jail, urgently tells his iman "not to talk now" about the jihad.

In an 8/20/2001 phone call--intercepted by the FBI--from jail in Oklahoma, Bin Al-Attas is asked by his imam in Norman, "I heard you wanted to go to Jihad." Al-Attas replies urgently, "Sheikh, do not talk about it now. Do not talk about it now, Sheikh."

ZM paid cash to enroll in his flight training course

According to an 8/18 memo from Minneapolis to Washington, ZM "paid $8,000-$9,000 dollars in cash for training on the Boeing 747 Model 400 aircraft simulator." If FBI had given approval for a search to "follow the cash," it would have taken them to Germany and, eventually, to Al Qaeda 9/11 planners.

ZM was engaged in martial arts training

According to the Al Attas, when interviewed by the FBI, he said that ZM "was able to persuade him to begin physical exercise and martial arts training." He also revealed that Moussaoui purchased "padded gloves and shin guards for training in the martial arts."

ZM was armed with a knife when arrested on immigration charges

According to an 8/24 memo sent from Minneapolis to Washington, "When arrested, Moussaoui was armed with a small sheathed knife in his pocket and admitted that a larger folding blade knife found under the seat of A Al-Attas' car was his."