2001: At some point during the year, Julie Sirrs, a Defense Intelligence Agency agent, travels twice to Afghanistan. She claims DIA officials knew in advance about both trips. Sirrs sees a terrorist training center, and meets with Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, who is later assassinated by the Taliban (see September 9, 2001). On her second trip she returns with what she later claims is a treasure trove of information, including evidence that bin Laden is planning to assassinate Massoud. However, upon returning, a security officer meets her flight and confiscates her material. The DIA and the FBI investigate her. She says no higher-ups want to hear what she had learned in Afghanistan. Ultimately, Sirrs' security clearance is pulled. She eventually quits the DIA in frustration. [ ABC News, 2/18/02 (B) ] She claims that the US intelligence on bin Laden and the Taliban relied too heavily on the ISI for its information. [ ABC News, 2/18/02 (B) ]
2001 (B): The US (known) yearly counter-terrorism budget planned for 2001 is $12.8 billion, compared to $2 billion ten years earlier. [ Knight-Ridder, 9/27/01 ]
2001 (C): Numerous witnesses later recall seeing hijackers Mohamed Atta and/or Marwan Alshehhi in Nabil al-Marabh's Toronto apartment building and photocopy shop at various times during this year. [ Toronto Sun, 9/28/01 , ABC 7, 1/31/02 ] Al-Marabh has connections with other hijackers (see Spring 2001 (B)) and other al-Qaeda figures (see 1989-May 2000 and May 30, 2000-September 11, 2001). Some of the dozens of eyewitness accounts say Atta sporadically works in the photocopy shop. [ Toronto Sun, 10/21/01 ] Partially completed fake IDs are found in the store, which is owned by al-Marabh's uncle, and at al-Marabh's apartment. [ Toronto Sun, 9/28/01 , Toronto Sun, 10/16/01 ] There is a large picture of bin Laden hanging in the store. [ Toronto Sun, 10/21/01 ] “Forensic officers said there are similarities in the paper stock, laminates and ink seized from the downtown store and that which was used in identification left behind by the [9/11 hijackers].” [ Toronto Sun, 10/16/01 ] US and Canadian police later determine that there is a flurry of phone calls and financial transactions between al-Marabh, Atta and Alshehhi days before the attacks. [ Toronto Sun, 11/16/01 ] US intelligence also intercepts al-Marabh's associates making phone calls immediately praising the 9/11 attacks. [ Ottawa Citizen, 10/29/01 ] Al-Marabh is said to head a Toronto al-Qaeda cell, and three members of his cell have been arrested. [ Toronto Sun, 11/23/01 ] Despite all of these al-Qaeda connections and more, the US later decides al-Marabh is not a terrorist (see September 19, 2001-September 3, 2002).
Early 2001: Clinton and Bush staff overlap for several months while new Bush appointees are appointed and confirmed. Clinton holdovers seem more concerned than the new Bush staffers. For instance, in January 2001 Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger tells his replacement Condoleezza Rice: “I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject,” and other Bush staffers confirm this account. National Security Council Chief of Counterterrorism Richard Clarke describes his first debriefing of Rice: “The focus was on al-Qaeda—who is al-Qaeda, what is al-Qaeda and why is it an existential threat?” Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, manager of Clinton's National Security Council staff, remains at the NSC nearly four months after Bush took office. He notes that Clinton's advisers meet “nearly weekly” on terrorism by the end of his term. But he doesn't detect the same kind of focus with the new Bush advisers: “That's not being derogatory. It's just a fact. I didn't detect any activity but what [Clinton holdover] Dick Clarke and the CSG were doing.” [ Washington Post, 1/20/02 ] Bush's first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff later says terrorism moved “to the back burner” until 9/11. [ Washington Post, 10/2/02 (B) ]
January 2001 (B): Hijackers Hamza Alghamdi and Mohand Alshehri rent a post office box in Delray Beach, Florida, according to the Washington Post. Yet FBI Director Mueller later claims they don't enter the country until May 28, 2001. [ Washington Post, 9/30/01 , Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/26/02 ]
January-February 2001: 2004-04-08 In January, the Arizona flight school JetTech alerts the FAA about hijacker Hani Hanjour. No one at the school suspects Hanjour of terrorist intent, but they tell the FAA he lacks both the English and flying skills necessary for the commercial pilot's license he has. The flight school manager: “I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had.” A former employee says, “I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all.” They also note he is an exceptionally poor student who doesn't seem to care about passing his courses. [ New York Times, 5/4/02 (B) ] An FAA official named John Anthony actually sits next to Hanjour in class and observes his skills. He suggests the use of a translator to help Hanjour pass, but the flight school points out that goes “against the rules that require a pilot to be able to write and speak English fluently before they even get their license.” [ Associated Press, 5/10/02 ] The FAA verifies that Hanjour's pilot's license is legitimate, but takes no other action. But since 9/11, the FBI appears to have questions about how Hanjour got his license in 1999. They have questioned and polygraphed the Arab American instructor who signed off on his flying skills. [ CBS, 5/10/02 ] His license also in fact had already expired in late 1999. [ Washington Post, 9/16/01 (B) ] In February, Hanjour begins advanced simulator training, “a far more complicated task than he had faced in earning a commercial license.” [ New York Times, 6/19/02 ] The flight school again alerts the FAA about this and gives a total of five alerts about Hanjour, but no further action on him is taken. The FBI is not told about Hanjour. [ CBS, 5/10/02 ] Ironically, a few months later, Arizona FBI agent Ken Williams recommends in a memo that the FBI liaison with local flight schools and keep track of suspicious activity by Middle Eastern students (see July 10, 2001).
January-June 2001: 11 of the 9/11 hijackers stay in or pass through Britain, according to the British Home Secretary and top investigators. Most come between April and June, just passing through from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. But investigators suspect some stay in Britain for training and fundraising (see June 2001 (H)). Not all 11 names are given, but one can deduce from the press accounts that Ahmed Alghamdi, Salem Alhazmi, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, and Saeed Alghamdi were definitely in Britain. Ahmed Alghamdi was one of several that should have been “instantly ‘red-flagged’ by British intelligence,” because of his links to Raed Hijazi, a suspected ally of bin Laden being held in Jordan on charges of conspiring to destroy holy sites (see Spring 2001 (B)). Two of the following three also were in Britain: Wail Alshehri, Fayez Banihammad, and Abdulaziz Alomari. All or almost all appear to be the “muscle” (see April 23-June 29, 2001) and specific leaders like Atta and Alshehhi are ruled out as having passed through. [ London Times, 9/26/01 , , BBC, 9/28/01 , Sunday Herald, 9/30/01 ] However, police are investigating if Mohamed Atta visited Britain in 1999 and 2000 together with some Algerians. [ Telegraph, 9/30/01 ] The London Times also writes, “Officials hope that the inquiries in Britain will disclose the true identities of the suicide team. Some are known to have arrived in Britain using false passports and fake identities that they kept for the hijack.” This contradicts assertions by FBI Director Mueller that all the hijackers used their own, real names (see September 16-23, 2001).
January 2001-September 4, 2001: Even before Bush's official inauguration, Clinton holdover National Security Council Chief of Counterterrorism Richard Clarke pushes National Security Advisor Rice and other incoming Bush officials to resume Predator drone flights over Afghanistan in an attempt to find and assassinate bin Laden (see August-September 2000). [ Washington Post, 1/20/02 , CBS, 6/25/03 ] Clarke learns of an Air Force plan to arm the Predator. The original plan calls for three years of testing, but Clarke pushes so hard that the armed Predator is ready in three months. [ New Yorker, 7/28/03 ] A Hellfire missile is successfully test fired from a Predator on February 16, 2001. [ CBS, 6/25/03 ] In early June, a duplicate of the brick house where bin Laden is believed to be living in Kandahar, Afghanistan is built in Nevada, and destroyed by a Predator missile. The test shows that the missile fired from miles away would have killed anyone in the building, and one participant calls this the long sought after “holy grail” that could kill bin Laden within minutes of finding him. [ Washington Post, 1/20/02 ] However, bureaucratic infighting between the CIA and the air force over who would pay for it and take responsibility delays its use. Clarke says, “Every time we were ready to use it, the CIA would change its mind.” [ New Yorker, 7/28/03 ] The issue comes to head on September 4, one of only two times Bush's cabinet level advisors meets to discuss terrorism before 9/11 (see September 4, 2001 (C)). [ New Yorker, 7/28/03 ] CIA Director Tenets says his agency will operate the armed Predator “over my dead body.” [ Washington Post, 10/2/02 (B) ] Clarke says, “The Air Force said it wasn't their job to fly planes to collect intelligence. No one around the table seemed to have a can-do attitude. Everyone seemed to have an excuse.” [ New Yorker, 7/28/03 ] The decision on using Predators is put off again, and only start to be used again days after 9/11. [ Associated Press, 6/25/03 ]
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January 4, 2001 (B): Atta flies from Miami, Florida to Madrid, Spain. He has been in the US since June 3, 2000, learning to fly in Florida with Marwan Alshehhi. [ Miami Herald, 9/22/01 ] He returns to the US on January 10 (see January 10, 2001). He makes a second trip to Spain later that year (see July 8-19, 2001).
January 10, 2001: “INS documents, matched against an FBI alert given to German police, show two men named Mohamed Atta [arrive] in Miami on Jan. 10, each offering different destination addresses to INS agents, one in Nokomis, near Venice, the other at a Coral Springs condo. He was admitted, despite having overstayed his previous visa by a month. The double entry could be a paperwork error, confusion over a visa extension. It could be Atta arrived in Miami, flew to another country like the Bahamas and returned the same day. Or it could be that two men somehow cleared immigration with the same name using the same passport number.” [ Miami Herald, 9/22/01 ] Officials later call this a bureaucratic snafu, and insist only one Atta entered the US on this date. [ Associated Press, 10/28/01 ] Also, Atta arrives on a tourist visa yet tells immigration inspectors that he is taking flying lessons in the US, which requires a M-1 student visa. [ Washington Post, 10/28/01 ] The fact that he had overstayed his visa over a month on a previous visit also doesn't cause a problem. [ Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01 ] The INS later defends its decision, but “immigration experts outside the agency dispute the INS position vigorously.” For instance Stephen Yale-Loehr, co-author of a 20-volume treatise on immigration law: “They just don't want to tell you they blew it. They should just admit they made a mistake.” [ Washington Post, 10/28/01 ]
January 11-18, 2001: Hijacker Marwan Alshehhi flies from the US to Casablanca, Morocco and back, for reasons unknown. He is able to reenter the US without trouble, despite having overstayed his previous visa by about five weeks. [ Department of Justice, 5/20/02 , Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01 ]
January 19, 2001: New United Nations sanctions against Afghanistan take effect, adding to those from 1999 (see November 14, 1999). The sanctions limit travel by senior Taliban authorities, freeze bin Laden's and the Taliban's assets, and order the closure of Ariana Airlines offices abroad. The sanctions also impose an arms embargo against the Taliban, but not against Northern Alliance forces battling the Taliban. [ Associated Press, 12/19/00 ] But this doesn't stop the illegal trade network the Taliban is secretly running through Ariana (see Mid-1996-October 2001). Two companies, Air Cess and Flying Dolphin, take over most of Ariana's traffic. Air Cess is owned by the Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, and Flying Dolphin is owned by the UAE's former ambassador to the US, who is also an associate of Bout (see October 1996). In late 2000, despite UN reports linking Flying Dolphin to arms smuggling, the United Nations gives Flying Dolphin permission to take over Ariana's closed routes, which it does until the new sanctions take effect. Bout's operations are still functioning and he has not been arrested. [ Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02 , Montreal Gazette, 2/5/02 ] Ariana is essentially destroyed in the October 2001 US bombing of Afghanistan. [ Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01 ]
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January 24, 2001: On this day, Italian intelligence hear another interesting wiretapped conversation (see also August 12, 2000), this one between terrorists Es Sayed and Ben Soltane Adel, two member's of al-Qaeda's Milan cell. Adel asks, in reference to fake documents, “Will these work for the brothers who are going to the United States?” Sayed responds angrily, saying “Don't ever say those words again, not even joking!” “If it's necessary … whatever place we may be, come up and talk in my ear, because these are very important things. You must know … that this plan is very, very secret, as if you were protecting the security of the state.” This is only one of many clues found from the Italian wiretaps and passed on to US intelligence in March 2001 (see March 2001 (B)). But they apparently are not properly understood until after 9/11. The Spanish government claims to have uncovered 9/11 clues from wiretaps as well (see August 27, 2001), and a priest was told of the 9/11 plot at an Italian wedding (see September 7, 2001), suggesting a surprising number of people in Europe may have had foreknowledge of 9/11. [ Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02 ] Adel is later arrested and convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell and Es Sayed fled to Afghanistan in July 2001. [ Guardian, 5/30/02 ]
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January 30, 2001: Hijacker Ziad Jarrah is questioned for several hours at the Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates, at the request of the CIA for “suspected involvement in terrorist activities,” then let go. This is according to United Arab Emirates, US and European officials, but the CIA denies the story. The CIA notified local officials that he would be arriving from Pakistan on his way back to Europe, and they wanted to know where he had been in Afghanistan and how long he had been there. US officials were informed of the results of the interrogation before Jarrah left the airport. Jarrah had already been in the US for six months learning to fly. “UAE and European intelligence sources told CNN that the questioning of Jarrah fits a pattern of a CIA operation begun in 1999 to track suspected al-Qaeda operatives who were traveling through the United Arab Emirates.” He was then permitted to leave, eventually going to the US. [ CNN, 8/1/02 ]
January 31, 2001: The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D), and Warren Rudman (R) is issued (see also September 15, 1999). The bipartisan report was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The report has 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, but all of them are ignored by the Bush Administration. Instead, the White House announces in May that it will have Vice President Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years. According to Senator Hart, Congress was taking the commission's suggestions seriously, but then, “Frankly, the White House shut it down… The president said ‘Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president’… And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day.” Interestingly, both this commission and the Bush Administration were already assuming a new cabinet level National Homeland Security Agency would be enacted eventually even as the general public remained unaware of the term and the concept. [ Salon, 9/12/01 , download the complete report here: USCNS Reports ]
Late January 2001: The BBC later reports, “After the elections, [US intelligence] agencies [are] told to ‘back off’ investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that anger[s] agents.” This follows previous orders to abandon an investigation of bin Laden relatives (see September 11, 1996), and difficulties in investigating Saudi royalty. [ BBC, 11/6/01 ] FTW An unnamed “top-level CIA operative” says there is a “major policy shift” at the National Security Agency at this time. Osama bin Laden could still be investigated, but agents could not look too closely at how he got his money. [ Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by Greg Palast, 2/03 , by Greg Palast, 2/03] Presumably one such investigation canceled is an investigation by the Chicago FBI into ties between Saudi multimillionaire Yassin al-Qadi and the US embassy bombings (see August 7, 1998) and other terrorist acts, because during this month an FBI agent is told that the case is being closed and that “it's just better to let sleeping dogs lie” (see October 1998). Reporter Greg Palast notes that President Clinton was already hindering investigations by protecting Saudi interests. But, as he puts it, “Where Clinton said, ‘Go slow,’ Bush policymakers said, ‘No go.’ The difference is between closing one eye and closing them both.” [ Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by Greg Palast, 2/03 , by Greg Palast, 2/03]
Late January 2001 (B): Even as US intelligence is given conclusive evidence that al-Qaeda is behind the USS Cole bombing (see January 25, 2001), the new Bush administration discontinues the covert deployment of cruise missile submarines and gunships on six-hour alert near Afghanistan's borders that had begun under President Clinton (see Mid-August 1998-January 2001). The standby force gave Clinton the option of an immediate strike against targets in al-Qaeda's top leadership. The discontinuation makes a possible assassination of bin Laden much more difficult. [ Washington Post, 1/20/02 ]
February 2001: At least six unconnected people later claim they recognize hijackers Satam Al Suqami and Salem Alhazmi living in San Antonio, Texas, until this month. The management of an apartment building says the two men abandoned their leases at about this time, and some apartment residents recognize them. However, all the witnesses say that Suqami was going by Alhazmi's name, and vice versa! [ KENS 5 Eyewitness News, 10/1/01 ] One pilot shop employee recognizes Alhazmi as a frequent visitor to the store and interested in a 757 or 767 handbook, though he also says Alhazmi used Suqami's name. [ KENS 5 Eyewitness News, 10/3/01 ] The apartment leasing agent also recalls a Ziad Jarrah who once lived there in June 2001 and looked the same as the hijacker. [ San Antonio Express-News, 9/22/01 , Associated Press, 9/22/01 (B) ] Local FBI confirm that a Salem Alhazmi attended the nearby Alpha Tango Flight School and lived in that apartment building, but they say he is a different Salem Alhazmi who is still alive and living in Saudi Arabia. [ KENS 5 Eyewitness News, 10/4/01 ] However, that Salem Alhazmi (see September 16-23, 2001) says he's never been to the US and has proved to the authorities he didn't leave Saudi Arabia in the two years prior to 9/11. [ Washington Post, 9/20/01 ] The FBI gave no explanation for Satam Al Suqami's presence. Neither hijacker is supposed to have arrived in the US before April, 2001 (see April 23-June 29, 2001).
February 2001 (B): A former CIA anti-terror expert later claims that an allied intelligence agency sees “two of Osama's sisters apparently taking cash to an airport in Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates], where they are suspected of handing it to a member of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.” This is cited as one of many incidents showing an “interconnectedness” between Osama bin Laden and the rest of his family. [ New Yorker, 11/5/01 ]
February 2001 (C): Abdul Haq, a famous Afghan leader of the mujaheddin, convinces Robert McFarlane, National Security Adviser under President Reagan, that Haq and about 50 fellow commanders could lead a force to start a revolt against the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan. However, Haq wants to do this under the authority of Zahir Shah, the popular former king of Afghanistan, whom the US doesn't support. The CIA fails to give any support to this revolt idea. Says one CIA official to McFarlane a few months later, “We don't yet have our marching orders concerning US policy; it may be that we will end up dealing with the Taliban.” Haq goes ahead with his plans without US support, and is later betrayed and killed (see Mid-August 2001 (B) and October 25, 2001). [ Los Angeles Times, 10/28/01 (B) , Wall Street Journal, 11/2/01 ]
February-July 2001: A trial is held in New York City for four defendants charged with involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings. All are ultimately convicted. Testimony reveals that two bin Laden operatives had received pilot training in Texas and Oklahoma and another had been asked to take lessons. One bin Laden aide becomes a government witness and gives the FBI detailed information about a pilot training scheme. This new information does not lead to any new FBI investigations into the matter. [ Washington Post, 9/23/01 ]
February 7, 2001: CIA Director Tenet warns Congress in open testimony that bin Laden and his global network remains “the most immediate and serious threat” to US interests. “Since 1998 bin Laden has declared that all US citizens are legitimate targets,” he says, adding that bin Laden “is capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning.” [ Associated Press, 2/7/01 , Sunday Herald, 9/23/01 ]
February 9, 2001: Vice President Cheney is briefed that it has been conclusively proven bin Laden was behind the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). Bush has been in office a matter of days, when secret pipeline negotiations with the Taliban have begun. The new administration has already twice threatened the Taliban that the US would hold the Taliban responsible for any al-Qaeda attack. But, fearful of ending those negotiations, the US does not retaliate against either the Taliban or known bin Laden bases in Afghanistan in the manner Clinton did in 1998. [ Washington Post, 1/20/02 ]
February 9, 2001 (B): US officials claim significant progress in defeating bin Laden's financial network, despite significant difficulties. It is claimed that, “bin Laden's financial and operational networks has been ‘completely mapped’ in secret documents shared by the State Department, CIA and Treasury Department, with much of the mapping completed in detail by mid-1997.” [ UPI 2/9/01 ] Reporter Greg Palast later notes that when the US freezes the assets of terrorist organizations in late September 2001 (see September 24, 2001), US investigators likely knew much about the finances of those organizations but took no action before 9/11. [ Santa Fe New Mexican, 3/20/03 ]
February 13, 2001: UPI reporter Richard Sale, while covering a trial of bin Laden's al-Qaeda followers, reports that the NSA has broken bin Laden's encrypted communications. US officials say “codes were broken.” [ UPI, 2/13/01 ] Presumably al-Qaeda changes its security after this time, but also the US government officials later claim that the planning for the 9/11 attack began in 1998 if not earlier (see also 1998). [ New York Times, 10/14/01 ] FTW
February 23, 2001: 2004-04-08 Al-Qaeda agent Zacarias Moussaoui flies to the US. Three days later he starts flight training at the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma. The school and the area had a history of training terrorist pilots (see May 18, 1998 and September 1999 (E)). He trains there until May, but doesn't do well and drops out before getting a pilot's license. His visa expires on May 22, but he doesn't attempt to renew it or get another one. He stays in Norman, making arrangements to change flight schools, and frequently exercising in a gym. [ Senate Intelligence Committee, 10/17/02 (C) , MSNBC, 12/11/01 ] According to US investigators, would-be hijacker Ramzi bin al-Shibh (see November 20, 2002) later says he meets Moussaoui in Karachi (Pakistan) in June 2001. [ Washington Post, 11/20/02 ] Moussaoui moves to a flight school in Minnesota in August (see August 13-15, 2001) and is arrested by the FBI a short time later (see August 15, 2001). [ Senate Intelligence Committee, 10/17/02 (C) , MSNBC, 12/11/01 ]
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March 2001 (B): The Italian government gives the US information about possible attacks based on apartment wiretaps in the Italian city of Milan. [ Fox News, 5/17/02 ] Presumably, the information includes a discussion between two al-Qaeda agents talking about a “very, very secret” plan to forge documents “for the brothers who are going to the United States” (see January 24, 2001). The warning may also have mentioned a wiretap the previous August involving one of the same people that discussed a massive strike against the enemies of Islam involving aircraft (see August 12, 2000). Two months later, wiretaps of the same Milan cell also reveal a plot to attack a summit of world leaders (see May 2001).
March 2001 (C): Taliban envoy Rahmatullah Hashimi meets with reporters, middle-ranking State Department bureaucrats and private Afghanistan experts in Washington. He carries a gift carpet and a letter from Afghan leader Mullah Omar for President Bush. He discusses turning bin Laden over, but the US wants to be handed bin Laden and the Taliban want to turn him over to some third country. A CIA official later says: “We never heard what they were trying to say.” “We had no common language. Ours was, ‘Give up bin Laden.’ They were saying, ‘Do something to help us give him up.’ … I have no doubts they wanted to get rid of him. He was a pain in the neck.” Others claim the Taliban were never sincere. About 20 more meetings on giving up bin Laden take place up till 9/11, all fruitless. [ Washington Post, 10/29/01 ] Hashimi also proposes that the Taliban would hold bin Laden in one location long enough for the US to locate and destroy him. However, this offer is refused. This is according to Laila Helms, daughter of former CIA director Richard Helms, who is doing public relations for the Taliban at the time (while interesting this came out before 9/11, one must be skeptical if the offer was made since her job was public relations for the Taliban). [ Village Voice, 6/6/01 ]
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March 2001 (E): An intelligence source claims that a group of al-Qaeda operatives is planning to conduct an unspecified attack inside the US in April. One of the operatives allegedly resides in the US. There are also reports of planned attacks in California and New York State for the same month, though it isn't clear if this is reference to the same plot. [ Congressional Inquiry, 7/24/03 ]
March-August 2001: In March and August, Atta visits a small airport in South Florida and asks detailed questions about how to start and fly a crop-duster plane. People there easily recall him because he was so persistent. After explaining his abilities, Atta is told he is not skilled enough to fly a crop-duster. [ Miami Herald, 9/24/01 ] Employees at South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade, Florida later tell the FBI that Atta was among the men who in groups of two or three visited the crop dusting firm nearly every weekend for six or eight weeks before the attacks. Says employee James Lester: “I recognized him because he stayed on my feet all the time. I just about had to push him away from me.” [ Associated Press, 9/15/01 ] Yet, according to US investigators, Atta and the other hijackers gave up on the crop-duster idea back in 2000. (see Late April-Mid-May 2000).
March 1, 2001: The Taliban begins blowing up two giant stone Buddhas of Bamiyan. They face great international condemnation in response, but no longer seem to be courting international recognition. Apparently even ISI efforts to dissuade them fail. [ Time, 8/4/02 , Time, 8/4/02 (B) ]
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March 7, 2001: The Russian Permanent Mission at the United Nations secretly submits “an unprecedentedly detailed report” to the UN Security Council about bin Laden, his whereabouts, details of his al-Qaeda network, Afghan drug running, and Taliban connections in Pakistan. The report provides “a listing of all bin Laden's bases, his government contacts and foreign advisors,” and enough information to potentially kill him. The US fails to act. Alex Standish, the editor of the highly respected Jane's Intelligence Review, concludes that the attacks of 9/11 were less of an American intelligence failure and more the result of “a political decision not to act against bin Laden.” [ Jane's Intelligence Review, 10/5/01 ]
March 8, 2001: The United Nations and the European Union direct their members to freeze the assets of some al-Qaeda leaders, including Sa'd Al-Sharif, bin Laden's brother-in-law and the head of his finances, but the US does not do so (see UN list United Nations, 3/8/01 ). Their assets are finally frozen by the US after 9/11 (see October 12, 2001). [ Guardian, 10/13/01 (B) ] The US for a time claims that Sa'd Al-Sharif helped fund the 9/11 attacks, but the situation is highly confused and his role is doubtful (see September 24, 2001-December 26, 2002).
March 15, 2001: Jane's Intelligence Review reports that the US is working with India, Iran and Russia “in a concerted front against Afghanistan's Taliban regime.” India is supplying the Northern Alliance with military equipment, advisers and helicopter technicians and both India and Russia are using bases in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for their operations (see December 19, 2000, June 26, 2001 and July 21, 2001). [ Jane's Intelligence Review, 3/15/01 ]
Mid-March 2001: Hijackers Ahmed Alghamdi, Majed Moqed, Hani Hanjour, and Nawaf Alhazmi stay four days in the Fairfield Motor Inn, Fairfield, Connecticut. They meet with Eyad M. Alrababah, a Jordanian living in Bridgeport who has been charged with providing false identification to at least 50 illegal aliens. This meeting takes place about six weeks before the FBI says Moqed and Alghamdi enter the US. [ Associated Press, 3/6/02 , Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/26/02 ]
March 23, 2001: The Office of National Drug Control Policy issues a National Security Alert describing “apparent attempts by Israeli nationals to learn about government personnel and office layouts.” This later comes to light through a leaked Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) document called “Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities.” A crackdown ensues and by June around 120 Israelis are apprehended. More are apprehended later. [Read the document here: DEA report, 6/01 ]
March 26, 2001: The Washington Post reports on a major improvements of the CIA's intelligence gathering capability “in recent years.” A new program called Oasis uses “automated speech recognition” technology to turn audio feeds into formatted, searchable text. It can distinguish one voice from another and differentiates “speaker 1” from “speaker 2” in transcripts. Software called Fluent performs “cross lingual” searches, even translating difficult languages like Chinese and Japanese (apparently such software is much better than similar publicly available software) as well as automatically assessing their importance. There's also software that can turn a suspect's “life story into a three-dimensional diagram of linked phone calls, bank deposits and plane trips,” and other software to efficiently and quickly process vast amounts of video, audio and written data. [ Washington Post, 3/26/01 ] However, the government will later report that a number of messages about the 9/11 attacks, such as one stating “tomorrow is the zero hour” weren't translated until after 9/11 because analysts were “too swamped.” [ ABC News, 6/7/02 ]
Spring 2001: The Sydney Morning Herald later reports, “The months preceding September 11 [see] a shifting of the US military's focus … Over several months beginning in April [2001] a series of military and governmental policy documents [are] released that [seek] to legitimize the use of US military force” “in the pursuit of oil and gas.” Michael Klare, an international security expert and author of Resource Wars, says the military has increasingly come to “define resource security as their primary mission.” An article in the Army War College's journal by Jeffrey Record, a former staff member of the Senate armed services committee, argues for the legitimacy of “shooting in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices.” He also “advocate[s] the acceptability of presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict” and “explicitly urge[s] pain