Tag: Marwan al-Shehhi

20 September 2000

Posted on by William Arkin

 

Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi enroll in flight training at Jones Aviation in Sarasota, Florida. It is the second primary flight school, after Huffman Aviation, that they attend. They both fail their first tests and leave the school on October 6.

The 911 Commission will later comment—more than a dozen times—that throughout flight training the two struggled with poor English, failed their instrument rating tests, and scored badly in tests when they ultimately received their initial commercial pilot’s licenses in December 2000, as if any of that somehow made any difference. Perhaps such a record might have provoked school officials to question the Middle East men’s intentions, or even report to authorities, but as a matter of skill, evidently the two flew well enough to achieve their objectives.

19 September 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Mohammed Atta

 

Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi’s I-539 visa change applications are received by the INS. The I-359 is to extend or change their non-immigrant status from tourist to vocational students (see 15 September).

Atta had applied for and received (in one day) a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany in February. He was never interviewed and because of his German residency and employment status, was treated as a German citizen. Marwan al-Shehhi essentially was treated the same way in his visa application. When the two separately arrived in the United States in June 2000, they were granted six-month customary stays. Although they would change their visa status and leave and return numerous times, neither were ever flagged for closer attention.

17 September 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Ali Abdul Aziz Ali

 

The 9/11 hijackers receive their largest transfer of money from overseas: $70,000, wired from the United Arab Emirates. On this day, hijacker pilot Marwan al-Shehhi receives $70,000 from Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, who used the alias “Isam Mansur.” Ali, who would also occasionally use the alias “Isam Mansour,” “Mr. Ali,” and “Hani (Fawaz Trdng),” was the main financial go-between in transferring money to the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks. The transfers were sent from the UAE Exchange Centre located in Bur Dubai, UAE.

At the time, the large transfer did not trigger banking suspicious-activity reports (SARs). Nor did any of the other transfers of money to the hijackers or the “musclemen” get reported. The 19 hijackers would use a variety of means—cash they brought into the U.S., foreign and U.S. bank debit and credit cards, foreign checking accounts from European and Gulf state banks, and traveler’s checks—to finance their activities inside the U.S. The Hamburg three, Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah all continued to maintain and use their bank accounts in Germany, which also evaded any special attention.

Overall it is estimated that the entire 9/11 operation, including flight training, travel, and more than a year’s residence in the U.S., cost no more than a half a million dollars. In theory, today such large transfers of money would provoke closer government scrutiny, but post-9/11 rules regarding financial reporting of transactions ultimately have more of an impact on white-collar crime than domestic terrorism.

15 September 2000

Posted on by William Arkin

 

A year before 9/11, Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijacker pilots who will later attack the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, fill out Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) forms to change their visa status from tourists to vocational students.

The two—Atta an Egyptian citizen, and al-Shehhi from the United Arab Emirates—had already been in the United States for three months and had begun flight training, mostly at Huffman Aviation at Venice Municipal Airport in Venice, Florida. Both applications request that their status be maintained until September 1, 2001. The requests show deception in the earlier status, but neither receives additional scrutiny from visa authorities with regard to what they are doing in the United States.