Posted on 09/15/2001 1:08:07 PM PDT by Lent
Polite, Unobtrusive, Killer of Thousands
'Something changed' in hijacking suspect, teacher says
by Steven Erlanger
HAMBURG, Germany - He was diligent. He was polite. He had, until quite recently, a taste for black jeans and a liking for a hangout in this port city called Sharky's Billiard Bar that calls itself "the bar with mega-possibilities."
But Mohammed Atta, 33, was not what he long appeared to his teachers at the Technical University in this elegant port city: an unobtrusive man leading an unobtrusive life. For the last 14 months, he had embarked on an international odyssey that would lead him to the hijacking of the first plane to smash into the World Trade Center.
The forces or ideas that transformed Atta are not clear [oh yes they are]. But two years ago his habits began to change. He requested a prayer room at the university for himself and 20 other Arab students. He grew a beard. He listed himself under a different family name at the university -- "el-Amirals." And, in July 2000, during a visit to Florida, he began pilot training.
Atta---who was registered in Germany as a native of the United Arab Emirates but appears on other documents as an Egyptian---was for the most of his years in Germany an apparently secular man. Then "something changed in him", said one of his teachers, Alptekin Ozdemir, a Turk who has lectured at the university for 15 years.
It was this change, it seems, that led Atta to the Huffmann Aviation International flight school in Venice, Fla. Here, he wrote a check for $10,000 for four months of pilot training on small planes that ended in November, 2000.
The school's owner, Rudi Dekkers, described Atta an an eager--but not well-liked--student, whose reluctance to engage in conversations with others was sometimes resented. A month later, Atta took three hours of training on a flight simulator for a Boeing 727 jet at the Sim-Center Inc. school near Miami, paying a total of $1,500. Henry George, an instructor, said Atta "got a good feel for maneuvering the airplane around..."
Local and federal investigators and police have been poring over Atta's traces in Hamburg since the FBI told them that Atta and and other Arab men in his circle were among the suspected hijackers.
Prayer group
The prayer room he was granted by the university has been searched and sealed. Investigators say they "do not exclude" the idea he used the prayer group to recruit other Arabs.
His apartment, in a mouldy yellow apartment building at Marienstrasse 54, has been vacant since February. It has been repainted and stands empty, although the rent of 916.75 German marks a month was paid regularly, usually in cash.
Torsten Albrecht, the housing administrator, says Atta was "a nice tenant." Neighbors say he was polite but kept to himself, that up to five other Aravs lived with him at different times, and that they always left their shoes neatly outside the door.
One of the occasional co-tenants over the past year was Marwan Yusef Mohammed al-Shehhi, 23, who accompanied Atta on his flight-training courses in Florida. The FBI has said that al-Shehhi was aboard the second plane to hit the World Trade Center, United Airlines Flight 175.
On May 2, Atta entered the United States using a visa issued in Hamburg. Within two weeks, he had rented the apartment in Hollywood and begun fine-tuning his flying skills on a single-engine plane that he rented for $88 an hour in Palm Beach County.
According to an FBI document obtained by Der Spiegel and shown to The New York Times, Atta emerged on August 28 to book a reservation for a one-way ticket on the Sept.11 American Airlines Flight 11. He bought his ticket on the American Airlines web site and used his mileage card: AAdvantage Profile(NU)6H26L04, which had been established only three days before, on Aug. 25.
To Pay, he used a Visa card. He also paid for the ticket of Abdulaziz Alomari, who traveled on the same flight. Six of the suspected hijackers used the same contact telephone number as Atta, suggesting that the reclusive engineering student had taken on a central organizing role in an elaborate and painstakingly prepared plot.
---New York Times News Service
A lot...and even more who may not do the deed, but will help the scum. And more yet who will quietly delight in what was done.
The US is going to get a taste of what Israel has endured for a long time. I hope that we forget the nonsense about "restraint"....
What Israel has endured in terms of the Intifada, Jihad, etc. and concurrently the hypocritical calls for restraint in dealing with this menace, is a microcosm, a lesson in the stupid appeasement policies in the face of the Jihadic mentality. You can't sign treaties with people bent on your destruction.
Figures. Training ground for the bigger Jihad yet to come.
Will the NYC Board of Education be providing prayer rooms in the public schools to Muslim students AGAIN this year?
Good question. I'm sure their liberalism will overlook any risks in the name of political correctness.
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