Hijackers' Meticulous Strategy of Brains, Muscle and Practice

NY Times ^ | 11/04/01 | By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and KATE ZERNIKE

[abner]

Very interesting read.

[onyx]

I'll say! Very interesting indeed!

This is the first I've heard about the plane to plane telephone call! (hurray for roving wiretaps)

[abner]

Some new stuff here.

I've been wondering for awhile about something. Did ANY of these guys have real jobs?

[abner]

First I've heard about them communicating too.

[abner]

FYI

[abner]

Ping!

[FITZ]

beneath them, 12 soldiers, or "muscle," whose sole responsibility seems to have been restraining the flight attendants and passengers while the leaders took over the jets' controls.

Sounds like the so-called zealous Muslims didn't have common decency to inform these stooges of their fate and their real mission. I wonder if you get the 72 virgins if you committed suicide for allah but weren't told you were doing that.

[abner]

Sounds like the so-called zealous Muslims didn't have common decency to inform these stooges of their fate and their real mission.

More proof that they are were cowards.

[vannrox]

Yes. Indeed this is a great read.

[abner]

Nicely related- Revealed: the bloody pages of Al-Qaeda's killing manual

[Cboldt]

No wiretap needed -- just a radio. The fact a call was made is easy to discern, call log/phone bill, whatever. The fact that they called each other "cousin" during the call; I wonder if that is literary license or known fact.

[woollyone]

"The plot was first pieced together, they say, at least two years ago, in Hamburg, Germany..."

I'll ask what I've asked before about this Gremany connection. Does anyone know what Andreas Strassmeir has been up to for the past few years?

baa

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

A good read for sure!

[woollyone]

Pinging our German freepers....

Any news about Andreas Strassmeir and his possible ties to 09-11-01 planning?

baa

[onyx]

I KNOW that call was not monitored by wiretap. My hurray for roving wiretaps relates to the new law, which, had Atta been a suspect at the time of the hi-jacking, the roving wiretap would have given the authorities the wherewithall to stop the flight from taking off. Sheeesh.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[aristeides]

Bump. Here's the NY Times piece trying to explain the hijackers' frequent trips to Vegas. But it seems to know nothing about the frequent trips of Commerce Department Abdullah Noman that this AP piece reports.

[aristeides]

There's an article entitled "Top secret" in the print edition of this week's Der Spiegel confirming, from intercepted conversations among the al Qaeda terrorists, that there M.O. is to use the telephone only when absolutely necessary and not to say anything sensitive over it. I can't find the article using searches on www.spiegel.de, so they may not have put the article on line.

[Fred Mertz]

The Saudi government, stung by American reports that most of the hijackers received visas from their country, initially said that the hijackers used fake identities stolen from innocent citizens. But the F.B.I. says that it has confirmed the identities of all 19 of the hijackers, and that 15 were Saudis.

Why would the Saudi government essentially lie to 'protect' their citizens' involvement in the Sep 11 hijackings? Did they think the lie would stick?

Very interesting article.