[knighthawk]

Ping

[eno_]

So he was "conspiring" in Spain, but in Prague he was just sampling the local beer? Oh yeah, it's "domestic anthrax." (Haha, as if he was drinking "domestic Budweiser" in Budvar...)

[livius]

They certainly got around. I read an earlier report in the Spanish press (a couple of months ago) descrbing a meeting that some of these guys were thought to have had in the province of Gerona, in a resort town near the French border.

I imagine it would be fairly easy for Arab nationals to move around in the Mediterrean coastal regions of Spain, because there is a large Middle Eastern and African immigrant population (both legal and illegal) in that area.

[aristeides]

I remember seeing a report earlier that Atta and al-Shehhi stayed the night of their arrival in Spain at a hotel near the Madrid airport.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I have two takes on this. First of all, a "summit" would directly violate the notion of "cells" so that each terrorist only knows his immediate mission and can't compromise details or personnel of other missions if caught. Secondly, what is with the word "summit"? When Bush and Putin meet, it's a "summit". If a bunch of terrorist thugs get together, I'd be hard pressed to call that a "summit".

[denydenydeny]

Not much new in this report--a detailed itinerary of Atta's movements in Spain has been available for a long time.

The new part is the attendance of both Bahaji and Binalshibh at the summit. That has not been made public prior to now, if I recall correctly.

There has been some speculation that Atta's mission to Spain was about some pressing non-9/11 matter. But the presence of both Bahaji and Binalshibh makes it pretty much certain that the meeting was a final Al-Qaeda signoff on the 9/11 plan. Atta had several meetings with other terrorists on the trip, but the obvious main focus of it was the Tarragona meeeting.