Posted on 07/19/2002 1:04:17 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:07:32 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which took off from Washington Dulles Airport for Los Angeles and crashed into the Pentagon:
Alhamzi, Nawaq — Passenger No. 12
Almidhar, Khalid — Passenger No. 20, Seat 12B
Alhamzi, Salem — Passenger No. 13, Seat 5F
Moqed, Majed — Passenger No. 19, Seat 12A
Hanjour, Hani
Aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which departed Newark, NJ, for San Francisco and crashed outside of Shanksville, Pa.:
Alghamdi, Saeed — Passenger No. 2
Alhaznawi, Ahmed — Passenger No. 3
Alnami, Ahmed — Passenger No. 4
Jarrahi, Ziad — Passenger No. 26
Aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center after taking off from Boston's Logan International Airport en route to Los Angeles:
Alshehri, Wail — Passenger No. 1, Seat 2A
Alshehri, Waleed — Passenger No. 2, Seat 2B
Alomari, Abdulaziz — Passenger No. 14, Seat 8G
Al Suqami, Satam — Passenger No. 20, Seat 10B
Atta, Mohamed — Seat 8D
Aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which left Boston for Los Angeles but crashed into the South Tower of the Word Trade Center:
Alghamdi, Ahmed — Passenger No. 2
Alghamdi, Hamza — Passenger No. 3
Al-Shehhi, Marwan — Passenger No. 4
Alshehri, Mohald — Passenger No. 5
Ahmed, Fayez — Passenger No. 6
Last Updated: Sep 17, 2001
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/091401_nw_terrorist_attack_hijack_suspects.html
American Airlines Flight 11 (North Tower WTC)
United Airlines 175 (South Tower WTC)
American Airlines 77 (Pentagon)
United Airlines 93 (Crash Pennsylvania)
Ok, the first thing you're going to notice is that none of the hijacker's names are on these lists. The second thing you might notice (if you look close enough) is that the numbers don't add up. For example: Flight 93, CNN says it had 45 people on board. I count only 33- note this is including crew. So if no terrorists were listed for whatever reason- 4 (terrorists) + 33 listed= 37- that's 8 names not accounted for.
I won't go over the other flights because they all have similar discrepencies- check for yourself. The most obvious reason I see for this is- there are other names on that list that were either Arab or Arab looking or perhaps otherwise foreign and the FBI/Gov't is still actively looking into what connections they might have had to the thing. Maybe none, but they're still looking- you know?
Also, I would call your attention back to 9/11 and those crazy hours. Ashcroft gets on TV and says the hijackings appear to have been accomplished by teams of between 3- 6 people- (ref Guardian 9/13/01). Remember that? That would mean that on at least some of those planes they were clearly guessing because they thought there were at least 6 on at least one and probably more. So this points to two things: One, they didn't immediately know who was behind the hijackings, they were still piecing it together and Two, some of the people they may have suspected would probably have been left off the manifests that the gov't released to the media (left off by the gov't because they were still checking it out).
Next. Mohammed Atta's luggage didn't make the connection. In his suitcase were suspicious items- one being his last will and testament (why he would've been taking it on the plane I don't know but these guys were obviously a little mental). This would've been figured out fairly quickly, lost bag from one of the planes- the FBI would've been all over it.
Next, in Portland Maine, two of the hijackers got into an argument with someone in the parking lot. The person who had argued with them showed police the car. This obviously allowed them to follow up on those two.
Next- the flight attendants' discrepencies witht the seat numbers. There were 2 FAs that had called on telephones Ong and Sweeney. Ong stated that the hijackers had sprayed something in the first class cabin that made her eyes burn. The situation's intense. She calls an AA office and Ong said the four hijackers had come from first-class seats: 2A, 2B, 9A, and 9B. She said the wounded passenger was in seat 10B. Sweeney gave slightly different numbers, although I haven't been able to find that yet, so you'll have to forgive me. According to ABC News the hijackers on Flight 11 sat in 2A, 2B, 8D, 8G, and 10B (Atta was in 8D- this is important). So you can immediately see the difference between Ong's account and ABC's account (one would assume they obtained that info from the passenger list somehow). But the discrepencies aren't great, one row here, one row there. I can live with that, it was confusing no doubt. Also, Ong only mentions 4 terrorists. Allow me to project a little here:
The terrorists they believe piloted the flight were seated in 8D and 8G (one being Atta). Two more were bunched together in 2A and 2B. That left one bringing up the rear in 10B. Could they have gotten these seats on purpose somehow? I don't know. But the point is, how would the attack have gone down? I reckon they each had their jobs- makes sense. The guys in Row 2 would've jumped up attacked the flight attendant and begun trying to gain access while the "pilots" in row 8 get up and move toward the front, ready to move into the cockpit after the two from "2" sort that out. The guy in 10 will probably have been the one to have sprayed the pepper spray (or whatever it was) towards the rear of the plane to keep the passengers out. His job would've been rear security/crowd control as the most crucial part of the operation took place. I believe allthis happened quickly and that by the time Ong was making a mental count of the terrorists, one must have already been in the cockpit.
But something went a little bit wrong and this isn't talked about much. There was an Israeli anti terrorism expert seated very near one of the terrorists by pure dumb luck. I think he was seated in 9B- one seat forward of 10B. (Note, the article I link to speculate that this passenger was shot, not stabbed- but for purposes of this discussion, it's not important). I believe this passenger fought with the terrorist in 10B and was killed or badly wounded. He either quickly leaped back into row 10 or they fought in the aisle or over the seat. Or perhaps Atta, in 8D crept up behind the man while he was struggling with the 10B terrorist and cut his throat. At any rate, it's confusing, there's pepper spray, there's a good guy fighting a bad guy and Ong knows that 10 B and 9B are fighting and one is hurt. She gets it backwards and says the passenger in 10B or she gets it right because if this man, Daniel C. Lewin, did leap back into row 10, it is plausible that he collapsed there and Ong was reporting where the passenger was physically lying. It doesn't really matter though.
Also, note on Flight 93 Todd Beamer reported 4 hijackers but Mark Bingham reported 3. Does this point to conspiracy- no, it just means it was confusing.
But actually none of this is important. Without knowing anything about what went on inside the planes on 9/11, any idiot will note that it was a coordinated event. That automatically implies an organization. You therefore don't need to ID all the terrorists- you just need to ID one and find out who he is affiliated with. This was done with Atta and one of the other terrorists was on a list of persons known to have ties to terrorists. That's all we need- this one little connection to al Qaeda to know that all the terrorists were connected to al Qaeda. The first thing the Feds would've done even without the info from the two flight attendants would have been to get those manifests and start quarantining all "funny looking names" (read Arab names). There were probably more than 5 on each flight but the Feds would've narrowed it down pretty quickly I think. Many of the terrorists had documented links to each other so the names on the manifests that they were checking out would've started going "BINGO!" all over the place.
Anyway, that's my explanation. If you need any links or you want to know where I sourced any info that's not clear in my post let me know. I just want you to know- I did indulge you and I spent hours looking diligently for these things. You owe me a beer if you're ever in this neck of my woods ;-)
Link to article describing contents of luggage that didn't make the connection: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTC_suspects.html
Link to article that does a good job reconstructing the events (posted in Nov 2001): http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/boston.htm
Link to article from Sep 13, 2001 that starts to link the terrorists together, in particular Mohammed Atta (Flight 11) and Marwan Alshehhi (flight 175). They had gone to univerity together in Hamburg and the Germans picked them out of the list that our gov't sent them (presumedly from suspect names from manifest). This clearly demonstrates that terrorists on two different planes knew each other. There are some other good details in this article and you must keep in mind- this was 9/13. Two days afterwards and the Feds had not decided definitely at that point who the terrorists were but were starting to get some really good leads and connections between passengers on the different flights.
Link to article from May this year where a woman gives account of having seen Atta casing Logan Airport a couple days before 9/11: http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/local_regional/sudb_atta05292002.htm. This is only after the fact circumstantial evidence- but just in case you feel like we might have the wrong guy.
Link to eyewitness account by construction workers who literally had the First WTC plane fly right by where they were working on a building. It's dubious, but interesting- take it for what it's worth: http://www.thecityreview.com/eyewit.html. This is all I could find about an eyewitness who definitely saw the first plane hit- in contradiction to the "small commuter plane conspiracy".
Article from USA Today from May that describes how the terrorists did dry runs before the fact- more circumstantial evidence that we've got the right guys.
smorgle owes you 2 beers and a big "P.S. I Love you". :D
There's a moral to that story---save, save, save the page. Above half my bookmarks from last September either aren't working anymore or have different stuff on them now. :(
Anyway, I just don't see what the big deal is that they left the hijackers names, or those names they suspected belonged to the hijackers, off the passenger lists initially. It isn't any more sinister than leaving Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold off the "list" of who died at Columbine High School. It's just tactful. No one wants to see victims and murderers lumped together.
And if some of the hijackers had stolen identities, that doesn't matter much either. They got into this country under that identity and existed under that identity, so for all practical intents and purposes they WERE that person. There is no way to question them now, and it may be a while before there is an opportunity to question someone who might know.
The Soviet Union had some cold, inhuman procedures – but they were effective. I recall the 1979 Iranian Hostage situation … some Soviet personnel were taken along with the Americans. While the Carter State Dept was groveling before the Ayatollah, the Soviets went out and kidnapped some relatives of the Ayatollah or another high Iranian official. The Soviets began returning body parts (fingers first) until all Soviet hostages were released. It took a day or two; the Americans were held 444 days. Who had the more effective foreign policy?
Well, according to DaimlerChrysler commercials, we had SOOO much German technology, so technically …
"Pray for us. Pray for us." Those were the last words Gonzales heard.
What heros and brave souls. We must never forget......and God shall remember this evil and eternally punish those who inflicted this atrocity, destruction, and pain on Judgment Day.
Oh yes. Every day.
The research is truly great and I can appreciate it, having failed to find original lists. The scenarios/projections make sense -- actually, they're terrific -- also the reason for separating names of hijackers and victims.
What still bothers me is that 5 - 7 IDs were stolen. We don't know who those people really were. We don't know for sure whether the other IDs are accurate. Even Ashcroft admits we don't have a solid evidence trail connecting the hijackers with Al Qaeda. Yet we've started a global war of unlimited duration on the basis of them.
Details that satisfy you make me question-- Atta's luggage, the argument in the parking lot that led to the car -- and others like them not mentioned here-- the carousing terrorists on suicide eve, the in tact passport that was findable right away in the WTC rubble, the terrorist kit found with the Koran in the car, the good-bye letters -- all of it points to fanatic Islamic terrorists.
Or does it? Why would people planning to crash planes carry farewell letters on board instead of mailing them? Why would they have luggage at all? Why would someone involved in a huge, well organized plot jeopardize it with the trouble in the parking lot? Why would zealots about to die for Allah go out the night before and break the rules? Why would hijackers carry their hijacker accessories around in the car where they could have been found if there had been a traffic accident or violation? What, were they cramming for the "final"? These details came out one by one, but when I look at them all together they're hokey, like labels with big arrows that say "Moslem Terrorist here". They make me wonder who made them and what they don't want us to see.
Look, I believed everything, too, at first, even tho some of it strained credibility. I sat there like 90% of the country watching the towers fall over and over, pounding the sofa and saying You b@st@rds! You b@st@rds! and standing at attention every time I heard the national anthem. But since then a lot of pieces don't fit together, and the wobbly part at the base is the uncertainty about IDs.
There's more I don't want to get into here because it leads way off topic and would detract from the heroism of the flight attendants, which isn't my intention. I suspect there were more acts of heroism on all the flights than we'll ever know.
I apologize for the long delay. You deserved an answer when the thread was hot. Sorry, I got KO'd by a sinus infection -- should have been zapped with antibiotics about two days sooner than it was.
So glad I was wrong...
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