The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [141]
Before applying for U.S. visas, the four applied for new passports, claiming that they had lost their originals. They worried that the Pakistani visas on their passports might harm their prospects of being given U.S. visas. When the new passports arrived, they applied for the visas. On January 18, 2000, Shehhi’s came through. There was nothing for a few months, and then on May 18 Atta’s came through, and on May 25 Jarrah’s application was approved. Binalshibh’s, however, was rejected. He attempted three more times to get a visa, but each time, his application was rejected—not because of suspicions about terrorism but for the same reason his visa application had been rejected a few years earlier: he was a Yemeni, and U.S. authorities at the time were nervous that Yemenis would try to stay in the country illegally.
As he couldn’t get into the United States, bin Laden and KSM tasked Binalshibh with being KSM’s main assistant for the plot and the liaison between the German cell and the al-Qaeda leadership. Nawaf al-Hazmi, one of the thirty operatives who had been singled out two years before by the leadership for special training from Khallad at Loghar, was selected by bin Laden as Atta’s “deputy.”
Once Atta, Shehhi, and Jarrah were in the United States, Binalshibh arranged for money to be wired to them and exchanged coded phone calls with Atta, who by that time had been appointed by al-Qaeda to lead the operation in the United States. In their phone calls, Atta and Binalshibh pretended to be students discussing their course work, but in reality a word such as “architecture” referred to the World Trade Center, and “arts” referred to the Pentagon. The two men also met a few times in Europe, for instance in Berlin in January 2001 and in Madrid in July 2001.
Binalshibh’s inability to get a visa was problematic for al-Qaeda, as their plan was to hijack four planes and simultaneously crash them into four buildings: the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol. KSM would later claim to CIA interrogators that he originally planned to use ten planes for 9/11, the tenth to be flown himself. He said he had planned to land the plane at a U.S. airport, kill all male passengers on board, and then give a speech to the world attacking the United States for supporting Israel and repressive Arab governments.
It’s clear, however, that this was never a real plan but rather an effort by KSM to boost his credentials—consistently, his motivation was always to make himself appear to be the ultimate terrorist mastermind, affording him greater notoriety than that enjoyed by his nephew Ramzi Yousef. His description of himself is also likely the product of his having watched too many of the terrorist movies that he screened for the 9/11 hijackers. The initial al-Qaeda plan was to launch attacks in the United States and Southeast Asia simultaneously, but the latter plan was abandoned as being overly complicated.
One person al-Qaeda was cultivating as another potential pilot was Zacarias Moussaoui, a Moroccan with French citizenship. His French passport would allow him to obtain a U.S. visa easily. The problem with Moussaoui, however, was that he was not very intelligent; the leadership wasn’t confident that he was up to the role. Moussaoui thought of himself as a tough guy, and he liked showing off his strength by wrestling with other al-Qaeda members. Abu Jandal enjoyed angering Moussaoui by telling him that he could beat him in a wrestling match, and then refusing to wrestle with him. His position as bin Laden’s bodyguard made him Moussaoui’s superior, and there was nothing Moussaoui