The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [220]
In July 2002 a routine FBI fingerprint check on a group of detainees in Gitmo found that detainee No. 63, who until then had insisted that he knew nothing about al-Qaeda and that he had been in Afghanistan pursuing his interest in falconry, had given a false name. In fact, he was Mohammed al-Qahtani, who had vowed, “I will be back” after being refused entry to the United States on August 4, 2001, in Orlando. He had landed in Florida with almost nonexistent English, a one-way ticket, and $2,800 in cash. Asked who he was meeting, he said that there was someone “upstairs”; asked for the name, Qahtani changed his story and said that no one was waiting for him.
Now he was back, although not in the manner he probably expected. His file showed that he had been captured near the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan by Pakistani forces around December 15, 2001, and transferred to Guantánamo Bay on February 13, 2002. He was picked up with the other twenty-nine members of the group that included Abu Assim and Qosi, promptly nicknamed “the dirty thirty” by investigators for their false stories and close links to al-Qaeda leadership.
Given this background information and the proximity to 9/11 of Qahtani’s entry attempt, we started looking for links between him and the hijackers. We found that on his landing card, he had listed a number belonging to Mustafa al-Hawsawi, KSM’s administrative assistant for the 9/11 attack. Some of the hijackers also had Hawsawi’s number on their landing forms. Next we discovered that on the day Qahtani had tried to enter the United States, between 4:30 and 8:30 PM a series of five calls were made from a pay phone in the airport to Hawsawi’s number. The calls were made using a calling card bought with lead hijacker Mohammed Atta’s credit card. Surveillance footage from the airport also revealed that at 4:18 PM a rental car used by Atta had entered the airport’s garage, leaving at 9:04.
It seemed too big a coincidence that Atta, or someone using his card, would have been independently at the same airport making a call a few hours before Qahtani had arrived. I told a colleague to check whether the Virgin Atlantic flight that Qahtani was on had been delayed, and it turned out that it had been; it had been scheduled to land at 4:40 PM but hadn’t gotten in till a few hours later. Atta (or one of his fellow plotters) had probably called to find out where Qahtani was and what had happened to the flight.
The evidence indicated that Qahtani was the missing fifth hijacker on United Airlines Flight 93. The other three planes each had five hijackers, while Flight 93 had four. He, and not Zacarias Moussaoui, as then attorney general John Ashcroft had been claiming, was the missing twentieth hijacker.
We took this information to General Dunlavey and explained Qahtani’s connection to 9/11. Our team, assisted by behavioral experts, recommended that we remove him from the general Gitmo population and put him in the brig, as we had done with Abu Assim. The purpose of doing so would be to send him the message that his cover was blown and to isolate him from his support base. We also worried that if other detainees found out that we knew he was the twentieth hijacker, they might try to kill him to prevent him from giving us information about the plot. He was transferred and I was given clearance to see him.
“Why have I been moved?” Qahtani asked, clearly nervous as to why he had been put in the brig.
“We know who you are,” I told him. “Your cover has been blown. We know how you tried to enter the United States in August. It’s time for you to start telling us the truth.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied angrily.
I studied him for a few moments while letting my words sink in. He was short and skinny, and his eyes were glassy, as if there was not much there.