Bin laden's Fingerprints in the 9/11 hijacked Plane attacks

BIN LADEN’S FINGERPRINTS ON 9/11
HIJACKED PLANE ATTACKS

This is the Last of three parts of a study on why Bin Laden became
The target of the US retaliation in the War against Terrorism

By:

RIDWAN ROSDIAWAN
Master graduate of Leiden Universiteit The Netherlands
living in Bekasi indonesia
ros_di_awan@yahoo.com



Tuesday September 11, 2001, people all around the world were shocked by and focused
their attention to the stunning news of the century: “America under attack!” Those who tuned in
to the television coverage of the event might feel like watching a live tragic drama. The “play”
started at 8:45 a.m. local time when a hijacked passenger jet was flown into the side of the North
110-floor tower of the World Trade Center Plaza in New York City's financial district and burned
the upper 30th floor of the building. While many TV cameras around Manhattan focused on the
World Trade Center complex, the next horrifying scene appeared on the screen eighteen minutes
later when another hijacked aircraft was crashed into the south tower, creating a big blast and a
huge fireball. The coverage continued showing the third planes that hit the southwest face of the
Pentagon Building and the fourth hijacked aircraft, which was crashed into a field in south-
western Pennsylvania. The closing part of that day “drama” was concluded by an extremely
dramatic scene; People were screaming and crying as the two highest towers collapsed and
brought with it more than 3000 lives. Of course, it was not the end of the whole plot. Instead, it
is the beginning of a new story that, in many respects, changes the United States and the whole
world forever. The world would never be the same again.
Immediately after this horrific attack, American began questioning “who is the
perpetrator behind the action?”, a natural question that is generally raised when something wrong
occurred. “When things go wrong in a society,” according to Bernard Lewis, “there are various
questions that one can ask. A common one… is: “who did this to us?” The answer to a question
thus formulated is usually to place the blame on external or domestic scapegoats – foreigner
abroad or minorities at home”.1 Although Lewis emphasizes that the question-answer formula is

1 Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002, p. 22-23.

---

10
widespread particularly in continental Europe yesterday and the Middle East today, the American
public were also likely to ask similar question and to formulate the same answers.
The first wide-circulated theories and speculations on who masterminded the atrocities
were addressed to several extremist Middle Eastern groups and governments. The Shi’a Moslem
groups loyal to Iran that launched devastating attacks against American targets in the eighties, the
Saddam Hussein’s regime of Iraq and the numerous Palestinian groups that engaged in conflict
with Israel were some of the possible suspects who have the motivation in carrying out the
attack. There were also some suspicions suggesting that the attacks was a home-grown operation,
either by Moslems living in America who were responsible for the previous 1993 bombing of
The WTC building or by right wing American extremists who until September, 10 held the
record for the most deadly attack in America with 168 deaths in 1994 Federal building bombings
in Oklahoma. From all candidate suspects, however, there was only a name that was often
spoken out during official press briefing and interviews. That was Osama bin Laden.
The fact that the US officials put Bin Laden as the first in their list of suspects is not too
surprising. Not only did the eight-hour process until the prime suspect was named implies that
the US had long inveterate hatred toward Osama bin Laden based on his previous actions. It also
showed that the US had previously initiated profound investigations on Osama and his people
and had captured the signs of the presence of his next attack against American interests.
From the British government’s “Text of Evidence against Osama bin Laden”, for
example, it can be learned that prior to September 11 the threats and planning for terrorist attack
involving Osama’s hand had been monitored. The investigators had found the signs of major
attacks preparations such as the mounting al-Qaeda’s propaganda campaigns in the run up to
September 11, the Bin laden’s assertion that he was preparing a major attacks on America, and
the warning directed to bin Laden’s close associates to return to Afghanistan from other parts of
the world by the tenth of September1. However, the officials, at that time, simply did not know
when and how the attacks would be executed.
There were also two signs of the attack’s warning that had already in the hand of the
domestic authorities, but they were too late to anticipate them. The first warning came from an
FBI agent in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 10. In his classified memorandum, the agent urged the
bureau headquarters to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools. He
also cited Osama bin Laden by name and suggested that his followers in al-Qaeda were using
flight schools nationwide for terror operations. However, the agent’s proposal never resulted in

1 Text of Evidence…, loc.cit.

---

11
further investigation.1 Second, nearly a month before hijacking, Minnesota authority arrested a
French citizen of Moroccan descent for a visa violation. The man, known as Zacarias Moussaoui,
had attracted attention since he offered a flight school more than $8000 in cash for lessons in
how to handle a plane in mid-flight, but he was not interested in learning on how to take off or
land.2 The investigators, however, could not spell the danger coming from him and failed to
disclose the connection that linked him to other operatives in his cell. Only after further
investigation following the attack did they believe that Moussaoui is supposed to be the twentieth
hijackers on board United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into rural Pennsylvania.
Furthermore, Patrick Martin, a contributor to the World Socialist Web Site, found that
the early warnings of September 11 attacks had also been given to the US by the governments of,
at least, four countries -- Germany, Egypt, Russia and Israel. Citing an article published by a
Germany daily newspaper (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 14, 2001), Martin narrated
that the German intelligence service BND told both US and Israeli intelligence agencies in June
that Middle East terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to
attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture. In addition, Martin showed that, based
on an article in The New York Times, Sept 26,2001, entitled “2 Leaders Tell of Plot to Kill Bush in
Genoa,” by David Sanger, the government of Egypt also sent an urgent warning to the US June
13, based on a video made by Osama bin Laden. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told that the
warning was originally delivered just before the G-8 summit in Genoa. According to the Egyptian
President, Bin Laden spoke of assassinating President Bush and other heads of states in Genoa.
It was a question of an airplane stuffed with explosives. These precautions then had been taken.
The third government that sent attacks warnings is Russia. According to Russian press reports,
Russian intelligence notified the CIA during the summer that 25 terrorist pilots had been
specifically training for suicide missions. In an interview September 15 with MSNBC, Russian
President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he had ordered Russian intelligence in August to warn
the US government “in the strongest possible terms” of imminent attacks on airports and
government buildings. Then, the London-based Sunday Telegraph reported that the Israeli
intelligence service Mossad had delivered a warning to the FBI and CIA in August that as many
as 200 followers of Osama bin Laden were slipping into the country to prepare “a major assault
on the United States.” The advisory spoke of a “large-scale target” in which Americans would be

1 Michael Elliot, “Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?”, Time, Aug 04, 2002, or see on
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333835,00.html. See also, Davis Johnston, “Pre-Attack Memo
Cited Bin Laden”, The New York Times, May 15, 2001, and, Ron Fournier, “Bush was Warned of Hijack Plot”,
Associated Press, May 16, 2001.
2 USA Today, “ Calls Link Jailed Suspect to Hijackers”, Oct 17, 2001

---

12
“very vulnerable.” The Los Angeles Times cited unnamed US officials confirming this Mossad
warning.1
There was also another report indicating that Osama’s attack planning had leaked. An
editor of a London based newspaper “al-Quds al-Araby”, Abdel Bari Atwan, received a previous
warning of major attacks in American soil. Three weeks before the September 11 he received
information that Bin Laden was preparing extremely big attacks on American interests, but he did
not report the information and preferred to see what would happen before reporting it.2
When the attacks occurred, the investigators came to the conclusion that this may be the
“signature” of Osama bin Laden.3 The preparation and implementation of the attacks have a
number of characteristics that matches to the manual written in a kind of handbook that,
according to the American prosecutors, was used in training by al-Qaeda network. The book,
which in English translation means “Military Studies in The Jihad Against the Tyrants” and was
captured in May 2000 by authorities while searching the home of a suspected bin Laden operative
in Manchester England, instructs that in operations “cells or clusters methods should be adopted
by the organization. It should be composed of many cells whose members do not know one
another, so that if a cell member is caught the other cells would not be affected, and work would
proceed normally”. It also tells undercover operatives to “have general appearance that does not
indicate Islamic orientation”. The operatives “should have a calm personality that allows him to
endure psychological traumas such as those involving bloodshed, murder, arrest, and
imprisonment,” and they “have to be willing to do the work and undergo martyrdom for the
purpose of achieving the goal and establishing the religion of majestic Allah on earth”. One of
the missions to be accomplished is “blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital
economic centres”.4 Although there is no evidence the hijackers had the handbook, much of their
conduct reflects its lessons.
On Friday, September 14, 2001, the US Department of Justice uncovered the names of
nineteen suspected hijackers out of 50 people identified by FBI as possibly being linked to the
attacks. On board each of the crashed planes, the hijackers operated in a small team consist of
five persons, except on the Flight 93 which carried only four hijackers. On American Airlines
Flight 11 which struck the WTC’s north tower, five identified hijackers out of total 92 passengers
are Mohammed Atta, Waleed M Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari and Satam Al

1 Patrick Martin, “Was the US Government Alerted to September 11 Attack?: Part 1: Warnings in
Advance”, on http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/sept-j16.shtml
2 Richard Beeston, loc.cit.
3 This statement came from a Republican Senator, Orrin Hatch based on information given to him by the
FBI. Ibid.
4 Benjamin Weiser, “Captured Terrorist Manual Suggests Hijackers Did a Lot by the Book”, Oct 28,
2001, on www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/international/28MANU.html

---

13
Suqami. Other five hijackers, onboard United Airlines Flight 175 that crashed into the south
tower, are Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed
Alghamdi. The hijackers onboard the American Airlines Flight 77 that was flown into the
Pentagon are Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani
Hanjour. Finally, four hijackers onboard the United Airlines Flight 93 are Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed
Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami and Saeed Alghamdi.1
All the nineteen hijackers were originated from Middle East countries, and fifteen of
them were Saudi Arabian. Several of them came to the United States as early as January 2000 and
had lived in cities such as Florida, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts and Arizona. Many of
them took pilot training in several US aviation schools and gathered materials that were needed
to fly a jetliner so, the investigators concluded, that it made them possible to lead the aircrafts
toward the targets. To support their operations, several hijackers also attended gyms and took
martial arts lessons, which included instruction in kickboxing, knife fighting and street fighting
techniques.2 According to investigators and records of cellular phone calls made by passengers
aboard the planes, the hijackers used pepper spray, knives and box cutters to kill or wound
passengers and the pilots. As soon as they seized the cockpit, they commandeered the aircraft
and slammed it to the pre-selected targets. However, Not all hijacking plot did run smoothly.
Several heroic passengers on board Flight 93 revolted against the hijackers and that is why, the
investigators believe that, the hijacked plane never reached its final target and crashed in rural
area of Pennsylvania.3
Learning characteristics of the attack, which was conducted simultaneously, the
investigators concluded that the hijackers on board the four planes did not operate as separated,
independent teams. Instead, they were well linked to each other, and the main link that connected
all the four teams was found in Mohammad Atta, the suspected hijacker that piloted Flight 11 to
the north tower of the WTC building. Atta was the one hijacker who appeared to have the most
contacts with conspirators on other aircrafts prior to the attack. He was the one who left a last
testament, which included this prayer: “Be prepared to meet your God. Be ready for this
moment…”.4 The trail he left behind has made him a key figure in efforts by investigators to link
the multiple attacks and trace their sources. Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said public reports

1 BBC, “Nineteen Hijack Suspects Named”, BBC News, September 14, 2001. The news can be accessed
on http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1543000/1543886.stm
2 The US Department of Justice, “Indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui”, on
http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/moussaouiindictment.htm. See also, BBC, “Nineteen Hijack…”, Ibid.
3 BBC, “Recordings Reveal Hijack Confusion”, October 17, 2001, on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1603000/1603489.stm. See also, the US Department of
State, “Pattern of Global Terrorism 2001”, on http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2001/html/10235pf.htm
4 Evan Thomas, et. al., “The Road to Sept. 11”, Newsweek, October 1, 2001.

---

14
of Atta’s activities before the attack suggest that he may well be “the pied piper of the hijackers”.
“It makes sense that,” he continued, “investigators are exploring Atta’s role so thoroughly, Atta’s
background may yield critical insight to the terrorists’ organizations and mind set.”1
Unlike the stereotype of a suicide hijacker which is that of a young man or teenage boy
who has no job, no education, no prospects and no hope, Mohammad Atta, a 33-year-old
Egyptian, in no way matches that pathetic creature. He did not come from a poor or desperate
fundamentalist family. His father, Mohamed, described himself as one of the most important
lawyers in Cairo. His two sisters are university professors who have Ph.D. degree. The Atta
family has a vacation home on the Mediterranean coast, and their Cairo apartment with a
sweeping view of downtown, is filled with ornate furniture and decorated with paintings of
flamingos and women in headscarves. Atta won a bachelor’s degree in Cairo in 1990 and went to
Germany for graduate study in urban planning.2
When Studying in Technical University in Hamburg in late 1990’s, Atta stayed together
with his nephew or cousin Marwan al-Shehhi, another suspected hijacker who piloted the plane
that hi the WTC’s south tower. Atta and al-Shehhi appeared to spend most time together even
until the last minutes before they both boarded the hijacked planes.3 Atta was also believed to
have meetings with Ziad Jarrah, a hijacker who is assumed to take control of the planes that
crashed in Pennsylvania, as they both studied in the same year in the Hamburg Technical
University.4 Also in Hamburg, Atta had extensive connections and shared an apartment with two
other suspected terrorists, Said Bahaji and Ramzi bin al-Shibh5, a fellow fugitive who is believed
to have wire funds to the US to pay for Atta’s flight training.6 Based on these reports, the

1 David Pace, “Atta Emerging as Potential Link”, Associated Press, September 25, 2001.
2 Evan Thomas, “The Road…”, loc.cit.
3 David Pace, “Atta Emerging…”, loc.cit.
4 CBC Television, “Beyond Belief: The Story of Ziad Samir Jarrah”, October 10, 2001. See also on
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/featurestories/jarrah_101001/story.html
5 Ramzi bin al-Shibh is likely to meet the profile of the “twentieth” hijacker, instead of Zacarias
Moussaoui. According to several investigators, Moussaoui does not fit the hijackers‟ profile. He arrived later and
began flight training in America later than the others. He also seemed to be a loner and totally different from the
other hijackers who travelled in pairs or larger groups. Al-Shibh, on the other hand, had tried to apply for US
Visa several times in months prior to the Sept. 11 attack, but his applications were never approved. He wired
money from Hamburg to Atta, al-Shehhi and Zacarias Moussaoui in the United States. He also tried to have
flight training in the US. For that purpose, he asked assistance from Ziad Jarrah in enrolling a flight school in
Florida and arranged to wire money from his account in Germany to that school. For more information, see Tony
Locy, et.al., “Calls link Jailed Suspect to Hijackers”, USA Today, October 17, 200, or on
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/10/17/minnesota-suspect.htm. See also the US Department of
Justice, “Indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui”, loc.cit., and Dafna Linzer, “A Year Later, 19 Hijackers are Still a
Tangle of Mystery and Contradiction”, Associated Press, August 25, 2002.
6 Richard Behar, “The Karachi Connection: Bin Laden‟s Terror Engineer”, Fortune, October 30, 2001.
See also on http://www.fortune.com/sitelets/wtc/article.html

---

15
investigators concluded that Atta, along with his associates, formed and maintained an al-Qaeda
terrorist cell in Germany and began devising the hijacking plots.1
While living in the United States, Mohamed Atta, along with al-Shehhi, received several
money transfers sent from UAE by a person named Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. Al-Hawsawi is
suspected to be one of the financial backers of the hijackers. He also closely connected to other
two suspected hijackers, Fayez Ahmed (on board Flight 175) and Waleed al-Shehri (on board
Flight 11), since he arranged to exchange money transfers with both hijackers. Several days
before the attack, al-Hawsawi received money transfers from each Mohammed atta, Marwan al-
Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, and Waleed al-Shehri. The transferred funds were believed to be the
excess money that the hijackers had to returned it back to their financier.2
According to several witnesses, Atta and al-Shehhi appeared in a suburban Washington
motel room where five men stayed from late August through September 10. The motel is less
than a mile away from another motel where Jarrah and Nawaq Alhamzi were registered on
separate nights in late August and early September. Alhamzi was on the American Airlines Flight
77 that crashed into Pentagon.3
The investigation of Atta’s role revealed some other interesting points. His name, for
example, had already on the police records prior to the attack, since he was stopped on April 26,
2001 for driving without license and used a bad credit card when trying to purchase the official
Air Force magazine. Atta was also interested in starting crop dusting business. He repeatedly
visited a fertilizer company asking about crop duster planes in the weeks leading up to the attack.
His “hobby”, unsurprisingly, raised fears that terrorists would use the small farm planes in a
biological or chemical attack. Five month prior to the attack, Atta was reported to have a contact
with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Czech Republic. This report was confirmed by the Czech
authorities and, to some extent, raises a suspicion of Iraqis’ involvement in the September 11
atrocities.4
Further investigation on Atta’s track records also helped the investigators to reconstruct
the networks of the hijackers. There are at least four networks which represent the cellular
systems of operation that are similar to those of al-Qaeda attack patterns. First is the Hamburg
connection, which consists of at least three hijackers, Mohammad Atta, marwan al-Shehhi and
Ziad Jarrah. The second network is the Boston connections. Two suspected hijackers who flew

1 The US Dept of Justice, “Indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui”, loc.cit. See also, Tony Locy, “Calls
Link…”, loc.cit.
2 The US Department of Justice, “Indictment...”, ibid.
3 CBC Television, “Beyond Belief:…”, loc.cit. See also David Pace, “Atta Emerging as…”, loc.cit.
4 Patrick E. Tyler, “Czechs Confirm Iraqi Agent Met with Terror Ringleader”, The New York Times,
October 27, 2001. See also David Pace, “Atta Emerging as…”, loc.cit.

---

16
on separate flights out of Boston, Ahmed al-Ghamdi and Satam al-Suqami, have been tied by
federal investigators to a former cab driver named Nabi al-Marabh now on trial for a series of
foiled millennium bombings in Jordan. The third is the Kuala Lumpur connection. Khalid al-
Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi who were believed to have been on board the plane that crashed
into the Pentagon were spotted on a CIA surveillance video at a meeting with Osama bin Laden
operatives in the Malaysian capital in January 2000. Finally, the forth network is the Algerian
connection. This connection was constructed through Zacarias Maoussaoui. He was assumed to
be tightly connected to a number of bin Laden’s Algerian operatives who were put on trial in
early 2001 for attempting to bomb Los Angeles Airport.1
Revealing the connections of those hijackers to Osama bin Laden, however, is not an
easy task. Although the Saudi born militant emerged as the top suspect who masterminded the
attack within hours and President George W. Bush stated clearly on September 15, 2001 that he
was convinced of Osama’s involvement,2 the evidence connecting the hijackers to the man long
identified as America’s public enemy number one that would stand up in a court of law may be
very hard to come by. Certainly, the investigation into the nineteen men believed to have hijacked
the jets has revealed a coordinated but loosely tied organisation that relied on constant
movement, shifting cover stories, changing identities, code names, decoys and even disguises to
remain undetected, which is one of the very characteristics of al-Qaeda operatives. However, this
did not indicate directly that they are the members of the organization. The working hypothesis
of Osama’s role is necessarily elusive, since the perpetrators are believed to have had little or no
direct contact with the top man. His al-Qaeda is not the sort of organization that allows itself to
be linked to anything so crude as a smoking gun and investigators hold out little or no hope of
finding a wiretap of Osama bin Laden issuing specific instructions, or a signed list of written
commands.3
Since there was no direct evidence in the public domain linking him to the September 11
attack, Osama bin Laden tried to prove his innocence against American allegation as he usually
did in other terrorism cases indicted against him. Since the terror attacks on New York and
Washington, he has several times denied involvement.4 In an interview with a special

1 Andrew Gumbel, “The Case Against America‟s Most Wanted”, The Independent, September 19, 2001.
See also on http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=94847
2 See, Office of the Press Secretary, “President Urges Readiness and Patience”, on
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010915-4.html
3 Richard Allen Greene, “The Trail to Bin Laden”, BBC News Online, September 20, 2001. See also on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1554000/1554353.stm, and Andrew Gumbel, “The
Case against…”, loc.cit.
4 “Bin Laden Calls on Pakistanis to Fight the US”, Associated Press, September 24, 2001.

---

17
correspondent from Karachi’s Ummat daily newspapers, Osama said that he has nothing to do
with the attacks:
… As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor
do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable
act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people. Such
a practice is forbidden ever in the course of a battle… I have already said that we are against
the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American
people have been killed…1
Osama also suggested that the perpetrators of those deadly attacks were coming from the
American circle. He said that they could be either people who were a part of the US system but
were dissenting against it or those who were annoyed with President Bush ever since the
elections in Florida and want to avenge him, or they could be intelligence agencies in the US who
want to have their fund raised, or even they were persons from other systems who want to make
the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own
civilization, nation, country, or ideology could survive.2 Of course, Osama could state anything
and seemed to be able to defend his blamelessness as long as the American officials did not came
up with any strong and convincing evidence.
Osama’s position was also assured by the facts that there are several confusions
surrounding the attacks. As the hijacking process could not be reconstructed because no
witnesses on board the planes was found alive and the only available black box did not reveal
anything essential, the profile of the nineteen hijackers also contains doubtful information. For
example, Waleed al-Shehri who was one of five men that the FBI had deliberately crashed
American Airlines flight 11 into the WTC was protesting his innocence from Casablanca,
Morocco on September 23, 2001. He said that he was in Morocco when the attacks occurred, and
he also acknowledged that he attended flight training in the United States and was indeed the
same Waleed al-Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring. He left the United States in
September 2001, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training
course in Morocco. The similar case can also be found in Abdulaziz al-Omari, Saeed al-Ghamdi,
and Khalid al-Midhar. On the other side, the Director of the FBI also admitted that the identity
of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt.3

1 This report is originally written in Urdu and was published by Ummat on September 28, 2001. The
translation can be downloaded from Khilafah Online Magazine under the title “Al-Qa‟idah Group had Nothing
to Do with the September 11 Attacks”, on
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=2392&TagID=2
2 Ibid.
3 BBC, “Hijack „Suspect‟ Alive and Well”, BBC News, September 23, 2001. See also on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1559000/1559151.stm

---

18
While the presence of evidence was important because many in the American-led
coalition were uneasy about taking military action against Osama bin Laden without proof of his
complicity, President Bush tried to convince international community that his government
already had evidence of a specific nature relating to the guilt of bin Laden and his associates, but
a large parts of it cannot go public since it is too sensitive to release. This statement was then
echoed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said that he had seen absolutely powerful,
incontrovertible evidence of Osama bin Laden’s link to the events of September 11. Like
American officials, he declined to provide details, citing security considerations: “What we have
to consider, because much of this evidence comes to us from sensitive sources, from intelligence
sources, is how much we can present to people”.1 When asserting that Osama bin Laden is
behind the attack, US and British officials lean heavily on what they believe to be bin Laden’s
record and his coonection to other terrorist attacks. They normally released statements which
give general clues of bin Laden’s involvement. Firstly, nobody else has the financial means, the
organizational structure, the ideological imperative, the unwaveringly loyal followers, and the
sheer guts to pull off such a devastating attack. Finally, the September 11 attacks were similar in
both their ambition and intended impact to previous attacks undertaken by Osama bin Laden
and al-Qaida, and also had features in common such as involved suicide attackers, coordinated
attacks on the same day, the aim to cause maximum American casualties, meticulous long-term
planning and the absence of warning.2
The signal of Bush’s decision to not publicly open all the necessary evidence of Osama’s
involvement could already be seen since the earliest days after the attack. In a press briefing after
having a phone call with Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani on September 13, for example,
President Bush said: “…Any sources and methods of intelligence will remain guarded and secret.
My administration will not talk about how we gather intelligence, if we gather intelligence and
what the intelligence says…”.3 The reason behind this decision, according to Bush, is simply to
protect American people, especially those who are in charge of gathering intelligence information
on this case.4 Secretary of State Collin Powell, on another occasion, also added the government
was assembling a lot of information gathered from both intelligence and law enforcement
sources, and the authority would release the information that can be shared and protect the
classified one. The purpose of this, according to Powell, is that “… We don't give away sources

1 Alan Cowell, “Blair Says He‟s Seen Proof of Bin Laden Role”, The New York Times, September 30,
2001.
2 Andrew Gumbel, “The Case against…”, loc.cit. See also the Text of Evidence against bin Laden
released by the British Government, loc.cit.
3 Office of the Press Secretary, “President Pledges Assistance for New York in Phone Call with Pataki,
Giuliani”, September 13, 2001. See also on http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010913-4.html
4 Ibid.

---