9/11, a BIOGRAPHY a Report of a Senior Study By
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9/11, A BIOGRAPHY A Report of a Senior Study by Joel C. Thornton Major: History Maryville College Fall, 2015 Date approved , by Faculty Supervisor Date approved , by Division Chair Abstract It is important to understand how the world works by asking difficult questions. This thesis explores the question of why the events of 9/11 took place by examining key individuals involved in the masterminding, planning, and carrying out of the attacks. Through in depth biographical sketches of important individuals like Osama bin Laden, Mohamed bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ziad Jarrah, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Hani Hanjour the road to 9/11 comes to life. Along with biographical details about the individuals involved with 9/11, the thesis takes into account the worldviews and perspectives of the men involved to give as unbiased a picture as possible. This thesis traces the individual lives of these principal individuals as well as examining how their separate lives all came together on a single path culminating in the events that took place on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction 1 Chapter I “A shy kid” 2 Chapter II “No one sacrifices like him” Part I 22 Part II 41 Chapter III “Chaos, chaos” 55 Chapter IV “The planes operation” 77 Conclusion 95 Appendix A 101 Appendix B 104 Bibliography 110 iv INTRODUCTION The world is a beautiful, complex place. It is rich with billions of people representing billions of differing perspectives. And, oftentimes people only see the world through their own particular lenses, and sometimes there is nothing wrong with that. However, seeing the world through perspectives other than your own increases your understanding of the world. This can be very difficult, but what one may find can be extremely fascinating. Many people’s lives changed on the morning of September 11, 2001 when a group of Islamist martyrs flew commercial airliners into targets on the East Coast of the Unites States. American Airlines Flight 11, piloted by Mohamed Atta struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 in the morning. United Airlines Flight 175, piloted by Marwan al-Shehhi struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 in the morning. American Airlines Flight 77, piloted by Hani Hanjour struck the Pentagon at 9:37 in the morning. United Airlines Flight 93, piloted by Ziad Jarrah failed to hit its intended target in Washington, D.C., instead crashing in a Shanksville, Pennsylvania field. The events of 9/11 were years in the making. As seen through the eyes of the men involved in the masterminding, planning, and execution of the attacks, however, one can see that they were done for very specific reasons. This thesis explores the lives of the 9/11 attackers up to the eve of the attacks, and the views that lay behind their actions. 1 CHAPTER I “A SHY KID” Osama bin Laden was the initially inconspicuous, and interesting product of a unique, and ambiguous world. He was born in the city of Riyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Islamic year 1377, or a period between July 1957 and June 1958. Osama later said that he believed he was born in the Islamic month that corresponds to January 1958.1 He was the son of Mohamed bin Laden, the family’s patriarch, and a Syrian woman named Alia Ghanem – one of the many wives Mohamed bin Laden had children with. By the time Mohamed bin Laden finished fathering children, Osama was one of 54, and it is safe to say that Osama lay between number seventeen and twenty-one of Mohamed’s sons.2 Osama’s father was a self-made man who established himself in Saudi Arabia at a time when al-Saud’s wealth and opulence seemed virtually infinite, just like the crude that waited below them – and of which provided the Saudi royals their massive fortune. To know and understand who Osama truly was, one needs to know and understand his father, Mohamed. The patriarch of the bin Laden clan was a quintessential case of a hardworking entrepreneur who walked into a life-changing 1 Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 74. 2 Ibid., 73-76. 2 opportunity. It is said that Mohamed was born in 1908 in the Hadhramawt region of modern day Yemen. It is well-known amongst Saudis that Hadhramis share amongst themselves a reputation for being great entrepreneurs. They are a people who will do anything to get the job done. Nejdis (natives from the Nejd region in Saudi Arabia) had a saying for entrepreneurs like Mohamed bin Laden: “If you want him to be a baker, he’ll be a baker; if you want him to be a road builder, he’ll be a road builder.”3 He truly lived up to that way of life. He came from a settlement called Wadi Doan which lies at the bottom of a canyon with cliff walls that jut up to 900 feet and higher. Its inhabitants rely on its fertile flood plains that flank a riverbed which rises during rains, feeding the fields with fresh water. It was a tough, unforgiving place to survive. Like many Hadhramis spanning back thousands of years, Mohamed emigrated in search of a livelihood. After a short stint in Ethiopia, Mohamed returned to Wadi Doan. It wasn’t until 1925 that he left again, this time ending up in the port city of Jeddah along the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. It was from there that Mohamed established himself as a trustworthy and reliable man who, over time, became al-Saud’s chief construction contractor.4 Over the next few decades, he built a multi-million dollar construction empire that served directly under Saudi royalty until his death on September 3, 1967. Needless to say, Osama didn’t grow up with his father readily close at hand. Mohamed bin Laden divorced Alia, who was fifteen years old at the time of their son’s birth, soon afterwards. With virtually no father and a teenage mother, Alia was all Osama really had, and vice versa. A childhood neighbor and friend of Osama, Khaled 3 Ibid., 40-41. 4 Ibid., 21-26. 3 Batarfi, said that they clung to one another and were extremely close. He said that when Osama was a teenager, he “would lie at her feet and caress her,” and that he “wouldn’t sleep if he knew she was upset about something.”5 The relationship he shared with his young mother exemplified the character of young Osama. However, while his father was still alive Osama was very much a part of the greater web of the bin Laden family that extended across Saudi Arabia and the region. He, along with other brothers and sisters, competed for their father’s attention and wisdom. Osama said he remembers his father well, and remembers especially reciting poetry to him as a young boy. He looked up to his father and saw him as a role model; someone he wanted to emulate. And, his father was indeed a perfectly suitable person to look up to. Despite not spending much time with his busy father, he learned a lot about him. At his jobsites, Mohamed would hold councils, or sessions with local Bedouin tribes who saw him as an authority figure. They would go to him for advice, money, or even to ask for help in settling feuds or disputes. His sons and daughters also took part in similar sessions where they went to him for various needs, and wants. He was very influential in the Kingdom, and especially amongst his family. Early on in life, Osama picked up on the idea that his father led by example in everything that he did. He didn’t sit behind a desk or work out of an office even though he was the leader of major construction projects. He was a working man’s working man, for lack of better words. He got his hands dirty and worked among his men on project sites. 5 Khaled Batarfi, quoted in Coll, Bin Ladens, 137. 4 Extremely importantly, Osama absorbed his father’s philosophy and drive. This would resonate, many years down the path, with Osama himself as he commanded his holy war. In retrospect, it’s fascinating to think that perhaps Osama carried himself in this way because he felt entitled to power since he grew up so wealthy in a family beloved by Saudi royals. Not a whole lot is known about Osama’s education or upbringing from his birth through the middle 1960s, but what is known reveals, and clarifies quite a bit about his character. Many that knew Osama as a young boy attest to his shyness and quietness. His mother remembered him as “a shy kid, very nice, very considerate.”6 He seemed to be a reserved and introverted child, just like many children of his age. From summer trips to his mother’s hometown of Latakia, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, his relatives recalled that Osama was a very shy and quiet boy who kept to himself, but wasn’t anti- social. He was just a very kind, gentle person who preferred being alone. Despite all this, he loved the outdoors. He loved to swim, hunt, and horseback ride – he especially loved his horses. Back home, according to Batarfi, Osama enjoyed playing soccer and was very well liked by everyone. He also liked to wear outdoor style clothing, and would wear yellow work boots while preferring a Swiss Army watch.