September 11 attacks Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Prior intelligence === {{Main|September 11 intelligence before the attacks}} In late 1999, Al-Qaeda associate [[Walid bin Attash]] ("Khallad") contacted Mihdhar and told him to meet in [[Kuala Lumpur]], Malaysia; Hazmi and [[Abu Bara al Yemeni]] would also be in attendance. The [[NSA]] intercepted a telephone call mentioning the meeting, Mihdhar, and the name "Nawaf" (Hazmi); while the agency feared "Something nefarious might be afoot", it took no further action. The CIA had already been alerted by Saudi intelligence about the status of Mihdhar and Hazmi as Al-Qaeda members and a CIA team broke into Mihdhar's [[Dubai]] hotel room and discovered that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. While [[Alec Station]] alerted intelligence agencies worldwide about this fact, it did not share this information with the FBI. The [[Malaysian Special Branch]] observed the January 5, 2000, meeting of the two Al-Qaeda members and informed the CIA that Mihdhar, Hazmi, and Khallad were flying to [[Bangkok]], but the CIA never notified other agencies of this, nor did it ask the [[State Department]] to put Mihdhar on its watchlist. An FBI liaison to Alec Station asked permission to inform the FBI of the meeting but was told: "This is not a matter for the FBI".{{sfnp|Wright|2006|pp=310β12}} By late June, senior counter-terrorism official [[Richard A. Clarke|Richard Clarke]] and CIA director [[George Tenet]] were "convinced that a major series of attacks was about to come", although the CIA believed the attacks would likely occur in Saudi Arabia or Israel.{{sfnp|Clarke|2004|pp=235β36}} In early July, Clarke put domestic agencies on "full alert", telling them, "Something spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon". He asked the FBI and the State Department to alert the embassies and police departments, and the [[United States Department of Defense|Defense Department]] to go to "Threat Condition Delta".{{sfnp|Wright|2006|p=344}}{{sfnp|Clarke|2004|pp=236β37}} Clarke later wrote: "Somewhere in CIA there was information that two known al Qaeda terrorists had come into the United States. Somewhere in the FBI, there was information that strange things had been going on at flight schools in the United States{{spaces}}... They had specific information about individual terrorists from which one could have deduced what was about to happen. None of that information got to me or the White House".{{sfnp|Clarke|2004|pp=242β43}} {{quote box|[...] by July [2001], with word spreading of a coming attack, a schism emerged among the senior leadership of al Qaeda. Several senior members reportedly agreed with [[Mullah Omar]]. Those who reportedly sided with [[Osama bin Laden|bin Ladin]] included [[Muhammad Atef|Atef]], [[Sulaiman Abu Ghaith|Sulayman Abu Ghayth]], and [[Khalid Sheikh Mohammed|KSM]]. But those said to have opposed him were weighty figures in the organization-including [[Mahfouz Ould al-Walid|Abu Hafs the Mauritanian]], [[Saeed al-Masri|Sheikh Saeed al Masri]], and [[Saif al-Adel|Sayf al Adl]]. One senior al Qaeda operative claims to recall Bin Ladin arguing that attacks against the United States needed to be carried out immediately to support [[Second Intifada|insurgency in the Israeli-occupied territories]] and protest the presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia. | source = β ''[[9/11 Commission Report]]'', pp. 251<ref>{{Cite book |title=[[9/11 Commission Report]] |year=2004 |isbn=0-16-072304-3 |edition=Official Government |location=Washington D.C, US|last1=Kean |first1=Thomas |last2=Hamilton |first2=Lee |page=251 }}</ref> | align = right | width = 25em }} On July 13, Tom Wilshire, a CIA agent assigned to the FBI's international terrorism division, emailed his superiors at the CIA's [[Counterterrorism Center]] (CTC) requesting permission to inform the FBI that Hazmi was in the country and that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. The CIA never responded.{{sfnp|Wright|2006|p=340}} The same day in July, Margarette Gillespie, an FBI analyst working in the CTC, was told to review material about the Malaysia meeting. She was not told of the participant's presence in the U.S. The CIA gave Gillespie surveillance photos of Mihdhar and Hazmi from the meeting to show to FBI counterterrorism but did not tell her their significance. The Intelink database informed her not to share intelligence material at the meeting with criminal investigators. When shown the photos, the FBI refused more details on their significance, and they were not given Mihdhar's date of birth or passport number.{{sfnp|Wright|2006|pp=340β43}} In late August 2001, Gillespie told the [[Immigration and Naturalization Service|INS]], the State Department, the [[United States Customs Service|Customs Service]], and the FBI to put Hazmi and Mihdhar on their watchlists, but the FBI was prohibited from using criminal agents in searching for the duo, hindering their efforts.{{sfnp|Wright|2006|pp=352β53}} Also in July, a [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]]-based FBI agent sent a message to FBI headquarters, Alec Station, and FBI agents in New York alerting them to "the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges". The agent, Kenneth Williams, suggested the need to interview all flight school managers and identify all Arab students seeking flight training.{{sfnp|Wright|2006|p=350}} In July, Jordan alerted the U.S. that Al-Qaeda was planning an attack on the U.S.; "months later", Jordan notified the U.S. that the attack's codename was "The Big Wedding" and that it involved aeroplanes.{{sfnp|Yitzhak|2016|p=218}} On August 6, 2001, the CIA's Presidential Daily Brief ("PDB"), designated "For the President Only", was entitled ''[[Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US|Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US]]''. The memo noted that FBI information "indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks".<ref>{{cite web|title=The Osama bin Laden File: National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 343|url=http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB343/|publisher=The National Security Archive|access-date=March 14, 2016|archive-date=July 13, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170713182539/http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB343/|url-status=live}}</ref> In mid-August, one [[Minnesota]] flight school alerted the FBI about [[Zacarias Moussaoui]], who had asked "suspicious questions". The FBI found that Moussaoui was a radical who had travelled to Pakistan, and the INS arrested him for overstaying his French visa. Their request to search his laptop was denied by FBI headquarters due to the lack of [[probable cause]].{{sfnp|Wright|2006|pp=350β51}} The failures in intelligence-sharing were attributed to 1995 [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] policies limiting intelligence-sharing, combined with CIA and NSA reluctance to reveal "sensitive sources and methods" such as tapped phones.{{sfnp|Wright|2006|pp=342β43}} Testifying before the [[9/11 Commission]] in April 2004, then β [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[John Ashcroft]] recalled that the "single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem was the wall that segregated or separated criminal investigators and intelligence agents".{{sfnp|Javorsek II|Rose|Marshall|Leitner|2015|p=742}} Clarke also wrote: "[T]here were... failures to get information to the right place at the right time".{{sfnp|Clarke|2004|p=238}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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