9/11 Inquiry Eyes Possible 5th Pilot
By DAVID JOHNSTON and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
October 10, 2002


WASHINGTON - The authorities interviewing a member of Al Qaeda in military custody overseas are investigating a new theory of the Sept. 11 plot: that the suspect, Ramzi Muhammad Abdullah bin al-Shibh, was planning to pilot a fifth hijacked plane to strike the White House.

The plan was disrupted when Mr. bin al-Shibh, who was captured last month in Pakistan, failed to obtain permission to enter the United States, where he had planned to attend flight school in Florida, senior government officials said.

Evidence that there were plans for a fifth hijacking team has also come from the debriefing of John Walker Lindh, but the possibility that Mr. bin al-Shibh was to be the leader of the fifth group has not been previously disclosed.

This theory has gained momentum in recent weeks as investigators have assembled new details about Mr. bin al-Shibh's movements around Europe in the months before the attacks. Investigators have also compiled a fuller picture of his relationship with Mohamed Atta, whom officials call the ringleader of the plot, and uncovered fresh information about the breadth of Al Qaeda's original plan for the attacks.

More specific information about Mr. bin al-Shibh's role in the plot could emerge as a result of the arrest today in Germany of a Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, who the local authorities say shared an apartment in Hamburg with Mr. bin al-Shibh, Mr. Atta and at least one other hijacker, Marwan al-Shehhi.

The officials said Mr. bin al-Shibh's role in the plot was a main topic of his interrogation at a secret military base abroad. Military officials have asked Mr. bin al-Shibh about organizational changes in Al Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks and about plans for further attacks.

Those questions have grown more urgent with the recent assaults against American marines in Kuwait and the release of audio tapes attributed to Osama bin Laden and one of his chief lieutenants, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Mr. Zawahiri's tape, which officials said was more likely to be genuine and recently made than the bin Laden tape, threatens new attacks against the United States and couches its anti-American message around the possibility of an American-led war against Iraq.

The officials said Mr. bin al-Shibh has provided only fragmentary information about the hijackings and Al Qaeda's activities since the war in Afghanistan. The officials said Mr. bin al-Shibh had not said he planned to lead another hijacking group.

But investigators said suspicions were growing that Mr. bin al-Shibh may have intended to lead a fifth hijacking group. Their belief is based on other information, including interviews of other Qaeda detainees and Mr. Lindh, the American who was sentenced on Friday to 20 years in prison for fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan and whose credibility is still being weighed. Mr. Lindh told the authorities that he had heard that five attacks were planned.

Moreover, officials have concluded that a few secretive, face-to-face meetings were crucial to the evolution of the plot. They said their discovery that Mr. bin al-Shibh met with Mr. Atta several times in 2000 and again in Spain in July 2001 contributed to their belief that Mr. bin al-Shibh was an important participant.

In addition, investigators have examined more closely Mr. bin al-Shibh's unsuccessful efforts to obtain a visa to enter the United States, where he had signed up for flying lessons at a Florida aviation academy. In August 2000, he paid $2,200 as a deposit for flight training, an amount officials said was enough to convince them that Mr. al-Shibh seriously intended to learn to fly.

Each of the four times he applied, Mr. bin al-Shibh's visa applications were denied, on grounds the authorities have not explained. Those denials appear to be the only official actions taken by the government that interfered with the hijackers' plans. Mr. bin al-Shibh remained in Germany, officials said, where he became a paymaster, wiring money to hijackers. He left Europe for Pakistan shortly before the attacks.

A slightly built Yemeni known for his virulently anti-American extremism, Mr. bin al-Shibh was initially thought by investigators to be a midlevel organizer and financial conduit, but he has emerged as a far more central figure in the Sept. 11 plot.

In the past, investigators had said only that Mr. bin al-Shibh was seen as an important player who was possibly meant to have been the 20th hijacker on one of the four jets seized on Sept. 11 - a theory some officials still regard as a viable explanation of his role.

But other officials said their view of the plot was evolving.

A newly released memorandum on his interrogation says Mr. Lindh, who described to investigators his training at Qaeda camps, told his interrogators that Sept. 11 was just the "first phase" of a three-part series of attacks, totaling 20 attacks. The memorandum says the first phase "consisted of five attacks," but it cites only four: two on the World Trade Center, one on the Pentagon and one that Mr. Lindh said was aimed at the White House. It is not clear what the target of the fourth plane, which crashed in Pennsylvania, was, but investigators have suggested that the target was in Washington.

In another session with interrogators last December in Kabul, Mr. Lindh said that a "close associate" of Mr. bin Laden named Hakeen At-Taizzi had told him that "there should have been five planes used" on Sept. 11, "the fifth targeting the White House." Mr. Lindh said that he had heard that 50 people, Al Qaeda operatives, were sent to commit 20 suicide operations, and that "15 more operations were pending." Investigators said Mr. Lindh's information corroborated the theory that Mr. bin al-Shibh was planning to be part of a fifth hijacking team on Sept. 11.

"I think that's a very viable theory," a senior government official said. "They were all going to be part of the plot." When pressed to say whether he believed Mr. bin al-Shibh had planned to lead a fifth team, the official said, "I personally believe that."

If five teams were planned, that may mean that more intended hijackers are at large, perhaps in this country, or that some of the people arrested in Pakistan with Mr. bin al-Shibh were somehow involved. Investigators have focused on Mr. bin al-Shibh's movements in the last five years. In 1998, he moved into a cramped three-room apartment at Marienstrasse 54 in Hamburg. In what the authorities said was a decisive moment in the early stages of the plot, Mr. bin al-Shibh traveled to Afghanistan in November 1999 to meet with leaders of Al Qaeda about the hijackings. While there, he and his companions also met Mr. bin Laden, officials said.

His companions were three men who later became pilots in the Sept. 11 attacks. They were Mr. Atta; Mr. Shehhi, believed to be the pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center; and Ziad al-Jarrah, believed to be the pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Atta, Mr. Shehhi and Mr. Jarrah were all hijacking team leaders, the authorities say. Because Mr. bin al-Shibh joined those men in Afghanistan, senior government officials said, they believe that Mr. bin al-Shibh had also been intended to lead a hijacking team on Sept. 11. But that alone does not show that the plotters wanted to take over five planes.

Mr. bin al-Shibh is also believed by some investigators to have attended a meeting in January 2000 in Malaysia, as did two other Qaeda operatives, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi, who joined the hijacking team that struck the Pentagon, officials have said.

If Mr. bin al-Shibh planned to lead a fifth hijacking team, he was thwarted on May 17, 2000, when his application for a United States visa was rejected. He reapplied on June 15, 2000, and was denied again. On Sept. 15, 2000, and on Oct. 25, 2000, he applied for visas while in Yemen. Those requests were also denied.

Mr. bin al-Shibh applied to the Florida Flight Training Center in Venice, Fla., in August 2000. That month, he also wired the Florida Flight Training Center $2,200 as a deposit for his training.

Mr. Jarrah began training at the same school on June 28, 2000, and continued until December 2000. Unable to obtain a visa, Mr. bin al-Shibh instead focused on serving as a coordinator of the plot and as a paymaster, the authorities have said.

The officials said he may have recruited Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been charged with complicity in the attacks. They said the fact that four hijackings were carried out even after Mr. Moussaoui was arrested could also suggest that as many as five were initially planned.