September 11 Terror Pilots Visited Afghanistan in 1999: Report

September 11 Terror Pilots Visited Afghanistan in 1999: Report

Agence France Presse
November 22, 2001

Muhammad Atta and Marwan Al Shehhi, two of the suspected September 11 suicide pilots, both spent time in Afghanistan in 1999 and Atta attended a training camp there, North German Broadcasting (NDR) reported Thursday.

In a television documentary to be broadcast on the ARD network late Thursday, the NDR says the FBI learned this from "friendly intelligence services", but only after September 11.

According to this information, Atta attended a training camp in Afghanistan in the first half of 1999 and Al Shehhi travelled to the country towards the end of the year, NDR said in a press statement.

Both Atta and Al Shehhi, along with others presumed responsible for the September 11 airplane attacks, lived and studied in the Hamburg region.

According to NDR, Atta's whole family in Egypt was under surveillance from the Egyptian secret service.

It now appeared, it said, that during stays in Cairo Atta wanted to establish contacts with militant Islamic fundamentalists.

"Shortly before the attack a telephone conversation between Atta and his father was recorded. In this (conversation) Muhammad Atta talked about his visit to Afghanistan," the NDR statement said.

According to NDR, German domestic intelligence also intercepted a telephone conversation referring to a "Muhammad" in 1999 without knowing at the time that this meant Atta and believing the matter to be harmless.

NDR said German intelligence agents were listening to the telephone conversations of suspected supporters of the Al-Quaeda network, whose trace they had come upon in 1998.

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