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  September 11, 2001 - Five Years Later: Atta's Army

September 11, 2001 - Five Years Later Atta's Army

Part 4

The cassettes came from Saudi Arabia: Friday sermons, hate songs and reports on fatwas. Bursts of machine-gun fire punctuate the verses from the Koran. The battle for Palestine is a recurring theme. "Every free Muslim must join the jihad," the preacher rages. "The use of weapons is the only logical consequence. In my experience, bloodshed is the only guarantee of peace."

Another tape, another text: "Praise be to the Mujahideen! May God kill the Jews and their supporters. May God cleanse Jerusalem of them. May God make widows of their wives and orphans of their children!" an imam exhorts during his Friday sermon. Verbal adrenaline in support of the call to arms.

The group's members took a particular interest in jihad. A scholar named Mohammed Nassir al-Din al-Albani argued that holy war was a duty, calling for it to be waged under the command of a sultan, i.e. using group strategies and tactics because individual actions have little effect. In his eyes, this was a battle of the good, of the very few real people, against the "offspring of apes and pigs."

Students using the neighboring rooms -- such as those in the foreign students association -- described the Islam AG as a taciturn organization. You would only meet them on their way to the washbasins in their flip-flops -- to cleanse their feet before prayer. Islam AG had a core membership of about five, and some 20 members in all, the students recalled.

To help members resist the big-city temptations, Atta's network printed several documents for distribution. The draconian guidelines left no room for discussion. Anyone failing to pray or only praying sporadically was deemed to have "fallen by the wayside" and "had to be killed." Another document underscores that this is a fatwa. The failure to pray is punishable by God no less than 15 times: six times during the person's lifetime, three times during an excruciating death, three times in the grave and three times on Judgment Day.

Television -- obviously another Jewish product -- was "the work of the devil." With its "shameless songs, reprehensible series and perverse movies," it spawned "iniquity."

How did someone like Said Bahaji cope with this? With a Moroccan father and German mother, he was forced to commute between two civilizations. He loved the Formula One circuit, but couldn't watch the races because TV was the instrument of Satan. The answer was simple: You were either for Atta or against him. Bahaji was for him.

Music was equally heinous. "The devil and his army of Jews and Christians" could call upon "hordes of singers" equipped with money and wine who were waging propaganda crusades against Islam.

And this particular folder also contained a directive banning participation in "festivals of the infidel." During such periods, it said, Muslims were not allowed to offer gifts or eat with the unbelievers, least of all at Christmas and on New Year's Eve: "On these days, Muslims should do nothing out of the ordinary, but treat them like any other day, as though the Christians weren't celebrating."

Meaning nothing to the majority of Muslims, these rules governed a parallel universe located in the very heart of Germany. Most are bizarre, and some incredibly stupid.

Prohibited: plucking your eyebrows. Reason: "The prophet cursed both the woman who does it and the woman who has it done for her." Prohibited: wigs. Reason: Please see above. Permitted: hair coloring. Reason: "Jews and Christians don't dye their hair."

In this way, Atta's world view separated everything into "halal" (permitted) and "haram" (forbidden). Producing and publishing provocative movie posters, or even glancing at them, was haram. Life insurance was generally haram, as was the name "Israel" instead of the approved "Palestine."

Masturbation was haram. In most cases. There were exceptions for men who couldn't fight the urge any more. And if a man felt he would commit adultery if he didn't masturbate, it was absolutely halal. Although fasting was still the preferred remedy.

One of Atta's soldiers left a bookmark in the page that allows a man to see his future wife before marriage. It also spells out the type of sex that is permitted: It doesn't matter "who is on top, as long as it is vaginal intercourse."

Room No. 10 also contained lists of foodstuffs, so that anyone could check if cookies contained gelatin, emulsifiers or anything else that might have originated from pigs. The pig, according to one of the holy books, is "lazy by nature" and indulges "in excessive sex," and might therefore infect consumers with similar characteristics. "Are you going to take God's advice or do you want to wait until you fall sick?" the author asks. Pork, he adds, transmits tuberculosis, contains unhealthful fat and causes acne. He attributes poor health among the Chinese to their affinity for pork.

Details of Islamic centers from Munich and Riyadh to Leicester, England, were scribbled on scraps of paper. There were notes on the meetings of a Muslim youth group offering trips to Islamabad, Pakistan. The investigators also overlooked a white Arabic tome with gold lettering on its cover. The name "Ziad" was inscribed in pencil on the first page, as though it were a school book. The title: The Global Conspiracy. The author is one Abdullah Azzam who, having been assassinated in Pakistan in 1989, is considered a martyr. His work contains sermons, lessons and talks on the subject of jihad. The index includes references to Azzam Centers in Peshawar, Pakistan, in Malaysia and in Australia. Azzam writes that jihad must be "continued at all costs."

He noted that every Arab country has military service, but that "God's army" was more important and that everyone should serve in it. Muslims should obey God's orders rather than those of political leaders, he argued.

"Jihad takes precedence over all other religious acts, even prayer," he added. And for those readers failing to grasp his meaning: "Jihad means killing." And what did this teach Jarrah, who had been tempted by a Western lifestyle until the very end?

He learned this: "One way, after studying for four years for your degree, you can get a job paying 2,000 dirham. The other way, you get a certificate granting you entry into paradise, which is as big as the heavens and earth together. One way, you work for 20 years, save a pittance and marry some woman. The other, you marry 72 virgins. One way, you get a two-room apartment. The other, you are given palaces."

Azzam's books were probably the three most influential sources of inspiration to Islam AG. In them, we read: "Osama bin Laden has stated: For every Arab who wants to join the jihad, I will pay for his ticket and for his whole family's passage." At issue were the "Jewish octopus," and the German and French doctors who were allegedly removing women's uteruses in Afghanistan "to prevent them from bearing more children."

The effect of this propaganda was patent. The group didn't need commanding officers, drugs or brainwashing. It fired itself up. And when reality clashed with the 9/11 attackers' distorted perception of the world, it was seen as subterfuge by the enemy. Aren't there nice people in the West too? A trick, a dirty trick! There was just one way to counter the coldness and brutal domination of the West, they concluded. And those who no longer set any stock in their own survival are capable of hurting the West.

The group cut itself off from society. Shehhi renounced all luxury, grew a beard and donned Afghan robes. Essabar sold his television and video recorder. Said Bahaji's sister urged one of his teachers to talk to her brother about his increasingly radical views. And Jarrah, who so loved to drink and party, decided it would be an honor to die for Allah. He too stopped shaving and began eating only with his fingers.

At the end of his book, Azzam wrote: "We're ready to fight America, just as we fought Russia. We will attain one of our two goals: a martyr's death or victory." An address followed as a postscript: "P.O. Box 1395, Peshawar, Pakistan." Ziad Jarrah may have bought the book during his trip to the country.

In mid-August 2001, the young German Shahid had his final encounter with an officer of Atta's army. Ramzi bin al-Shibh ran into him before he went underground in Spain, four weeks before the attacks. Bin al-Shibh had put on a few pounds and was dressed like a Westerner, his white shirt tucked into gray pants. He was fumbling around with two cell phones. They shared a meal at the "Hähnchenland Lades" snack bar. When bin al-Shibh noticed he had left one of his phones there, he ran back panic-stricken.

Bin al-Shibh was the No. 2 in Atta's army. He had a sense of humor and a passion for life. But he would turn strangely serious anytime Atta was around. The Yemeni bin al-Shibh had four U.S. visa applications turned down ("Please send me the visa to this address: c/o Ahmed Al Shibh, P.O. Box 10784, Sana'a, Yemen, quickly as you can"), preventing him from piloting one of the planes. He was chosen as the terrorists' coordinator and money man by al Qaeda's leadership. On September 25, 2000, for instance, he deposited 9,629 deutschmarks to a Hamburg account, "for private use." The next day, Shehhi withdrew $4,118.13 in Sarasota, Florida.

After the others had left Europe, bin al-Shibh and Mohammed Haydar Zammar recruited new fighters for the Afghan camps. The last two volunteers headed to Afghanistan on Sept. 10, 2001.

Bin al-Shibh, who has since been arrested and imprisoned at an unknown location by the Americans, was more personable and more popular among the group than Atta, and the perfect recruiting agent. He maintained a network of contacts in Berlin, Munich, Bonn and Frankfurt am Main, and gave talks in Hamburg mosques.

Bin al-Shibh was responsible for making the group's travel arrangements. He was the only one who had come to Germany illegally. He managed to stay by submitting forged -- but deceptively realistic -- enrollment papers from Hamburg University to the city authorities.

The third man in the cell was Marwan al-Shehhi, who was born in Ras al-Cheima in the United Arab Emirates. He was effectively Atta's adjutant and court jester. Shortly before Christmas 1999, al-Shehhi terminated his cell phone contract: "I wish to cancel as I am planning to leave the country. I apologize for any inconvenience."

In the spring of 2000 he had returned from Afghanistan and was due to leave for the United States. During a conversation with a librarian he made a sinister prediction: "Thousands will die. You will all remember me." He reportedly even mentioned the World Trade Center. And he made sure that the Hamburg apartments were spic and span when they moved out, and that any incriminating evidence had been destroyed. Even the bathroom light bulbs were removed. These tasks were delegated to his friend al-Motassadeq, who may have been the cell's No. 4.

Said Bahaji, No. 5, handled the administrative chores. Bahaji, who had been raised in northern Germany, was streetwise in the country that remained so alien to Atta. Bahaji terminated all the cell phone contracts and canceled the leases. He created folders for the others on his hard drive: Atta was allocated the subfolder "My Documents/Brother/Amir."

When Atta wasn't around, Bahaji took over the teaching. He urged the group never to drink cola or smoke Marlboros. And once he said it was his duty to convert non-believers, if necessary by means of violence, even murder. One of the doubters in Atta's army objected that no son of God should kill another son of God. Bahaji replied that anyone who wasn't a Muslim wasn't a son of God.

It was Marek's mother who saved her son from the terror network. The beatings had grown more and more frequent; she was addicted to opiates. It wasn't until she found herself at the airport one day with her children, hoping to escape to somewhere, anywhere, that she realized running away was not the answer. She separated from her husband. During her five-week drug rehabilitation, medical staff kept the ranting Jordanian at bay.

It was over. From one day to the next, Marek's mother had rescued her two sons from Atta's clutches.

When the family saw the pictures of the attackers on television after 9/11, Marek was short on words. "Lucked out this time," was all he said.

KLAUS BRINKBÄUMER, DOMINIK CZIESCHE, GEORG MASCOLO, CORDULA MEYER, ANDREAS ULRICH

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