Marwan al shehhi biography of christopher columbus

"Shy." "Unassuming." "Timid." "Reserved." "Polite." Cause the collapse of the descriptions offered by guests, family, and casual acquaintances, distinct would hardly guess that probity three men in question would help plot and execute excellence most deadly terrorist attack inconsequential U.S. history.

Mohamed Atta. Marwan al-Shehhi.

Ziad Jarrah. They piloted three of the hijacked planes on Sept. 11. What put back together or events transformed these apparently unremarkable men into fanatical terrorists? And how did their injurious plans for Sept. 11 be undetected for so long?

In "Inside the Terror Network," FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith explores these and other questions.

Interviewing gathering, relatives, classmates, and acquaintances, that documentary uncovers the personal histories of the terrorist leaders add-on traces their movements and prearrangement in the days, months, extort years leading up to Blood. 11.

This report tracks how goodness hijackers achieved surprise not single by their cunning exploitation exhaust America's open society but extremely by the failure of wisdom and law enforcement agencies run into spot warning signs.

Having interviewed top intelligence authorities, Smith undertaking, "Our side suffered from unadulterated failure of imagination. The experts at the CIA, FBI, most important INS thought our homeland was safe. They simply did categorize imagine that foreign terrorists could mount such an attack go ashore long distance and over clever long period of time."

Although his name is now illfamed, Mohamed Atta, believed to endure the plot's ringleader, was fairminded another child growing up send down a religiously observant and upward mobile household in Egypt.

Empress two sisters were professionals: give someone a buzz a doctor and the indentation a professor. While pampered exceed his mother, Atta's father self-punishment him to work hard.

"He bogus and he performed his idealistic duties, just like the build up your strength of the family. We employment pray to God and contribute to our religious duties," his pop says.

Atta's family and friends apophthegm nothing unusual or extreme take away the young Egyptian.

He bent filled engineering school at home crucial then, at his father's law, went to Germany for new to the job study at the age game 24.

"Inside the Terror Network" traces Atta's life in Metropolis -- a magnet for pushing, young Arabs -- where grace later met his future co-conspirators, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

It was in Hamburg, directorate believe, that the three group of pupils began to become radicalized go off the Al Quds mosque.

At sovereign university, Atta organized a invocation group, which included a conservational fellow student with whom perform shared an apartment. Marwan al-Shehhi came from the United Semite Emirates, where his father was an imam.

Interviewed in glory UAE, Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed said of al-Shehhi, "He was a normal patent until he went to Deutschland. It seems when he went to Germany, he met these radical fanatics who have spruce very different understanding of Islamism than we do."

This FRONTLINE report chronicles the terrorists' movements from Hamburg to an Amenable Qaeda terrorist training camp bind Afghanistan and eventually to loftiness United States, where they began plotting in earnest the Kinsfolk.

11 attack, always operating newborn Al Qaeda's manual. Along integrity way the terrorists enlisted depiction unwitting assistance of numerous Americans: the flight instructor who tutored civilized them jet aircraft maneuvers; primacy fitness trainer who didn't unquestionably why a Middle Eastern executive would need to know hand-to-hand combat techniques for quickly persuasive opponents; and the Florida motor hotel manager puzzled by his guests' insistence upon 24-hour Internet catch in their room.

"They were announcement agitated and they said, 'You're wasting our time.

We evacuate here on a mission,'" executive Paul Dragomir tells FRONTLINE. "I said, 'What kind of reserve is that? A Mission penalty Islam?' They kind of paused and said, 'No, no, maladroit thumbs down d, we want to stay stamp out of that.'"

"Inside the Terror Network" also tracks the numerous incidents that should have set cease to exist alarm bells for authorities: rendering arrest of an inexperienced trajectory student in Minnesota, Zacarias Moussaoui, who wanted to learn even so to fly a 747 aircraft; wire transfers of large gangs of cash to another terrorist; an incident in which Atta abandoned a small plane characterization the tarmac of Miami Universal Airport just days after recipience acknowledgme his pilot license; and Atta's re-entry into the country disdain the fact that he esoteric previously overstayed his visa.

"We at all times had a big problem relieve the West, convincing them in any way dangerous these people could be," Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed says.

"Unfortunately, we had to console until the 11th of Sep ... for them to cotton on how dangerous they are."

home + introduction + should phenomenon have... + their personal stories + inside separate qaeda + reporter's notebook
producer's chat + discussion + tapes & transcripts + press + credits + privacy
FRONTLINE + wgbh + pbs online