I am sending this article along, from Monday's boston Globe, because it
describes the use of encryption by the hijackers.  According to the FBI
and other government sources, the hijackers did not use any encryption
technology, such as PGP, to communicate with each other by e-mail.  Other
articles suggest that the hijackers used regular accounts on AOL and
Earthlink, just like everybody else.

Kelly

SPECIAL REPORT
How 10 hijackers hid in plain sight

By Mitchell Zuckoff a Nd Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff, Globe
Correspondent,
9/23/2001


One by one, they obtained photo identification. Two by two, they
rented mailboxes and bought airplane tickets. Three by three, they
took new apartments and visited bars. Five by five, they killed
innocents by the thousands.

In the weeks before the World Trade Center was flattened, 10 men,
later accused in the suicide attacks that originated in Boston, went
into a whirl of synchronized activity designed to shield them from
detection, and to prepare them for an evil mission.

Seen in isolation, the activities have the mundane feel of daily
American life: getting a driver's license, buying airline tickets,
checking into a hotel, renting a car. But when the activities are
viewed in the context of Sept. 11, patterns emerge of men living
quietly, separately and anonymously, then suddenly acting in
concert, collectively pursuing a horrible goal on a tight timetable.

For the most part, the 10 Boston hijackers cloaked their moves -
living and meeting in small groups, communicating by clandestine
means. Some may have hidden behind stolen identities. But at other
times - getting in loud arguments and skipping a court date for a
traffic stop - their masks slipped and they engaged in careless or
arrogant behavior that could have been their undoing.

Despite the occasional missteps, terrorism authorities say, the
Boston group fit the profile of a ''sleeper cell.'' Members of such
cells insinuate themselves into a society, living for months or
years among their eventual targets, while preparing themselves for a
vague mission whose details are revealed to them only at the last
practical moment.

Whether the final orders came from Osama bin Laden, his underlings,
or another source altogether, a trail of credit card receipts,
airline, hotel, and rental car records, and of interviews and
witness statements in the United States and Europe reveals a surge
of activity by the 10 Boston hijackers that climaxed on Sept. 11.
The FBI and other law enforcement authorities are trying to retrace
the hijackers' movements, not only to connect them to the crimes,
but also to hunt down coconspirators, sponsors, and commanders.

Obtaining papers

for daily lives

Much of the known activity leading to the attacks involves Mohamed
Atta, 33, who carried Saudi and United Arab Emirates passports and
who, authorities believe, commanded the five-man takeover of
American Airlines Flight 11. There also are indications that he
oversaw the five hijackers aboard United Air Lines Flight 175, one
of whom Atta mentored, and whom he called his cousin.

Atta came to the United States in May 2000, after spending more than
eight years in Germany, studying urban planning, and forming an
Islamic student group that investigators say doubled as a recruiting
station for would-be terrorists. He spent the first few months in
the United States undergoing pilot training at Huffman Aviation
International in Venice, Fla., leaving little impression beyond that
of a dour man with a thick billfold and a short temper.

When the investigation is complete, May 2 of this year may turn out
to be an arbitrary starting point, but it seems notable nonetheless:
That was the day Atta obtained a Florida driver's license using his
address at the Tara Gardens condominium complex in Coral Springs,
Fla. The license was long overdue; he had owned a car at least since
July 2000, a Pontiac Grand Am he had registered using the address of
a Huffman flight school employee where he and his protege and
''cousin,'' Marwan al-Shehhi, 23, briefly rented a room until they
were evicted for rudeness. The owner of the flight school said he
also had threatened Atta with expulsion if his attitude did not
improve.

One week before Atta obtained the license, he had been pulled over
by a deputy sheriff in Broward County, Fla. The reason for the stop
has not been released, but Atta was ordered to appear in court on
May 28. He did not show up, and a judge issued a bench warrant for
Atta's arrest; however, authorities say no effort was made to find
him. It was his only known brush with the law in the United States
before Sept. 11.

Atta had an Egyptian driver's license, although it is not known
whether it was valid. That license was not what he needed to carry
out his plan, and the traffic stop may have prompted him to correct
that problem. Photo identifications are required for check-in at US
airports, and authorities say a foreign license or other
identification might raise suspicions, particularly if it were
issued by an Arab country.

Atta's move to get a US driver's license wasn't an isolated act.
Five of the other Boston hijackers also moved, in late spring and
early summer, to get legitimate, up-to-date, and commonplace photo
identification.

Al-Shehhi, the man Atta called his cousin while they lived together
in Germany and Florida, received his Florida license on April 12.
Al-Shehhi was aboard United Flight 175. A second American Flight 11
hijacker, Waleed M. al-Shehri, 25, renewed his Florida license on
May 4. Hamza Alghamdi, 20, who was aboard Flight 175, received a
Florida photo identification card on June 26 and a driver's license
a day later. Satam al-Suqami, 25, and Wail Alshehri, 28, both of
whom were on Flight 11, obtained their Florida identification cards
on July 3.

Lodgings with

some anonymity

They needed those documents for the next phase of their
preparations. As summer approached, most of the hijackers moved from
the homes and apartments where they had been living for anywhere
from a few weeks to as long as a year and into cheap motels,
efficiency apartments, and short-term condominium rentals, places
where the comings and goings of strangers was the normal way of
things. As they moved to eliminate their fixed addresses, at least
eight of them rented post boxes in four separate Mail Boxes Etc.
outlets, increasing their anonymity.

Law enforcement officials and authorities on terrorism say South
Florida's large immigrant population and transient neighborhoods
make it a natural backdrop for drug runners, terrorists and anyone
else who wants desperately to avoid notice.

''It's not a place where unusual newcomers seem very unusual,'' said
Mike Ackerman, a former CIA operations chief now president of the
Ackerman Group, a corporate security firm with offices in Latin
America, Asia and Europe. ''Just about anyone can find a way to
blend in if they want to.''

At least nine, and possibly all 10, of the Boston hijackers spent
most of the summer at Florida addresses spread over a 40-mile area
from Hollywood, just outside of Miami, north to Boynton Beach. For
the most part, they lived in pairs or threes, some changing
addresses every few weeks, as they blended into the landscape.

Meeting periodically in small groups in motel rooms and all-night
restaurants, they also are believed to have kept in touch using
computers with Internet access at local libraries. A librarian at
the Delray Beach Public Library told police that at least one of the
hijackers was a regular visitor.

The FBI has retrieved e-mail messages from the hijackers that date
back as far as 30 to 45 days, according to an FBI official. The
official said the e-mails were in English and Arabic, that there
were hundreds of communications, sent to e-mail addresses in the
United States and abroad. The hijackers did not use encryption
techniques, the official said. The content of the e-mails has not
been disclosed.

On June 21, Waleed M. Alshehri checked into Room B-308 of the
low-cost Homing Inn in Boynton Beach, Fla., paying $286 a week over
a month's stay. He had two companions, and authorities believe they
were Satam al-Suqami and Wail Alshehri. Both obtained their Florida
identification cards using the Homing Inn as their address.

Residents of the inn, where rooms and apartments can be rented by
the day, week or month, said many of the guests are seasonal workers
or visitors from other parts of the country looking to gain a
foothold in Florida. Planted on US Highway 1 among a string of
similar hotels, the low-rise and low-rent Homing Inn is thoroughly
nondescript.

The inn's owner, who asked that his name not be used, said Waleed M.
Alshehri was clean, well-mannered, unstintingly polite - and never
once used the telephone in his room. Veronica Nacole, a 16-year-old
Homing Inn resident, said she often saw him hanging around the inn's
pay phone. ''That was the only weird thing about him,'' she said.

A waitress at a nearby Denny's restaurant said she had occasionally
served late-night gatherings of five Middle Eastern men - two of
whom she later identfied to FBI agents as Atta and al-Shehhi.

Meanwhile, several of the others had taken up residence in nearby
Delray Beach. Records show that Hamza Alghamdi lived for a short
time in Unit 1504 in the Delray Racquet Club condominium complex at
755 Dotterel Road, with one or two other men.

In interviews with the Globe, residents of the complex said they
frequently encountered two tenants of Alghamdi's unit carrying gym
bags and tennis rackets. They would have fit in well at the complex,
which is built around the Rod Laver Tennis Academy, and where
numerous foreign students take short-term rentals.

Maria Siscar-Simpson, who lives directly below the unit AlGhamdi was
in, said she had a heated dispute with two of her upstairs neighbors
three weeks ago. One banged on her door and demanded to enter her
condo, apparently to retrieve a towel and some clothing that had
blown off his balcony onto a roof outside her apartment.

Siscar-Simpson said the man spoke angrily in a heavy accent and
tried to push his way into her apartment. She slammed the door shut,
locked it, and activated her burglar alarm. The man left without
incident, although Siscar-Simpson was shaken. ''Who goes ballistic
over a towel?'' she asked. Nevertheless, Siscar-Simpson said the men
were polite the next few times she ran into them, usually in the
parking lot. She said she last saw them on Sept. 9.

It was one of several events in the weeks before the attacks that
might have drawn authorities' attention to the men, but that
ultimately did not.

From Aug. 26 to Sept. 9, two days before the attacks, Atta and
al-Shehhi stayed at the Panther Inn in Deerfield Beach, where the
owner said they were frequently visited by a third man who might
have stayed with them. Before that, al-Shehhi had a two-month lease
at an upscale condo complex called The Hamlet Country Club in Delray
Beach.

The Panther Inn owners, Richard and Diane Surma, said they
identified photographs of Atta and al-Shehhi for the FBI. They also
provided to the Globe a copy of Atta's and al-Shehhi's registration,
which al-Shehhi filled out using his name. He listed one of the Mail
Boxes Etc. offices as his home address, and indicated he was driving
a ''blue Chevy.'' He left blank the box on the registration form
seeking a license plate number.

''They were neatly dressed. They made no noise. That's the kind we
like,'' Richard Surma said. ''It's not like Hollywood, where you can
easily spot the bad guy. They blended in pretty well.''

Al-Shehhi settled the account at about 9 a.m. on Sept. 9, and they
left behind belongings whose significance would become chillingly
clear after the attacks. Surma said the items included flight
manuals, an eight-inch stack of high-quality aeronautical maps
covering every state on the East Coast, a three-ring binder with
notes and a protractor, three martial arts manuals, and a box
cutter.

The Surmas discarded the flight manuals, maps and notes, but held on
to the martial arts manuals and other items. Richard Surma had
wanted to save everything, but his wife wanted to throw it all away;
in the end, he kept a few items as a compromise. The Surmas gave the
material to the FBI after watching television reports of the attacks
and then approaching an officer with the Broward County Sheriff's
Department who was parked near the inn.

''When I saw it on TV it blew my mind,'' Surma said. ''I thought the
stuff would help, and it apparently did.''

Though it is not known when the hijackers received their orders,
investigators are focusing on a July 7 flight that Atta took from
Miami to Spain, where he also had spent time in January. A Spanish
newspaper, La Vanguardia, quoted investigators as saying he had met
with three or four unidentified Islamic extremists at a hotel in
Salou, a beach resort near Barcelona. Atta returned to the United
States on July 19, arriving in Atlanta.

At least one other hijacker also spent time abroad in recent months.
Al-Shehhi arrived at the Miami Airport on May 2 on a Northwest
Airlines flight from Amsterdam; it is not known where else al-Shehhi
went or how long he was outside the United States.

The hijackers' activities after Atta returned from Spain are
sketchy, but on Aug. 6, Atta rented a car from Warrick's Rent-A-Car
in Pompano Beach, Fla. It isn't clear when he returned it, but he
rented a second car, a 1995 Ford Escort, from Warrick's from Aug. 15
to Sept. 5. Atta extended the rental until Sept. 9, when al-Shehhi
returned it with more than 1,000 miles added to the odometer.

As Sept. 11 approached, Atta also was honing his flying skills.
Between Aug. 16 and 19, he rented a Piper Archer plane three times
at Palm Beach County Park Airport.

One way, all cash,

no questions

Then, on Aug. 25, Atta filled out an Internet form on the American
Airlines Web site to open a frequent-flier account, a requirement
for making reservations over the Internet at the airline's Web site.

The next day marked the start of a four-day period in which the 10
Boston hijackers bought tickets on the target flights - all in first
or business class. They apparently never raised suspicions at either
United or American Airlines, even though several of them paid cash
for one-way flights. Cash purchases and one-way flights are both
supposed to be red flags for airlines trying to stop terrorists. An
FBI document detailing the flight purchases uses exclamation points
to mark each of the one-way tickets the men bought on Flight 175.

Another link among the men that went unnoticed was the fact that
Atta, three others on Flight 11, and two suspects on Flight 175 gave
the airlines the same telephone number. The other three suspects on
Flight 175 shared a second phone number. The 10th suspect, aboard
Flight 11, listed no telephone number.

Their similar addresses also did not set off alarms. Four of the men
on Flight 175 told United Air Lines that their addresses were postal
boxes in two different Mail Boxes Etc. outlets in Delray Beach, Fla.
And four of the men on Flight 11 told American Airlines that their
addresses were two Mail Boxes Etc. outlets in Hollywood, Fla. The
other two gave no addresses.

The cluster of ticket purchases began Aug. 26, when Waleed M.
Alshehri and Wail Alshehri purchased tickets on Flight 11 with
different Visa cards and the same Mail Boxes Etc. address in
Hollywood, Fla. The next day, Mohald Alshehri and Fayez Ahmed bought
one-way business class tickets on Flight 175, paying about $4,500
each and using a Mail Boxes Etc. in Delray Beach, Fla., as their
addresses. The store owner said the men had rented the box in July.

One day later, Aug. 28, Atta typed in his new frequent-flier account
number, 6H26L04, and used a Visa card in his name to buy tickets on
Flight 11 for himself and Abdulaziz Alomari, using a second
Mailboxes Etc. office in Hollywood, Fla, as their address. The same
day, al-Suqami paid cash for his ticket on Flight 11, and al-Shehhi
paid about $1,600 for his ticket on Flight 175. Neither gave an
address.

Finally, on Aug. 29, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi paid $1,760
each for one-way Business Class tickets on Flight 175, using as
their addresses the same Mail Boxes Etc. office in Delray Beach,
Fla. They used the same telephone number as Mohald Alshehri.

The five men on Flight 11 clustered toward the front of the plane,
with seats in Rows 2, 8 and 10 - two in pairs and one alone. The
seating pattern on Flight 175 was not known.

The trek north

to Boston

Their reservations made, the time came to begin moving from Florida
to New England. It remains unclear when each of the 10 moved north,
and at least some were still in Florida the weekend before Sept. 11.

Atta, al-Shehhi and a third man got involved in an altercation at
the Shuckums Bar in Hollywood, where they drank heavily on the night
of Sept. 8 and Atta loudly claimed he was a pilot for American
Airlines.

The incident apparently was the result of a simple misunderstanding.
A waitress, Patricia Idrissi, was ending her shift and asked Atta to
settle the $48 tab for his five drinks of vodka and orange juice,
and Al-Shehhi's five rum and Cokes. Atta took it as an insult and
questioned whether she doubted he could pay. ''He was bothered that
I was asking him to pay his bill,'' Idrissi said, explaining why she
called over a manager.

Had the incident resulted in Atta's arrest, that would have
triggered the bench warrant for his missed court date, and it could
have led to questions about his activities. And if that had led to a
search of his room at the Panther Inn, authorities would have turned
up the aeronautical maps, flight manuals, martial arts books and the
other materials that were found only after the hijackings.

At least some of the hijackers were in Boston by Sept. 6. At 2:15
p.m. that day, a white Mitsubishi sedan with one or more of the
hijackers was driven into a garage at Logan International Airport,
then left at 4 p.m., according to law enforcement officials and
copies of garage surveillance records reviewed by the Globe.

The car had been rented at an Alamo office near the airport, said
Cheryl Budd, senior vice president for corporate communications for
ANC Rental Corp., Alamo's parent company. She declined to say when,
or by whom, it had been rented.

The white Mitsubishi made two more visits to Logan on Sept. 9:
arriving at 8:27 a.m. and leaving at 9:13 a.m; returning at 4:15
p.m. and leaving again at 5:39 p.m. The next day, Sept. 10, the car
was back at Logan for a brief visit, from 4:25 p.m. to 5:05 p.m. The
white Mitsubishi made its last entrance to Logan the morning of the
hijackings.

By Sept. 10, all 10 hijackers were in place, though they remained
split into small units that would attract minimal attention or
suspicion.

That day, Atta and Al-Omari drove a rented Nissan Altima to
Portland, Maine, and spent the night in Room 232 of the South
Portland Comfort Inn. It was a nonsmoking room with two beds, an
empty refrigerator, and a view of the parking lot. The hotel is a
five-minute ride to the Portland Jetport, and just a few hundred
yards from a barracks of the Maine State Police.

It is unclear why the pair went to Portland, although several
investigators have speculated that it might have been to avoid
having all 10 men walk into Logan en masse for the two flights they
intended to hijack. Portland also is the closest airport with
regular flights to Boston.

The other hijackers split into at least three other groups. Waleed
M. and Wail Alshehri rented Room 432 at the Park Inn in Chestnut
Hill. The guest in the next room, a writer from Nantucket named
Michael Arnold, described them as ''just guys'' who did nothing
unusual.

Two other hijackers, Ahmed Al-Ghamdi and Hamza Al-Ghamdi paid cash
for a room at the Days Hotel, formerly the Days Inn, on Soldiers
Field Road in Brighton. The hotel manager, Adam Sperling, said the
FBI had collected a copy of the guest list, but declined further
comment. Of the remaining four, two spent at least two nights, Sept.
9 and 10, in a room at the Milner Hotel on Charles Street in
downtown Boston. A federal official said investigators are trying to
determine whether the last two terrorists stayed at yet another
Boston hotel on the eve of the hijackings, since they know of a
related phone call placed from there.

Parking-lot fight,

then deadly flight

On Sept. 11, Atta and Alomari were seen at 5:45 a.m. on a security
camera at the Portland airport, heading toward US Airways Express
Flight 5930, a 50-minute flight that was scheduled to leave at 6
a.m. It was slightly delayed, and they arrived at Logan
International Airport just in time to board American Flight 11
before its 7:59 a.m. departure. Forty-nine minutes later, Flight 11
plowed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Three other hijackers drove the Mitsubishi to Logan on the morning
of the attacks, authorities said. Investigators were alerted to the
car after the attack when an unidentified man called police and said
he had gotten into a screaming match with three agitated Arab men
over an airport parking space that morning.

When investigators seized the Mitsubishi, they found materials
including flight training manuals for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft,
and a copy of the Koran. A second rental car that some of the
hijackers used also probably entered the Logan garage that morning,
according to Massport records. It, too, was towed from a Logan
garage after the attacks.

It was not immediately clear which of the hijackers were in the
Mitsubishi, but all 10 made their flights. Fifteen minutes after
Flight 11 hit the north tower, Flight 175 ripped into the south
tower. The 10 hijackers had committed suicide. In the process, they
murdered thousands inside the twin towers and hundreds of
firefighters, police, and rescue workers who had tried to help.

The hijackers left few clues from their brief stays in Boston.
Investigators have stripped the hotel rooms where they stayed, have
questioned possible supporters among Boston cab drivers, and have
interviewed employees of a Medford market. Sources said employees at
the Wild Oats food store believe one of the terrorists purchased a
large number of Massachusetts Lottery tickets on Sept. 9. FBI agents
have questioned store employees about the incident and made plans to
collect the videotape from a store surveillance camera.

However, Atta did leave one piece of evidence behind, one that spoke
to his meticulous planning: In a piece of luggage that accompanied
him from Portland but wasn't put on Flight 11, authorities found
pilots' uniforms and a video of commercial aircraft. They also found
what they first thought was as suicide note. It turned out to be
Atta's will.

Rezendes reported from Florida; Zuckoff from Boston. They can be
reached at [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]

S tephen Kurkjian, Sasha Pfeiffer, Shelley Murphy, Walter V.
Robinson, Doug Belkin, and Bill Dedman of the Globe Staff, and Fran
Riley and Arnold Markowitz, Globe correspondents, contributed to
this report.

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 9/23/2001. ©
Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.


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