WASHINGTON, 29 September — Terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 hijackings left behind copies of a document in Arabic giving them step-by-step instructions for their suicide mission and preparing them spiritually for death, a law enforcement official said yesterday. A copy of the document was found in luggage left behind by Muhammad Atta, suspected of organizing the attacks and flying into one of the World Trade Center towers, said the official.
Another was found in the wreckage of a United Airlines jet that crashed in rural Pennsylvania and a third in another hijacker’s car, the official said.
The document contained a mission checklist and instructions for mental and spiritual preparation, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official was unable to provide further details. Published accounts characterized the document as a haunting mission guide that urged the hijackers to smile at their taxicab driver, “crave death” and “make sure no one is following you.” The documents provide the most jarring insight yet into the mindset of the 19 men who boarded the four planes. Two of the jets crashed into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one in Pennsylvania.
The texts starkly address fear on the eve of their suicide mission. “Everybody hates death, fears death,” according to a translation of highlights of the document obtained by The Washington Post, which reported that the book was found in Atta’s luggage. “But only those, the believers who know the life after death and the reward after death, would be the ones who will be seeking death.”
The manual found in Pennsylvania contained directives on what actions, thoughts and prayers should be undertaken in the final hours, according to The Dallas Morning News. The document instructs a follower, on the day of the attack, to “check your weapon,” say morning prayers together, and, “If you take a taxi to the airport, when you arrive ... smile and rest assured, for Allah is with the believers and the angels are protecting you.”
This appears in a section of the document beneath the words, “The last night.” That section begins, “Remind yourself that in this night you will face many challenges. But you have to face them and understand it 100 percent. ... Obey God, His messenger, and don’t fight among yourself where you become weak, and stand fast, God will stand with those who stood fast.”
The translated version of the document instructs the hijackers to steel their will with prayer before embarking on their mission. “You should pray, you should fast. You should ask God for guidance, you should ask God for help... Continue to pray throughout this night. Continue to recite the Qur’an.”
It continues: “Purify your heart and clean it from all earthly matters. The time of fun and waste has gone. The time of judgment has arrived. Hence we need to utilize those few hours to ask God for forgiveness. You have to be convinced that those few hours that are left you in your life are very few. From there you will begin to live the happy life, the infinite paradise. Be optimistic. The prophet was always optimistic.”
The follower is told to pray as he sets foot on the plane and again as he takes his seat, remembering “It is a raid for Allah.” The book also contained this passage for comfort: “When the time of truth comes and zero hour arrives, then straighten out your clothes, open your chest and welcome death for the sake of Allah. Seconds before the target, your last words should be ‘There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is His messenger’.”
The document instructed to bring “knives, your will, IDs, your passport” and, finally, “to make sure that nobody is following you.” FBI investigators, who found the writings in Atta’s luggage, which did not make it onto his flight, are not sure of the author’s identity — whether it was Atta, another hijacker or someone else.
The document is a cross between a chilling spiritual exhortation aimed at the hijackers and an operational mission checklist. With the hijackers all dead, the pages may turn out to provide the most vivid and penetrating glimpse into their mental states and final hours before they embarked on the deadliest act of terrorism in US history.
The first four pages of both documents are handwritten on large paper and recite some basic Islamic history about the Prophet fighting infidels with 100 men against 1,000, the Post said. They also include prayers such as, “I pray to you God to forgive me from all my sins, to allow me to glorify you in every possible way.”
Atta, 33, and Abdulaziz Alomari spent the night of Sept. 10 in Room 232 of the South Portland Comfort Inn in Portland, Maine. Early on Sept. 11, they boarded a flight from Portland to Boston’s Logan Airport, where they connected to American Airlines Flight 11, the plane that was commandeered and flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Atta’s luggage did not make it onto Flight 11. The FBI found another copy of essentially the same document in the wreckage of United Flight 93, a government source said. Flight 93 was also hijacked and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The multiple copies suggest the document was shared among at least some of the hijackers. After the attacks, several published reports stated that Atta had left a “suicide note,” which is what the FBI initially called it in a document sent to police investigators in Europe.
US President George W. Bush yesterday said the United States was in “hot pursuit” of those he blames for terror strikes and ruled out diplomacy as a way to get Taleban to turn them over. “Make no mistake about it: we’re in hot pursuit,” he said, as the White House declined to confirm news reports that small teams of US special forces were searching in Afghanistan for Osama Bin Laden.
“There is no negotiation with the Taleban,” the president said as the Taleban militia stood fast by its refusal to hand over the suspect.
“They heard what I said, and now they can act,” he added. Bush renewed demands he made of the militia last week in a rare speech to a joint session of the US Congress outlining the US response to attacks that left more than 7,000 dead or missing at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
He insisted that not just Bin Laden but all members of his Al-Qaeda network and “any terrorist that is housed and fed Afghanistan” and called for “complete destruction of terrorist camps.”
“We expect them to not only hear what I say, but to do something about it,” Bush said sternly during a joint Oval Office appearance with Jordan’s King Abdallah, the first Arab head of state to meet with him since the attacks. The monarch offered Jordan’s “full unequivocal support” for US reprisals for the attacks as well as for an open-ended global campaign against terrorism.
Picking up on Bush’s message that “our war is against evil, not against Islam,” the monarch declared: “What these people stand for is completely against all the principles that Arab Muslims believe in.”
“The majority of Arabs and Muslims will band together with our colleagues all over the world to be able to put an end to this horrible scourge of international terrorism, and you’ll see a united front,” he said.
In a bid to include nations with large Muslim populations in a global coalition to support US-led retaliation, the US leader has emphasized that Washington is waging war on terrorism, not Islam. “There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know, that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion, the exact opposite of the teachings of the Al-Qaeda organization, which is based upon evil and hate and destruction,” he said yesterday.
