Editing Khalid al-Mihdhar (section)

==2001==
In February 2001, al-Mihdhar returned to Afghanistan for several months, possibly entering across the [[Afghanistan–Iran border|Iranian border]] after a flight from [[Syria]].<ref name="911-ch7-3"/> FBI director [[Robert Mueller]] later stated his belief that al-Mihdhar served as the coordinator and organizer for the muscle hijackers.  He was the last of the muscle hijackers to return to the United States.<ref>{{cite news |title=2 hijackers' roles in organizing 9/11 plot revealed |author=Simpson, Cam |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=2002-09-27}}</ref>  On 10 June, he returned to Saudi Arabia for a month, where he applied to re-enter the United States through the Visa Express program, indicating that he intended to stay at a [[Marriott International|Marriott hotel]] in New York City.<ref name="911-ch7-3">9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 7.3 – The Attack Looms, Assembling the Teams, pp. 231–240</ref>  On his visa application, al-Mihdhar falsely stated that he had never previously traveled to the United States.<ref>9/11 and Terror Travel, pp. 24–25</ref>

On 4 July, al-Mihdhar returned to the United States, arriving at New York City's [[John F. Kennedy International Airport]],<ref name="911-ch7-3"/> using a new passport obtained the previous month.<ref>9/11 and Terror Travel, p. 27</ref>  A digital copy of one of al-Mihdhar's passports was later recovered during a search of an [[al-Qaeda safe house]] in Afghanistan, which held indicators, such as fake or altered passport stamps, that al-Mihdhar was a member of a known terrorist group.<ref>9/11 and Terror Travel, p. 42</ref>  At the time when al-Mihdhar was admitted to the United States, immigration inspectors had not been trained to look for such indicators.  Upon arriving, al-Mihdhar did not check into the Marriott but instead spent a night at another hotel in the city.<ref name="911-ch7-3"/>

Al-Mihdhar bought a [[Identity document forgery|fake ID]] on 10 July from All Services Plus in [[Passaic County, New Jersey]], which was in the business of selling counterfeit documents, including another ID to [[American Airlines Flight 11|Flight 11]] hijacker [[Abdulaziz al-Omari]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E0DD1E3FF93BA35750C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |title=A Plea Deal, Then Freedom, in Terror Case Where Prosecutors Kept Evidence a Secret |author=Miller, Jonathan |date=2003-03-08 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2008-09-29 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120629111030/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E0DD1E3FF93BA35750C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |archive-date=2012-06-29 |url-status=dead }}</ref>  On 1 August, al-Mihdhar and fellow Flight 77 hijacker [[Hani Hanjour]] drove to [[Virginia]] in order to obtain driver's licenses.  Once they arrived, they scouted out a [[7-Eleven]] convenience store and a dollar store in [[Falls Church, Virginia|Falls Church]], and found two [[El Salvador|Salvadoran]] immigrants who, for $50 each, were willing to vouch for al-Mihdhar and Hanjour as being Virginian residents.  With notarized residency forms, al-Mihdhar and Hanjour were able to obtain driver's licenses at a Virginian motor vehicle office. Flight 77 hijackers [[Salem al-Hazmi]] and [[Majed Moqed]], and [[United Airlines Flight 93]] hijacker [[Ziad Jarrah]] used the same addresses obtained from the Salvadorans to obtain Virginian driver's licenses.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps42475/80452.pdf |title=Risk to Homeland Security from Identity Fraud and Identity Theft |work=Testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary |date=2002-06-25 |publisher=Government Printing Office |page=7 |access-date=2008-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012014855/http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps42475/80452.pdf |archive-date=2008-10-12 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>9/11 and Terror Travel, p. 29</ref>

In August 2001, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi made several visits to the library at [[William Paterson University]] in [[Wayne, New Jersey]], where they used computers to look up travel information and book flights.<ref>{{cite news |title=9/11 pair used state college to buy airfare  |author=Cohen, Robert and Kelly Heyboer |publisher=Star-Ledger (Newark) |date=2005-04-29}}</ref>  On 22 August, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi tried to purchase flight tickets from the American Airlines online ticket-merchant, but had technical difficulties and gave up.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092602mueller.html |title=Statement of Robert S. Mueller: Joint Investigation Into September 11 |date=2002-09-26 |publisher=Federation of American Scientists (FAS) |access-date=2008-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081205025548/http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092602mueller.html |archive-date=2008-12-05 |url-status=live }}</ref>  Al-Mihdhar and Moqed were able to make flight reservations for Flight 77 on 25 August, using Moqed's credit card; however, the transaction did not fully go through because the billing address and the shipment address for the tickets did not match.<ref>FBI Hijackers' Timeline, p. 235</ref>

On 31 August, al-Mihdhar closed an account at [[TD Banknorth|Hudson United Bank]] in New Jersey, having opened the account when he arrived in July, and was with Hanjour when he made a withdrawal from an ATM in [[Paterson, New Jersey|Paterson]] on 1 September.  The next day, al-Mihdhar, Moqed and Hanjour traveled to [[Maryland]], where they stayed at budget motels in [[Laurel, Maryland|Laurel]].  Al-Mihdhar was among the muscle hijackers who worked out at a [[Gold's Gym]] in [[Greenbelt, Maryland|Greenbelt]] in early September.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2001/sep/19/dulles-hijackers-made-maryland-their-base/ |title=Dulles Hijackers Made Maryland Their Base |author=Masters, Brook A. |date=2001-09-19 |newspaper=The Washington Post |archive-url=https://archive.today/20201001183047/https://www.webcitation.org/5bRH6tam9?url=http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2001/sep/19/dulles-hijackers-made-maryland-their-base/ |archive-date=2020-10-01 |display-authors=etal |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="FBI Hijackers">FBI Hijackers' Timeline, p. 255</ref>  On 5 September, al-Mihdhar and Moqed went to the American Airlines ticket counter at [[Baltimore-Washington International Airport]] to pick up their tickets for Flight 77, paying $2,300 in cash.<ref name="FBI Hijackers"/>

===Intelligence leads===
Despite knowledge of his entry into the United States for over a year, al-Mihdhar was not placed on a CIA watchlist until August 21, 2001, and a note was sent on August 23 to the [[United States Department of State|Department of State]] and the [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]] (INS) suggesting that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi be added to their watchlists. The [[Federal Aviation Administration]] (FAA) was not notified about the two men.<ref name="smith">{{cite news |title=A History of Missed Connections |author=Smith, R. Jeffrey |date=2003-07-25 |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/07/25/a-history-of-missed-connections/03465f5e-f2f5-49b7-8964-3b847e0a7c5a/ |access-date=2008-09-30 |archive-date=23 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151223225336/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/07/25/a-history-of-missed-connections/03465f5e-f2f5-49b7-8964-3b847e0a7c5a/ |url-status=live }}</ref> On August 23, the CIA informed the FBI that al-Mihdhar had obtained a U.S. visa in Jeddah. The FBI headquarters received a copy of the Visa Express application from the Jeddah embassy on August 24, showing the New York Marriott as al-Mihdhar's destination.<ref name="rolince"/>  On 23 August, the [[Mossad]] gave al-Mihdhar's name to the CIA as one of 19 belonging to US residents they suspected would imminently attack the country; only four of these names are known publicly, the others belonging to fellow 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Marwan al-Shehhi. It is not known if the list contained the names of all the 9/11 hijackers or if it were only coincidence that the list had as many names as there were hijackers in the 9/11 attacks.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a082301mossad |others=August 23, 2001: Mossad Reportedly Gives CIA List of Terrorist Living in US; at Least Four 9/11 Hijackers Named |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930031428/http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a082301mossad |archive-date=September 30, 2007 |title=Context of 'August 23, 2001: Mossad Reportedly Gives CIA List of Terrorist Living in US; at Least Four 9/11 Hijackers Named' |work=History Commons}}</ref>

On 28 August, the FBI New York field office requested that a criminal case be opened to determine whether al-Mihdhar was still in the United States, but the request was refused.<ref name="hill">{{cite web |url=https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092002hill.html |title=The Intelligence Community's Knowledge of the September 11 Hijackers Prior to September 11, 2001 |author=Hill, Eleanor |work=Joint Inquiry into the Events of September 11, 2001 |publisher=Federation of American Scientists (FAS) |date=2002-09-20 |access-date=2008-09-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081010233211/http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092002hill.html |archive-date=2008-10-10 |url-status=live }}</ref> The FBI ended up treating al-Mihdhar as an intelligence case, which meant that the FBI's criminal investigators could not work on the case, due to the barrier separating intelligence and criminal case operations.  An agent in the New York office sent an e-mail to FBI headquarters saying, "Whatever has happened to this, someday someone will die, and the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems.'"  The reply from headquarters was, "we [at headquarters] are all frustrated with this issue ... [t]hese are the rules. [[National Security Law Unit|NSLU]] does not make them up."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092002fbi.html |title=Prepared Statement of a New York Special Agent |work=Joint Inquiry into the Events of September 11, 2001 |publisher=Federation of American Scientists (FAS) |date=2002-09-20 |access-date=2008-09-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014003935/http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092002fbi.html |archive-date=2008-10-14 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The FBI contacted Marriott on 30 August, requesting that they check guest records, and on September 5, they reported that no Marriott hotels had any record of al-Mihdhar checking in.<ref name="rolince">{{cite web |url=https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/joint-inquiry-into-events-of-september-11-2001 |title=Testimony of Michael E. Rolince |work=Joint Inquiry into the Events of September 11, 2001 |publisher=Federal Bureau of Investigation |date=2002-09-20 |access-date=2008-09-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110112151633/http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/joint-inquiry-into-events-of-september-11-2001 |archive-date=2011-01-12 |url-status=live }}</ref>  The day before the attacks, [[Robert Fuller (FBI)|Robert Fuller]] of the New York office requested that the Los Angeles FBI office check all local [[Sheraton Hotels and Resorts|Sheraton Hotel]]s,<ref name="rolince"/> as well as [[Lufthansa]] and [[United Airlines]] bookings, because those were the two airlines al-Mihdhar had used to enter the country.<ref name="hill"/>  Neither the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Department]]'s [[Financial Crimes Enforcement Network]] nor the FBI's Financial Review Group, which have access to credit card and other private financial records, were notified about al-Mihdhar prior to 11 September.<ref name="smith"/>

Regarding the CIA's refusal to inform the FBI about al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, author [[Lawrence Wright]] suggests the CIA wanted to protect its turf and was concerned about giving sensitive intelligence to FBI Agent [[John P. O'Neill]], whom Alec Station chief [[Michael Scheuer]] described as duplicitous. Wright also speculates that the CIA may have been protecting intelligence operations overseas, and might have been eying al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi as recruitment targets to obtain intelligence on al-Qaeda, although the CIA was not authorized to operate in the United States and might have been leaving them for Saudi intelligence to recruit.<ref name="soufan"/><ref name="wright2">Wright (2006), pp. 310–315</ref>