Planing of the September 11 attacks on the United States

                 
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed aparently got the idea for the September 11 attacks from a similar but different  plan of hijacking a plane and then flying it into the CIA's (Central Intelligence Agency) headquarters in Langley Virginia. Khalid first proposed his plan to Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora a cave complex that is along the Afghan-Pakistan border in 1996, then in late 1998/ early 1999 bin Laden gave his approval for Khalid to go forward with organising the attacks. Mohammed Atef who was bin Ladens deputy at the time gave operational support that included selecting targets to attack and helping to provide travel for the hijackers that were going to carry out the attacks, Osama bin Laden himself provided leadership and financial support for the attacks, he was also involved in selecting who would carry out the attacks. He selected  Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar who were both experienced jihadists that had fought in Bosnia, they arrived in the United States in mid January 2000 and ended up becoming muscle hijackers instead of pilots because both spoke little english and did badly at flying lessons. Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh had all come from Hamburg Germany  and arrived in Afghanistan in late 1999, these four men were selected by bin Laden because they could speak english, were educated and they had experience living in the west.  Marwan arrived in the U.S. at the end of May 2000, Mohamed arrived on the 3rd of June 2000 and Ziad arrived on the 27th of June 2000. Ramzi applied several times to get a visa so he could get in to the United States of America but was denied because he was a Yemeni and the U.S. immigration department thought he would overstay his visa and stay in the United States as an illegal immigrant, so he stayed in Hamburg Germany to provide coordination. Mohamed, Marwan and Ramzi all took pilot training in South Florida. The secondary hijackers began arriving in Spring 2001, in july that year Mohamed met with Ramzi in Spain to coordinate details for the attacks, this included final target selection. Ramzi also passed along bin Ladens wish for the attacks to be carried out as soon as possible.