Hamburg cell - WikiHQ

thumb|The cell planned the [[September 11 attacks|11 September attacks in Mohamed Atta's apartment on Marienstraße (Marien Street) in Hamburg|333x333px]]

The Hamburg cell (; , ) was a terrorist cell of Islamist extremists living in Hamburg, Germany, around the late 1990s. They helped plan al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001 (9/11), in which 19 men hijacked four airliners to try and crash them into American landmarks.

In 1999, the cell left Hamburg to join the Chechen jihadists fighting Russia in the Second Chechen War, but redirected to Afghanistan to meet al-Qaeda's leadership. They then worked on the hijacking plan at a Hamburg apartment owned by the cell's ringleader, Mohamed Atta. Twelve men were members: Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah—who died as the hijacker-pilots of American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, and United Airlines Flight 93, respectively—plus Abdelghani Mzoudi, Ahmed Taleb, Mamoun Darkazanli, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, Mounir el-Motassadeq, Naamen Meziche, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Said Bahaji, and Zakariya Essabar.

As the cell dissolved and 9/11 was carried out, four members disappeared in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while the others were captured or arrested in various countries. Most were imprisoned, while Mzoudi was acquitted, and bin al-Shibh and Darkazanli never faced full trials. The U.S. accused Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian businessman, of helping the cell visit al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He was arrested, sent to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and tortured by camp officials. After 14 years, he was freed when a court found him to be innocent. Bin al-Shibh, held at Guantanamo for 19 years, was also tortured there.

Background

thumb|250x250px|On 9/11, [[United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into 2 WTC (center), while 1 WTC (right) is damaged from the impact of American Airlines Flight 11]]

In the 11 September 2001 attacks against the United States, 19 members of the Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda hijacked four American commercial flights in an attempt to crash them into national landmarks. American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were crashed into 1 and 2 World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. Both towers soon collapsed as a result. American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. Al-Qaeda, founded by Osama bin Laden, organized the attacks. In the early 1990s, Mohammed was involved in the Bojinka plot: al-Qaeda's plan for eleven planes, flying from Asia to the U.S., to be bombed over the Pacific Ocean. Pope John Paul II would concurrently be assassinated. The plot was foiled, but it evolved into the plan for 9/11. In 1996, Mohammed went to bin Laden, who was living in Afghanistan, where the Taliban government allowed al-Qaeda to operate. Mohammed detailed a plan to fly ten planes into American buildings. Bin Laden said it was too elaborate, and it was redesigned around 1999.

History

left|thumb|250x250px|[[Mohamed Atta (left) talking to fellow students in Germany in 1993]]

Start of the Hamburg cell

In 1992, Mohamed Atta, an architect from Egypt, moved to Hamburg, Germany, to study urban planning at university there. Four years later, he began attending the local al-Quds Mosque, which had Muslim visitors from around the world. He subsequently became the ringleader of the Hamburg cell, a clandestine cell system of Islamic extremist terrorists who lived in the city in 1998 and 1999. Likely, they were planning their own jihadist activities when they met al-Qaeda's leadership, and then joined al-Qaeda in late 1999 to work on the details of the redesigned hijacking plan. Hani Hanjour, the hijacker-pilot of Flight 77, was not in the cell. Besides those whom bin al-Shibh listed, investigators have determined other men to be members.

Some of the first members Atta reportedly met at the mosque were al-Shehhi, Jarrah, Mounir el-Motassadeq, and Said Bahaji. At some point before 9/11, the U.S. became aware that Darkazanli was associated with al-Qaeda, and asked German authorities to stop him. However, Germany had no laws at the time prohibiting being part of a foreign terrorist organization, so they did not. Abdelghani Mzoudi was el-Motassadeq's friend. Little is confirmed about member Ahmed Taleb before he joined, other than his Algerian origin. He was 48 in August 2001—older than the other members. He may have been in contact with Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaeda's third-highest commander until his capture in 2003.

Chechnya plan

thumb|300x300px|[[De facto control of Chechnya at the start of the Second Chechen War, showing Russian control (red), the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (green), and the Islamists inside it (grey)]]

Over a few months in 1999, the cell members watched footage of jihadists fighting in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya. The latter region was internationally recognized as a republic of Russia, but was populated by separatist groups. A military of the unrecognized breakaway state named the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, as well as Islamist Chechen militants, rebelled against Russia during the Second Chechen War (1999–2009). Watching the Islamists fight, the members became motivated to join them in-person. Almost all the members stopped contacting their families.

Shortly after 9/11, German authorities found that the cell came up with the plan to hijack U.S. planes independently of al-Qaeda, and that they joined a similar plan of al-Qaeda's partway through. This was refuted in 2004 by the U.S. government's 9/11 Commission, who based their conclusion on interrogations of bin al-Shibh after his capture in 2002. The commission claimed that in late 1999, the cell members boarded a train going east—the direction of Chechnya—and by chance, an al-Qaeda member named Khalid al-Masri was on board the train at the same time. He met the cell, then convinced them to join the organization. Beforehand, the cell had supposedly no connection to al-Qaeda, and no intentions of attacking the U.S. German intelligence official Manfred Murck said the findings helped him understand why Germany's pre-9/11 surveillance of domestic Islamic extremists did not catch the plan; it was not made in Hamburg. The cell members who visited Afghanistan eventually returned to Hamburg. Investigators disagree if Jarrah ever lived there. Notably, Jarrah was the only member who stayed in contact with family during the attacks' planning stage. His family tried to influence him away from Islamism, and he may have even had doubts about participating in the hijackings. In mid-2001, while living in the U.S., he briefly left his role as a presumptive hijacker, either once or twice. He also had power of attorney over al-Shehhi's bank account, and signed Atta's will. Bin al-Shibh helped the three men find the school, and sent them $120,000 USD for living expenses in America, including going to the school. Around 2002, at the start of an international manhunt for bin Laden, he secretly fled to Pakistan. He likely stayed there until 2011, when he was killed in a raid by American soldiers. One theater of the manhunt was the War in Afghanistan, in which the U.S. dissolved and replaced the Taliban's government. The Taliban fought back and reformed the government in 2021. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also hid in Pakistan, where in 2002, he first confessed to his involvement in 9/11. He was captured in 2003, and put in U.S. custody. thumb|248x248px|[[Mohamedou Ould Slahi was falsely accused of introducing the cell to al-Qaeda|left]]

Mohamedou Ould Slahi

In 2004, the 9/11 Commission claimed that Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man, played a role in the cell traveling to Afghanistan after meeting al-Masri on the train to Chechnya. While the cell were active, German and American intelligence believed Slahi was connected to al-Qaeda, but did not know he was living in Germany. He was running an import-export business in Duisburg, and the commission alleged that on the train, al-Masri asked the cell to visit a man named "Abu Musab"—Slahi—in the city. There, Slahi supposedly warned them it was hard to cross the border into Chechnya, and said they should instead go to Pakistan, to rendezvous with al-Qaeda operatives who could get them across the Afghan border. Soon after 9/11, Slahi was captured by the U.S., who sent him to Guantanamo.

Ramzi bin al-Shibh

In July 2001, Atta met Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Spain to go over details of the plot, and make the final decision of what the hijackers' targets were. Bin al-Shibh told him that bin Laden wanted the attacks to happen as soon as possible. Shortly after 9/11, German officials stated bin al-Shibh likely moved to Pakistan or Afghanistan, while Pakistani officials said they had no record of him entering the country. The U.S. announced he was wanted for connections to the cell. Bin al-Shibh was put in custody of the CIA, who, for four years, tortured him at various black sites they were operating worldwide.]]

In 2006, the CIA sent bin al-Shibh to Guantanamo. He then joined the Islamic State, a militant organization who had de facto control of northern Iraq and Syria in the mid-2010s, and did numerous jobs for them. during the skirmishes there in 2009, Pakistani authorities took back a Taliban-controlled town, and found there a supposed Pakistani passport issued to Bahaji.

On 3 September 2001, Bahaji took a flight from Hamburg to Istanbul, alongside two male passengers named on the flight manifest as "Abdellah Hosayni" and "Ammar Moula"; these were likely not their real names, as their passports—French and Belgian, respectively—were found to be fake. German investigators believe "Moula" was Ahmed Taleb, and "Hosayni" was Ismail Ben Mrabete—both were Algerian men in their late 40s, who were alleged by an informant to German police to have been at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan alongside Bahaji and Essabar after 9/11. The flight tickets for "Hosayni" and "Moula" were notably purchased long before 9/11—on 14 August. It is known that after the flight, Taleb traveled to Karachi and Quetta, Pakistan. In Karachi, he stayed at the Karachi Embassy Hotel alongside Bahaji, Mrabete, and Mohammed Belfatmi, an al-Qaeda member from Algeria. Quetta is located near the Afghan border, and was a "popular jumping-off point" for people who wanted to travel into Afghanistan for terrorist activities.

al-Quds Mosque

The al-Quds Mosque stayed open after 9/11, despite Germany knowing it had ties to jihadist terrorism. During this time, it possibly continued having a connection to al-Qaeda via a frequent visitor named Ahmad Sidiqi. In July 2010, Sidiqi was captured in Afghanistan, and interrogated at Bagram prison there. According to the U.S., Sidiqi told them that bin Laden had recently ordered al-Qaeda to conduct terrorist attacks across Europe, which would be similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks done by Lashkar e-Taiba. Sidiqi supposedly also said that at one training camp, he met Bahaji.

Members

The following is a list of all cell members described by officials in Germany, the U.S., and Spain, detailing what happened to them during or after the attacks, and if other sources describe them a member:

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible"

|+Cell members according to international investigators

!Member

!Birth/citizenship countries

!Fate or current status

!Refs.

!Mohamed Atta

1968–2001frameless|148x148px

|Egypt

|Died as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 on 9/11

!Mamoun Darkazanli

b. 1958

Syria (Birth country)
Germany

Arrested by Germany for allegedly participating in the 2004 Madrid bombings in Spain
Extradition back to Spain was blocked by a judge
Released in Germany in 2005

!Mohammed Haydar Zammar

b. 1961

Syria (Birth country)
Germany

Arrested by Morocco after 9/11 and extradited to Syria
Released in 2014 as part of a prisoner exchange
Joined the Islamic State soon after, and was captured in 2018
Imprisoned in Syria again that year

!Naamen Meziche

Algeria (Birth country)
France

Left Germany for Afghanistan
Possibly died in Pakistan near the Afghan border

!Zakariya Essabar

b. 1977

|Morocco

Fled Germany to Pakistan in August 2001, and then went to Afghanistan to communicate with al-Qaeda
At large as of 2011

!Abdelghani Mzoudi

b. 1972

|Morocco

Arrested by Germany after 9/11, put on trial, and was acquitted in 2004
Deported to Morocco in 2005

!Ahmed Taleb

b. 1952/53

|Unknown; from Algeria

Allegedly left Germany for Turkey on 3 September 2001
Flew to Pakistan, then disappeared; perhaps crossed the border into Afghanistan
Alleged by a witness to have been at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan