Summary

Chapter 18 begins by presenting some demographic information about the men who travelled to Afghanistan to train with al-Qaeda, depicting a diverse group from a variety of countries and backgrounds. In the spring of 1999, bin Laden ordered Khaled Sheikh Mohammed to initiate his “planes operation,” crashing hijacked airplanes into major American government and commercial buildings. Bin Laden originally selected the U.S. Capitol, the White House, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center as the targets of what would eventually become the 9/11 attacks. The al-Qaeda members chosen for this attack were divided into two teams and sent to Germany and Malaysia, respectively, to begin flight training and obtain visas to enter the United States. The CIA, with the help of foreign intelligence services, became aware that the team in Malaysia was planning some sort of attack and tagged several individuals involved as potential threats. However...