Authorities interviewing a member of Al Qaeda in military custody overseas are investigating a new theory of the Sept. 11 plot that suggests the suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh, was planning to pilot a fifth hijacked plane to strike the White House.
The plan was disrupted when Binalshibh, who was captured last month in Pakistan, failed to obtain permission to enter the United States, where he had planned to attend flight school in Florida, senior government officials said.
Evidence that there were plans for a fifth hijack team had also come from the debriefing of John Walker Lindh, but the possibility that Binalshibh was to be the leader of another attack group had not been previously disclosed.
This theory has gained momentum in recent weeks as investigators have assembled new details about Binalshibh’s movements around Europe in the months before the attacks. Investigators have also compiled a fuller picture of his relationship with Mohamed Atta, an alleged ringleader of the plot, and uncovered fresh information about the breadth of Al Qaeda’s original plan for the attacks.
The officials said that Binalshibh’s role in the plot is a main topic of his interrogation at a secret military base abroad. Military officials have asked Binalshibh about organizational changes in Al Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks and about plans for additional attacks.
The officials said that Binalshibh has provided only fragmentary information about the hijackings and Al Qaeda’s activities since the war in Afghanistan. The officials said he has not acknowledged that he planned to lead another hijacking group.
But investigators said suspicions are growing that Binalshibh may have intended to lead a fifth hijacking group. Their belief is based on other information, including interviews of other Al Qaeda detainees and Lindh, whose credibility is still being weighed.
Moreover, officials have concluded that a few secretive, face-to-face meetings were crucial to the evolution of the plot. They said their discovery that Binalshibh met with Atta several times in 2000 and again in Spain in 2001 contributed to their belief that Binalshibh was an important participant.
In addition, investigators have examined more closely Binalshibh’s unsuccessful attempts to obtain a visa to enter the U.S., where he had signed up for flying lessons at a Florida aviation academy. In August 2000, he paid $2,200 as a deposit for flight training, an amount officials said was sufficient to persuade them that Binalshibh seriously intended to be a pilot.
His visa applications were denied the four times he applied. Those denials appear to be the only official actions taken by the government that interfered with the hijackers’ plans. Binalshibh remained in Germany, where he became a paymaster, wiring funds to other hijackers. He slipped out of Europe for Pakistan shortly before the attacks.
A slightly built Yemeni known for his virulently anti-American extremism, Binalshibh was initially thought by investigators to be a midlevel organizer and financial conduit, but he has emerged as a far more central figure in the Sept. 11 plot.
In the past, investigators had said only that Binalshibh was seen as an important player who was meant possibly to be the 20th hijacker aboard one of the four jets that were seized on Sept. 11, a theory some officials still regard as a viable explanation of his role.
But other officials said their view of the plot was evolving. A newly released memorandum on the interrogation of Lindh, the American who was sentenced Oct. 4 to 20 years in prison for fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, also mentions a fifth attack.
Lindh, who described to investigators his training at camps operated by Al Qaeda, told his interrogators that Sept. 11 was just the “first phase” of a three-part series of 20 attacks, the memorandum says. It says the first phase “consisted of five attacks,” but it cites only four: two on the World Trade Center, one on the Pentagon and one that Lindh said was aimed at the White House. It is not clear what the target of the fourth plane, which crashed in Pennsylvania, was, but investigators have suggested that the target was in Washington.
In another session with interrogators last December in Kabul, Afghanistan, Lindh said that a “close associate” of Osama bin Laden named Hakeen At-Taizzi, had told him that “there should have been five planes used” during the Sept. 11 terror attacks, “the fifth targeting the White House.” Lindh had said that he heard that 50 operatives of Al Qaeda were sent out to commit 20 suicide operations, and that “15 more operations were pending.” Investigators said that Lindh’s information corroborates the theory that Binalshibh was planning to be part of a fifth hijacking team.
“I think that’s a very viable theory,” a senior government official said. “They were all going to be part of the plot.” When pressed if he believed Binalshibh had planned to lead a fifth team, the official said, “I personally believe that.”
