Page:Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.pdf/12

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

that Abu Hafs was present during this meeting. Bin Laden expressed his desire to simultaneously hit the Pentagon, White House, and U.S. Capitol building, and had Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in mind for the operation. He was hopeful that Sheikh Mohammed would be able to identify additional pilots from the Persian Gulf region based on his connections there. Sheikh Mohammed noted that at that point, Mohammad Atta's group had not yet been identified.

18. According to Sheikh Mohammed, when Atta was identified as an operative, Bin Laden held another meeting in Qandahar to discuss which targets would be hit. Bin Laden, Atta, Abu Hafs, and Sheikh Mohammed were all present. Sheikh Mohammed explained that, at that time, Hani Hanjour, the fourth pilot, had not yet been identified. The group, therefore, worked under the assumption that only three targets would be hit, and Bin Laden indicated that he wanted to hit a military, political, and economic target. Sheikh Mohammed had many targets in mind from his work in the early 1990s with Ramzi Yusif, and during the meeting, dozens of possible targets were discussed, including the World Trade Center, a nuclear reactor, the Empire State Building, a foreign embassy in Washington, D.C., and the headquarters of both the CIA and the FBI. While the group also believed a

Page 12 of 58