n June 2001, two men walked into a store during a busy mall in Fort Lee, New Jersey that rented mail boxes for people that needed temporary address to receive checks, bills etc. the 2 explained that they needed the mailbox temporarily until September and identified themselves as people representing a firm based in Paterson, New Jersey.
The two men- Hani Hanjour and Nawaf al-Hazmi didn’t required the mail box for too long.
A report in USA Today said, that on 9/11 , 2001, Hanjour and al-Hazmi joined 17 other followers of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network in hijacking four commercial jetliners and crashing them into World Trade Center , in what came to be popularly referred to as the 9/11 attacks.
The hijacked planes crashed into the planet Trade Centre’s World Trade Center , the Pentagon in northern Virginia and a farm field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The rental of the temporary mailbox in New Jersey was one among the thousands of samples of ordinary movements by the attackers of 9/11 months before completing the attack. the small print are now a part of the declassified FBI report titled as ‘Hijackers Timeline’ on the fear attacks.
The report captures the day-to-day activities of the 19 Al-Qaida operatives before they depart on their suicide attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and resulted in what’s referred to as ‘War on Terror’.
The attackers were mostly living in central Florida, Southern California, northern Virginia and northern New Jersey. The report showed that they rented cars, opened bank accounts, navigated complicated city streets and highway exit ramps.
Like every other normal denizen, they rented motel rooms, called people from pay phones, ordered meals in diners, took flying lessons, played video games, lifted barbells at gyms and even purchased sun glasses at a Macy’s emporium , the report revealed.
Their stay in northern New Jersey is particularly illuminating because the report suggests that some locals within the region’s Muslim community may have knowingly assisted them.
Mohammad Atta, one among the ringleaders of the attack, flew in from Florida, checked into a motel in Wayne for a couple of days then returned few days later. Others like Hanjour and al-Hazmi, switched between motels and an apartment during a two-story range in Paterson at an equivalent address where he rented the mail drop.
Hanjour had withdrawn $161 from an ATM machine near the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Totowa, New Jersey. Interestingly, the place became the ultimate resting place of the primary official victim of the 9/11 attacks, the Rev Mychal Judge, the Catholic chaplain of latest York City’s local department .
The proximity of the ATM and Judge’s grave showed how closely intertwined was the fear plot with its tragic aftermath.
As America marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question remains: How did the 19 men pull out the attack without being caught?
The 19 attackers barely spoke English, didn’t used any fake name and administered daily activities like renting cars and mailbox. The attackers didn’t even live underground or avoid contact with ordinary Americans.
John J Farmer Jr, the previous New Jersey attorney general and senior counsel for the 9/11 Commission said that the attackers were hiding within the plain sight. “They were simply melting into the overall population the way the planes they hijacked melted into the radar or ordinary traffic ,” he said.
They also entered the US with visa and legally entered the country with proper documentation.
The report goes on to reveal that two of the hijackers — al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar — were even known to the CIA as al-Qaida operatives. Though the CIA were tracking the 2 within the Middle East to Malaysia to Thailand. But they gave up the trial because the CIA wasn’t authorized from spying inside the US, gave up the trial.