76 Facts About Mohamed Atta

Mohamed Atta was the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which he crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated attacks.

Mohamed Atta was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 1,600 people during the attacks.

In Hamburg, Mohamed Atta became involved with the al-Quds Mosque, where he met Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ziad Jarrah, together forming the Hamburg cell.

Mohamed Atta disappeared from Germany for periods of time, embarking on the hajj in 1995 but meeting Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan from late-1999 to early-2000.

Mohamed Atta returned to Hamburg in February 2000, and began inquiring about flight training in the United States.

Mohamed Atta was known as Abd al-Rahman al-Misri by al-Qaeda.

Mohamed Atta claimed different nationalities, sometimes Egyptian and other times telling people he was from the United Arab Emirates.

Mohamed Atta was born on September 1,1968, in Kafr el-Sheikh, located in the Nile Delta region of Egypt.

Mohamed Atta's father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, was a lawyer, educated in both sharia and civil law.

Bouthayna and Mohamed Atta married when she was 14, via an arranged marriage.

When Mohamed Atta was ten, his family moved to the Cairo neighborhood of Abdeen, situated near the city center.

In 1985, Mohamed Atta enrolled at Cairo University and focused his studies on engineering.

Mohamed Atta was among the highest-scoring students; by his senior year, he was admitted to an exclusive architecture program.

Mohamed Atta then worked for several months at the Urban Development Center in Cairo, where he joined various building projects and dispatched diverse architectural tasks.

Also in 1990, Mohamed Atta's family moved into the eleventh floor of an apartment building in the Egyptian city of Giza.

Mohamed Atta got engaged to a woman lined up by his father and her family in Cairo, at late 1999, after coming back from Germany the same year.

Mohamed Atta graduated from Cairo University with marks insufficient for the graduate program.

The couple explained at dinner that they ran an exchange program and invited Mohamed Atta to continue his studies in Germany; they offered him room and board at their home in the city.

Mohamed Atta initially lived with two high school teachers; however, they eventually found his closed-mindedness and introverted personality to be too much for them.

Mohamed Atta began adhering to the strictest Islamic diet, frequenting the most conservative mosques, socializing seldom, and acting disdainfully towards the couple's unmarried daughter who had a young child.

Mohamed Atta seldom bathed, and they could not bear his "complete, almost aggressive insularity".

Mohamed Atta kept to himself to such an extent that he would often react to simple greetings with silence.

Mohamed Atta believed that the drab and impersonal apartment blocks, built in the 60s and 70s, ruined the beauty of old neighborhoods and robbed their people of privacy and dignity.

Mohamed Atta researched the history of the urban landscape in relation to the general theme of conflict between Arab and modern civilization.

Mohamed Atta observed Muslim customs, taking taxis to and from the office so as not to come into close physical contact with men on buses.

Mohamed Atta stayed in Cairo awhile with his family after Hauth and Bodenstein flew back to Germany.

Mohamed Atta was let go from the firm in 1997 because its business had declined and "his draughtsmanship was not needed" after it bought a CAD system.

Mohamed Atta had harbored a desire to return to his native city, ever since he finished his studies in Hamburg; but he was prevented by the dearth of job prospects in Cairo, his family lacking the "right connections" to avail the customary nepotism.

Mohamed Atta harbored anger and resentment toward the US for its policy in Islamic nations of the Middle East, with nothing inflaming his ire more than the Oslo Accords and the Gulf War in particular.

Mohamed Atta was angry and bitter at the elite in his native Egypt, who he believed hoarded power for themselves, as well as at the Egyptian government, that cracked down on the dissident Muslim Brotherhood.

Mohamed Atta was anti-Semitic, believing that Jews controlled the world's media, financial, and political institutions from New York City.

Mohamed Atta returned to Hamburg on October 31,1995, only to join the pilgrimage to Mecca shortly thereafter.

In Hamburg, Mohamed Atta was intensely drawn to al-Quds Mosque which adhered to a "harsh, uncompromisingly fundamentalist, and resoundingly militant" version of Sunni Islam.

Mohamed Atta made acquaintances at al-Quds; some of whom visited him on occasion at Centrumshaus.

Mohamed Atta began teaching classes both at Al-Quds and at a Turkish mosque near the Harburg district.

Mohamed Atta started and led a prayer group, which Ahmed Maklat and Mounir El Motassadeq joined.

Mohamed Atta said that he went on pilgrimage to Mecca again, just 18 months after his first time.

When Mohamed Atta returned, he claimed that his passport was lost and applied for a new one, which is a common tactic to erase evidence of travel to places such as Afghanistan.

Mohamed Atta moved into a nearby apartment in the Wilhelmsburg district, where he lived with Said Bahaji and Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

In mid-1998, Mohamed Atta worked alongside Shehhi, bin al-Shibh, and Belfas, at a warehouse, packing computers in crates for shipping.

On November 29,1999, Mohamed Atta boarded Turkish Airlines Flight TK1662 from Hamburg to Istanbul, where he changed to flight TK1056 to Karachi, Pakistan.

German investigators said that they had evidence that Mohamed Atta trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000.

Mohamed Atta provided the first official confirmation that Atta and two other pilots had been in Afghanistan, and he provided the first dates of the training.

Kersten said in an interview at the agency's headquarters in Wiesbaden that Mohamed Atta was in Afghanistan from late 1999 until early 2000, and that there was evidence that Mohamed Atta met with Osama bin Laden there.

On his return journey, Mohamed Atta left Karachi on February 24,2000, by flight TK1057 to Istanbul where he changed to flight TK1661 to Hamburg.

On March 22,2000, Mohamed Atta was still in Germany when he sent an e-mail to the Academy of Lakeland in Florida.

Mohamed Atta had lived in Germany for approximately five years and had a "strong record as a student".

Bin al-Shibh later explained that they believed it would contribute to operational security for Mohamed Atta to fly out of Prague instead of Hamburg, where he traveled from previously.

Mohamed Atta insisted that she write his name as ATTA, that he originally was from Egypt but had moved to Afghanistan, that he was an engineer and that his dream was to go to a flight school.

Mohamed Atta asked about the Pentagon and the White House.

Mohamed Atta said he wanted to visit the World Trade Center and asked Bryant about the security there.

Mohamed Atta mentioned Al Qaeda and said the organization "could use memberships from Americans".

Days later, Shehhi, Jarrah and Mohamed Atta ended up in Venice, Florida.

Mohamed Atta began flight training on July 6,2000, and continued training nearly every day.

In November 2000, Mohamed Atta earned his instrument rating, and then a commercial pilot's license in December from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Mohamed Atta continued with flight training that included solo flights and simulator time.

Mohamed Atta flew to Spain on January 4,2001, to coordinate with bin al-Shibh and returned to the United States on January 10.

Mohamed Atta rented a Chevrolet Malibu from an Alamo Rent A Car agency.

In July 2001, Mohamed Atta again left for Spain in order to meet with bin al-Shibh for the last time.

On July 7,2001, Mohamed Atta flew on Swissair Flight 117 from Miami to Zurich, where he had a stopover.

Mohamed Atta used his credit card to purchase two Swiss Army knives and some chocolate in a shop at the Zurich Airport.

Mohamed Atta drove east out of Madrid towards the Mediterranean beach area of Tarragona.

Mohamed Atta confirmed that all the muscle hijackers had arrived in the United States, without any problems, but said that he needed five to six more weeks to work out details.

Mohamed Atta spent two nights in Salou at the beachside Casablanca Playa Hotel, then spent the last two nights at the Hotel Residencia Montsant.

On July 22,2001, Mohamed Atta rented a Mitsubishi Galant from Alamo Rent a Car, putting 3,836 miles on the vehicle before returning it on July 26.

On September 10,2001, Mohamed Atta picked up al-Omari from the Milner Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, and the two drove their rented Nissan Altima to a Comfort Inn in South Portland, Maine.

The FBI reported that "two middle-eastern men" were seen in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut, where Mohamed Atta is known to have eaten that day.

In Portland, Mohamed Atta was selected by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, which required his checked bags to undergo extra screening for explosives but involved no extra screening at the passenger security checkpoint.

Mohamed Atta checked in for American Airlines Flight 11, passed through security again, and boarded the flight.

Mohamed Atta's bags were later recovered in Logan International Airport, and were found to have contained airline uniforms, flight manuals, and other items.

The luggage included a copy of Mohamed Atta's will, written in Arabic, as well as a list of instructions, called "The Last Night".

Mahmoud Mohamed Atta, a naturalized US citizen, was deported from Venezuela to the United States, extradited to Israel, tried and sentenced to life in prison.

The Egyptian Mohamed Atta arrived at the Florenc bus terminal in Prague, from Germany, on June 2,2000.

Mohamed Atta left Prague the next day, flying on Czech Airlines to Newark, New Jersey, US In the Czech Republic, some intelligence officials say the source of the purported meeting was an Arab informant who approached the Czech intelligence service with his sighting of Atta only after Atta's photograph had appeared in newspapers all over the world.

Mohamed Atta held interviews with the German news magazine Bild am Sonntag in late 2002, saying his son was alive and hiding in fear for his life, and that American Christians were responsible for the attacks.

In 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Mohamed Atta's mother was interviewed by a Spanish newspaper.