Simple Midwest Man

We don't talk enough about how the 9/11 hijackers got radicalised by Islamists in Europe. The story of Flight 93 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah and how he was radicalised is particularly fascinating. He grew up in a wealthy, connected, secular Sunni Lebanese family - his uncle Jamal served as a Lebanese government minister in 2020. The family weren't religiously observant, they seem to have really only been Sunni in nominal terms, the way many Christians are kind of only Christian for Christmas and Easter. His Mum worked at a Christian school and the family even sent Ziad to a Christian school in a wealthy area of Beirut. When Ziad moved to Germany to study, his cousin described him as ''a playboy, who loved women, discos, and bars.'' He ultimately met and fell in love with a Turkish-German dentistry student named Aysel Şengün and moved in with her. Somehow along the way Ziad was radicalised in Europe by a Yemeni imam named Abdul Rahman al-Makhadi. Al-Makhadi ran a small concrete-block mosque in Greifswald that locals called "the Box," where he preached a strict interpretation of Islam and collected money for Hamas. He was under surveillance by German intelligence because of his Hamas work, and moved to Hamburg around the same time Jarrah did, introducing him to other radicals. This was how the Hamburg cell came to be. There's no reporting about what happened to Abdul Rahman al-Makhadi in the end. I wouldn't be surprised if he still lives in Germany as a free man. Ziad was ultimately the hijacker who came closest to backing out of the plot. He clashed with Mohammed Atta who was probably the most evil ideologue of the nineteen, a Qutb-style fanatic obsessed with cleanliness, purity and contempt for women. The 9/11 Commission's account is that Ziad had a very strained relationship with Atta, which was a significant point of discussion when Atta travelled to Spain for a final meeting with Al Qaeda handlers in mid-July 2001. Atta hated that Jarrah kept his old life. He made repeated trips back to Germany and Lebanon during 2000–01 to see his family and his girlfriend Aysel Sengün — the Commission counts several — at a time when the others had cut every tie. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed became concerned Jarrah might back out, and at one point directed funds to a potential substitute pilot, Zacarias Moussaoui. The Commission says his continuing contact with family and girlfriend may have given him doubts about the plot as late as summer 2001. Ziad's extremist behavior concerned his family, who sent "emissaries" to his location to plead with him to return to Beirut. His father also threatened to cut off his monthly allowance of $2000. They almost succeeded in pulling him back from the brink, but the lure of European Islamism was too strong. Ziad mailed a suicide note to his girlfriend in Germany, cryptically writing ''I did what I had to,'' and that ''it is a great honour and you will see the result, and everyone will be celebrating.'' She never received the letter, so he called her one final time. ''He called me on September 11 — he was very brief,'' she later told a court. ''He said he loved me three times. I asked what was up. He hung up shortly afterwards — It was so short and rather strange him saying that repeatedly.'' On September 11, Ziad's hijacker team seized control of Flight 93 some 46 minutes after takeoff. The hijackers on the other flights waited no more than half an hour to commandeer the aircraft - to this day it is unknown why the hijackers on Flight 93 waited 46 minutes to storm the cockpit. Perhaps Ziad had last minute doubts. When he finally went through with the plan, though, he displayed blood-curdling ruthlessness. The hijackers stabbed a random passenger named Mark Rothenberg to death in order to try terrorise the rest of the flight into submission. They likely also stabbed the pilots and a flight attendant named Debbie Welsh to death. Walsh was held captive in the cockpit as a hostage and was heard saying ''I don't want to die, I don't want to die'' before being killed or otherwise silenced, followed by one of the hijackers saying in Arabic, ''Everything is fine. I finished.'' The 9/11 Commission believed Jarrah remained seated until after the cockpit was seized and passengers were moved to the back of the aircraft and then took over the flight controls out of sight of the passengers. Later the passengers launched a famous doomed uprising against Ziad and the hijackers. Ziad began to roll the airplane left and right to knock the passengers off balance. He told al-Ghamdi in the cockpit at 09:58:57, "They want to get in here. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold." He changed tactics at 09:59:52 and pitched the nose of the airplane up and down to disrupt the assault. The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of crashing, screaming, and the shattering of glass and plates. Three times in a period of five seconds there were shouts of pain or distress from a hijacker outside the cockpit, suggesting a hijacker who was standing guard outside the cockpit was being attacked by the passengers. Ziad stabilized the plane at 10:00:03. Five seconds later, he asked, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?" al-Ghamdi responded, "No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off." He once again pitched the airplane up and down. A passenger in the background cried, "In the cockpit! If we don't, we'll die!" at 10:00:25. Sixteen seconds later, another passenger yelled, "Roll it!", possibly referring to using the food cart. The voice recorder captured the sound of the passengers using the food cart as a battering ram against the cockpit door. Ziad ceased the violent maneuvers at 10:01:00 and recited the takbir twice. He then asked al-Ghamdi, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" al-Ghamdi responded, "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.'' The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02:17, a male passenger said, "Turn it up!" A second later, al-Ghamdi said, "Pull it down! Pull it down!" At 10:02:33, Ziad made a desperate plea in Arabic, repeatedly screaming "Give it to me!", possibly referring to the plane's yoke. At 10:03:02, amidst screams and shouts, al-Ghamdi, began shouting the takbir, his cries drowned out by a passenger shouting "No!" The plane then crashed into an empty field in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania, about 20 minutes' flying time from Washington, D.C. Many of the passengers' family members, having heard the audio recordings, believe the passengers breached the cockpit and killed at least one of the hijackers guarding the cockpit door; some interpreted the audio as suggesting that the passengers and hijackers struggled for control of the yoke. Ziad chose to murder everybody on board rather than accept the failure of their suicide mission.