Training and Deployment to Kuala Lumpur
In the fall of 1999, the four operatives selected by Bin Ladin for the planes
operation were chosen to attend an elite training course at al Qaeda's Mes Aynak
camp in Afghanistan. Bin Ladin personally selected the veteran fighters who
received this training, and several of them were destined for important
operations. One example is Ibrahim al Thawar, or Nibras, who would participate
in the October 12, 2000, suicide attack on the USS Cole. According to
KSM, this training was not given specifically in preparation for the planes
operation or any other particular al Qaeda venture. Although KSM claims not to
have been involved with the training or to have met with the future 9/11
hijackers at Mes Aynak, he says he did visit the camp while traveling from
Kandahar to Kabul with Bin Ladin and others.48
The Mes Aynak training camp was located in an abandoned Russian copper mine
near Kabul. The camp opened in 1999, after the United States had destroyed the
training camp near Khowst with cruise missiles in August 1998, and before the
Taliban granted al Qaeda permission to open the al Faruq camp in Kandahar.Thus,
for a brief period in 1999, Mes Aynak was the only al Qaeda camp operating in
Afghanistan. It offered a full range of instruction, including an advanced
commando course taught by senior al Qaeda member Sayf al Adl. Bin Ladin paid
particular attention to the 1999 training session. When Salah al Din, the
trainer for the session, complained about the number of trainees and said that
no more than 20 could be handled at once, Bin Ladin insisted that everyone he
had selected receive the training.49
The special training session at Mes Aynak was rigorous and spared no expense.
The course focused on physical fitness, firearms, close quarters combat,
shooting from a motorcycle, and night operations. Although the subjects taught
differed little from those offered at other camps, the course placed
extraordinary physical and mental demands on its participants, who received the
best food and other amenities to enhance their strength and morale.50
Upon completing the advanced training at Mes Aynak, Hazmi, Khallad, and Abu
Bara went to Karachi, Pakistan. There KSM instructed them on Western culture and
travel. Much of his activity in mid-1999 had revolved around the collection of
training and informational materials for the participants in the planes
operation. For instance, he collected Western aviation magazines; telephone
directories for American cities such as San Diego and Long Beach, California;
brochures for schools; and airline timetables, and he conducted Internet
searches on U.S. flight schools. He also purchased flight simulator software and
a few movies depicting hijackings. To house his students, KSM rented a safehouse
in Karachi with money provided by Bin Ladin.51
In early December 1999, Khallad and Abu Bara arrived in Karachi. Hazmi joined
them there a few days later. On his way to Karachi, Hazmi spent a night in
Quetta at a safehouse where, according to KSM, an Egyptian named Mohamed Atta
simultaneously stayed on his way to Afghanistan for jihad training.52
Mihdhar did not attend the training in Karachi with the others. KSM says that
he never met with Mihdhar in 1999 but assumed that Bin Ladin and Atef had
briefed Mihdhar on the planes operation and had excused him from the Karachi
training.53
