Mohamed Atta

Born in Egypt in 1968, Atta studied architecture at Cairo University and later pursued postgraduate work at Hamburg University of Technology. At Hamburg's al-Quds Mosque he met Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ziad Jarrah, forming what became known as the Hamburg cell. Between 1995 and early 2000 he disappeared from Germany for stretches, meeting Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, where he and the Hamburg members were recruited by bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a "planes operation" in the United States. He returned to Hamburg in February 2000, then arrived in the U.S. that June with Jarrah and al-Shehhi to train as pilots, earning his commercial license by December. Through the summer of 2001 he coordinated the arrival of the "muscle" hijackers, met bin al-Shibh in Spain in July to finalize details, and flew surveillance missions in August. On the morning of September 11, 2001, at age thirty-three, he flew Flight 11 into 1 World Trade Center.