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Qutb, what is it with you and your 'debunking'? First, I have to admit that as an Egyptian myself, your pseudonym affects me like nails screeching on a blackboard, so maybe I'm overly sensitive to your comments.

Be that as it may, neither Mohammed Atta nor his father was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. At least, initial reports in the MSM stressed that Atta was, on the contrary, hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood and avoided joining even sport teams that were even tenuously associated with the Brotherhood.

Mohamed Atta was (?) a very interesting person(s). Around two years ago, I spent several weeks researching the whole 9/11 operation and discovered some very weird things, including the fact that many of the "hijackers" had studied at US military training facilities. I went back and dug up what I'd written at the time:

"On September 15, the New York Times reported that:

The Defense Department said Mr. [Mohamed] Atta had gone to the International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; Mr. [Abdulaziz] al-Omari to the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas; and Mr. [Saeed] al-Ghamdi to the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey, Calif."

Maybe I will post my whole report on the EZ Board, if people are interested. For now, however, I'd like to just post an excerpt about one interesting place that Atta went, that has not been reported at all in the MSM...

"In late 1999, Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah all reported their passports stolen. German officials speculated that this was so that they could obtain new passports free of any record of past trips to Afghanistan, perhaps. This unsupported supposition was widely reported, and in some cases was presented as a fact.

Yet, according to the BBC (August 24, 2002), German intelligence told the New York Times that Mohamed Atta trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan "between late 1999 and early 2000 with two others who subsequently piloted the planes used in the attacks." Again, no evidence whatsoever has been presented to back up this claim.

If Atta had declared his passport stolen in 1999 so that he could hide any trips he had made to Afghanistan, why would he then use the new passport to travel to Afghanistan?

Which still leaves the question unanswered: where was Atta during those mysterious three months in 1995 and fifteen months between 1997 and 1999?

The evidence points to a place very different from the "terrorist training camps" of Afghanistan. As early as September 20, 2001, the Times mentioned that

The Philippines Government was astonished to learn that a Saeed al-Ghamdi had visited Manila 15 times. An Ahmed al-Ghamdi came to the capital 13 times and left on September 10, a day before a man with the same name crashed into the World Trade Centre.

Since Saeed al-Ghamdi is still alive and living in Tunis, where he was for 10 months before September 11, 2001, it is reasonable to assume that he was not the Saeed al-Ghamdi who traveled to the Philippines.

Yet this was not merely a matter of "records"; on October 2, 2001, eye-witnesses had come forward, reporting Atta's presence on multiple occasions between 1997 and 1999 at a resort associated with the former Clark US Air Force base at Mabalacat in the Philippines. Five different employees of the Woodland Resort positively identified Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi as frequent guests during this period. The International Herald Tribune reported on October 5, 2001 that

Mr. Al-Shehhi, whom the FBI has identified as the pilot of United Airlines Flight 175 when it slammed into the trade center's south tower, threw a party with six or seven Arab friends at the Woodland Park Resort Hotel here in December, said a former waitress at the hotel, Gina Marcelo. "There were about seven people," she said. "They rented the open area by the swimming pool for 1,000 pesos. They drank Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey and mineral water. They barbecued shrimp and onions. They came in big vehicles, and they had a lot of money. They all had girlfriends." She cited "one big mistake they made." Unlike most foreign visitors, "They never tipped," she said. "If they did, I would not remember them so well."

Victoria Brocoy, a chambermaid at the Woodland, recalls Mr. Atta, the Egyptian who investigators believe flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the trade center's north tower. "He was not friendly. If you say hello to him, he doesn't answer. If he asks for a towel, you do not enter his room. He takes it at the door."

Mr. Atta was by no means a recluse. "Many times I saw him let a girl go at the gate in the morning," she said. "It was always a different girl."

The accounts here tend to confirm reports from the United States that at least some of the accused hijackers had free-wheeling lifestyles full of sex and alcohol, and took precautions to keep their identities secret.

According to the International Herald Tribune, Ferdinand Abad, a security guard at the Woodland Resort, recognized the van which picked Mohamed Atta up at the resort "two or three times a week" as belonging to the Angeles City Flying Club, which is owned by the same unnamed corporation that owns the Woodland Resort.

Abad also identified the driver of the van as Melvin Troth, manager of the flying club. Troth, a master sergeant in the US Air Force who retired in 1986 after serving in Clark Air Force Base, "told investigators, however, that the names of Mr. Atta and Mr. Al-Shehhi did not appear in his records."

CBS News, on September 12, 2002, reported that "hijacker ringleader Mohammed Atta was first summoned to Afghanistan for his initial instructions in the summer of 1999."

The Manila Times, on the other hand, had reported as early as October 2, 2001, that a woman had come forward, identifying Atta and al-Shehhi:

She was convinced the picture was that of Atta because at the time he was a visitor of the Woodland Resort hotel in Barangay Dau, Mabalacat, Pampanga in the summer of 1999, she serviced his room, being a chambermaid of the hotel. She told her current employer of her find and he in turn called a press conference to get it published. However, for some reason, the Manila newspapers gave the story no prominence and both the police and the town officials virtually ignored it.
But the broadcast media, led by the TV Patrol of ABS-CBN picked up the story the following day and the Philippine Star played it up on its front page yesterday even if it reported that the Armed Forces of the Philippines Northern Luzon Command, which has jurisdiction over Pampanga, downplayed any terrorist threat in the area.

The former resort chambermaid gave TV Patrol detailed descriptions of Atta and al Shehhi. Atta, she said, was short and stocky. He was brusque and treated Al Shehhi as a sidekick, she said.

Quite a number of Arab-looking persons patronized the Woodland Resort from 1997 to 1999, according to the former chambermaid. In fact, she said, most of the guests were Arabs, who were, curiously, always accompanied to the resort by another Arab-looking person son known only as Sameer who could speak Tagalog and was presumably a long-time resident of the place.

In the resort, there is a flying school using small planes owned by a British national. The Philippine Star reported Atta having gone to that school but its manager (the owner was away) earlier denied it. The former chambermaid reportedly claimed other Arabs took flying lessons in the out-of-the-way school.
Why the resort apparently escaped the suspicions of the authorities, especially the local police, is hard to imagine.

Additional details were provided in an article published on the same day by Gulf News:

Al Shehi, together with another suspected hijacker, Mohammad Atta, were identified by five former employees of the Woodland resort in Mabalacat, Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) chief Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia said in a report.

"I am sure Al Shehi had been a Woodland guest several times in 1997. I remember him well because I flagged his speeding car at least three times at the gate of Woodland," said former security guard Antonio Sersoza. Al Shehi used different cars and stayed at Woodland on several Saturdays. He knew how to speak Filipino, said Serzosa.

He said he learned of Al Shehi's alleged link in the hijacking when a former colleague, chambermaid Victoria Brocoy, asked him if he remembered seeing Mohammad Atta at the resort. "I am not sure about Atta but I am sure about Al Shehi," he said.

Atta registered under his own name, at the resort in December 1999. He even gave a $1 (P50) tip, said former security guard Ferdinand Abad.

"He was the smallest among the Arab guests. He stood about five feet, six inches and his left eye was smaller than the right. He gave me a P50 tip after he asked what time the Aeroclub vehicle usually picks up flyers staying at Woodlands," Abad said in the report.

Brocoy said she was assigned to clean up Atta's room during his stay at the resort in April 1999, adding he was among other men who took flying lessons at the Aeroclub in Barangay Talimundok in Magalang town.

Inexplicably, the first two articles to be published, by the Manila Times and Gulf News, specify that Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi used their own names at the Woodland Resort, while three days later the International Herald Tribune makes a point of stressing that they "took precautions to keep their identities secret."

However, only the International Herald Tribune specifies the name of the flight school: Angeles City Flying Club.

A "Travel & Leisure" listing in the Philippines Headline News Online (PHNO) from February 26, 2000 states:

The Angeles City Flying Club offers instructions from former US Air Force pilots in modern, well-maintained ultra-light aircraft."

So, the notorious Mohammed Atta, recipient of the US$ 100,000 sent by Pakistani General and head of the ISI intelligence agency Mahmood days before the 9/11 attacks, was the same Mohammed Atta who studied at a US air force base, and was the same Mohammed Atta who was being taught to fly by former US Air Force pilots in a former air force base in the Philippines?

I have lots more to say about Mr. Atta, but I guess this post is long enough for now.

"Atta" is an extremely common name, as is, obviously, "Mohammed" -- but we're not talking here about two people with the same name, since witnesses identified "Mohammed Atta" from his photograph. Two people with the same name who look identical, are around the same age, who take flying lessons at around the same time? Maybe.

But the Mohammed Atta who is supposedly the "ringleader" of the 9/11 "hijackers" is one big fat mystery, wrapped in an enigma. The more closely you look at the bizarre twists of his life, the more irreconcilable contradictions pop up.

Despite what I implied before, I don't really believe that there were "two" (or more) "Mohammed Attas" -- but to fit what verifiable facts there are about him, it's got to be one incredible story.