The September 11 attacks were carried out by 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda, a jihadist organization based in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The hijackers were organized into four teams, each led by a pilot-trained hijacker who would commandeer flights with three or four "muscle hijackers" trained to subdue pilots, passengers, and crew. The attackers came from four countries: 15 were Saudi Arabian citizens, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and one was from Lebanon.
The hijackers began arriving in the United States in January 2000, when Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi settled in San Diego County, California. They were followed by three pilot-trained hijackers—Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah—who arrived in mid-2000 as members of the Hamburg cell to undertake flight training at Huffman Aviation flight-training school in Venice, Florida. The fourth pilot-trained hijacker, Hani Hanjour, who was not part of the Hamburg cell, arrived separately. Mohamed Atta was designated as the ringleader over all four hijacking teams, each of which was assigned to a different flight and given a unique target to crash their respective planes into.
The attacks represented a coordinated assault on American targets by al-Qaeda operatives who had infiltrated the country and obtained flight training. The meticulous planning and organization of the operation, with its clear command structure and division of roles among the hijackers, demonstrated the group's capability to execute a complex, multi-target attack on the continental United States.
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