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Book: The 9/11 Handbook

Chapter: BACKGROUND TO THE SPIRITUAL MANUAL: ITS DISCOVERY, INTERROGATION, AND DISREGARD

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.19320

Blurb:

At a Press conference on 28 September 2001, the FBI distributed four pages of an Arabic document, and also published it on its website, where it can still be found today (see Fig. 1, next page).1 The headline is spec- tacular: ‘Hijacking letter Found at three Locations’. Beneath the four pages of Arabic text spread out across the webpage, the FBI displays three photos, accompanied by information about the hijackers, their flights, and the places where the documents were found. The photo of Moham- med Atta links him with American Airlines flight 11 which crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:45. Underneath Atta’s photo is the statement: ‘Found in Atta’s suitcase’. The next photo shows Nawaf al-Hazmi. The commentary connects him with American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon at 9:39. A line beneath his photo states that the document was ‘Found in Vehicle at Dulles Inter- national Airport’, Washington. Finally, a photo of the crash site of United Airlines flight 93 at Stony Creek Township is accompanied by the remark: ‘Found at Crime Scene’. 

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