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the flight, testing security by carrying a box cutter in his toiletries kit onto the
flight to Hong Kong. Khallad returned to Bangkok the following day. At the
airport, the security officials searched his carry-on bag and even opened the toi-
letries kit, but just glanced at the contents and let him pass. On this flight, Khal-
lad waited until most of the first-class passengers were dozing, then got up and
removed the kit from his carry-on. None of the flight attendants took notice.
59
After completing his casing mission, Khallad returned to Kuala Lumpur.
Hazmi arrived in Kuala Lumpur soon thereafter and may even have stayed
briefly with Khallad and Abu Bara at Endolite. Mihdhar arrived on January 5,
probably one day after Hazmi. All four operatives stayed at the apartment of
Yazid Sufaat, the Malaysian JI member who made his home available at Ham-
bali's request. According to Khallad, he and Hazmi spoke about the possibility
of hijacking planes and crashing them or holding passengers as hostages, but
only speculatively. Khallad admits being aware at the time that Hazmi and
Mihdhar were involved in an operation involving planes in the United States
but denies knowing details of the plan.
60
While in Kuala Lumpur, Khallad wanted to go to Singapore to meet Nibras
and Fahd al Quso, two of the operatives in Nashiri's ship-bombing operation.
An attempt to execute that plan by attacking the USS The Sullivans had failed
just a few days earlier. Nibras and Quso were bringing Khallad money from
Yemen, but were stopped in Bangkok because they lacked visas to continue on
to Singapore. Also unable to enter Singapore, Khallad moved the meeting to
Bangkok. Hazmi and Mihdhar decided to go there as well, reportedly because
they thought it would enhance their cover as tourists to have passport stamps
from a popular tourist destination such as Thailand.With Hambali's help, the
three obtained tickets for a flight to Bangkok and left Kuala Lumpur together.
Abu Bara did not have a visa permitting him to return to Pakistan, so he trav-
eled to Yemen instead.
61
In Bangkok, Khallad took Hazmi and Mihdhar to one hotel, then went to
another hotel for his meeting on the maritime attack plan. Hazmi and Mihd-
har soon moved to that same hotel, but Khallad insists that the two sets of oper-
atives never met with each other or anyone else. After conferring with the
ship-bombing operatives, Khallad returned to Karachi and then to Kandahar,
where he reported on his casing mission to Bin Ladin.
62
Bin Ladin canceled the East Asia part of the planes operation in the spring
of 2000. He evidently decided it would be too difficult to coordinate this attack
with the operation in the United States. As for Hazmi and Mihdhar, they had
left Bangkok a few days before Khallad and arrived in Los Angeles on January
15, 2000.
63
Meanwhile, the next group of al Qaeda operatives destined for the planes
operation had just surfaced in Afghanistan. As Hazmi and Mihdhar were
deploying from Asia to the United States, al Qaeda's leadership was recruiting
and training four Western-educated men who had recently arrived in Kanda-
har.Though they hailed from four different countries--Egypt, the United Arab
AL QAEDA AIMS AT THE AMERICAN HOMELAND
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