attacks. Exhaustive investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission,
FBI, and other agencies have uncovered no evidence that anyone with advance
knowledge of the attacks profited through securities transactions.
tical significance.Al Qaeda had many avenues of funding. If a particular fund-
ing source had dried up, al Qaeda could have easily tapped a different source
or diverted funds from another project to fund an operation that cost
$400,000$500,000 over nearly two years.
As noted above, the 9/11 plotters spent somewhere between $400,000 and
$500,000 to plan and conduct their attack.The available evidence indicates that
the 19 operatives were funded by al Qaeda, either through wire transfers or cash
provided by KSM, which they carried into the United States or deposited in for-
eign accounts and accessed from this country. Our investigation has uncovered
no credible evidence that any person in the United States gave the hijackers sub-
stantial financial assistance. Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign
government--or foreign government official--supplied any funding.
appears they supported themselves. KSM, Binalshibh, and another plot facili-
tator, Mustafa al Hawsawi, each received money, in some cases perhaps as much
as $10,000, to perform their roles in the plot.
operatives entered the United States, remains murky. According to KSM, the
Hamburg cell members each received $5,000 to pay for their return to Ger-
many from Afghanistan after they had been selected to join the plot, and they
received additional funds for travel from Germany to the United States. Finan-
cial transactions of the plotters are discussed in more detail in chapter 7.
As some of the core operatives prepared to leave for the United States, al
Qaeda's leaders could have reflected on what they needed to be able to do in
order to organize and conduct a complex international terrorist operation to
inflict catastrophic harm. We believe such a list of requirements would have
included