Mohamed Atta, the cold-eyed terrorist ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, boldly showed off a handmade model of the Pentagon just months before he and his deadly band smashed planes into the military nerve center and the Twin Towers.
The distrubing revelation is just the latest of many missed warning signs that have come to light in the six months since the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.
Atta (right) and his kamikaze-pilot cousin, Marwan al-Shehhi, displayed the cardboard model last summer at an architectural workshop at Hamburg University in Germany.
“They came with model and put it on a carpenter’s bench,” said Thomas Kniephoff, the head of the workshop.
“I recognized [the 30-by-30-inch model of] the Pentagon with the surrounding greenery and buildings,” he told the German magazine Focus.
Atta, who crashed a hijacked plane into the north tower of the trade center on Sept. 11, ran a terrorist cell in Hamburg, where he studied architecture and worked as a draftsman for the city planning office.
Al-Shehhi, who smashed a plane into the south tower, was also a cell member. So was Ziad Jarrah, the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
The disclosure adds to criticism that the FBI, CIA and FAA missed many red flags that could have averted the tragedy. Among them:
* Nine of the 19 hijackers triggered security alerts at airports on Sept. 11, including six whose baggage was swept for explosives or unauthorized weapons, officials said. But none of the sweeps turned up the boxcutters the terrorists used to take control of the four planes they commandeered.
* Two days before the attacks, Jarrah was pulled over in Maryland for going 90 mph in a 65-mph zone. He was given a ticket and released.
* In August, Hani Hanjour, who piloted the plane that crashed into the Pentagon – killing 189 – was pulled over for speeding in Arlington, Va. He paid the ticket, canceling any court appearance.
* In July, Atta was stopped in Tamarac, Fla., for driving without a valid license and given a fine. He didn’t pay it and an arrest warrant was issued. A few weeks later, he was stopped for speeding but let go because the cop didn’t know about the warrant.
* Many of the hijackers entered the United States on student visas and openly took lessons at flight schools in Florida.