The 9/11 commission’s report on the investigations were published recently and cited previously secret interrogations of cell member Ramzi Binalshibh, revealing that the Hamburg radicals who carried out the attacks had been urged by a passenger on a German train to put off their mission to Chechnya.
The mysterious passenger — identified as Khalid Masri — introduced them to Mauritanian businessman Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who later arranged a personal introduction to Osama bin Laden.
The Islamic radicals in the Hamburg cell that included chief hijacker Muhammad Atta had been planning to go to Chechnya and fight along with the Islamic separatist rebels there.
Slahi told the men that it was difficult to slip across the border into Chechnya. He encouraged them instead to go to Afghanistan. He assisted with their travel plans and arranged for them to meet operatives for al Qaeda in Pakistan, who in turn arranged a private meeting between Binalshibh and bin Laden in December 1999.
Several terrorism experts have linked the al Qaeda terror network to Islamists fighting for independence in Chechnya. Numerous Saudi mercenaries are said to be fighting in Chechnya.
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