How, Where & When 9/11 Began

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed initiated the 9/11 plot on Wednesday 24 September 1997 while based in a secure front company in Yemen, inside the Taiz headquarters of the multi-billion-dollar, British allied Hayel Saeed Anam (HSA) Group. That happened after a visiting service technician had detailed to members of KSM’s terrorist cell the danger of a hijacked civilian airliner being used as a missile to strike New York's World Trade Center. I was that visiting service technician, an unwitting Deep State patsy sent to furnish KSM’s brand new factory in Yemen with printing machinery purchased at a trade show in April 1997 Chicago. KSM’s factory in Yemen was seventeen miles south of a town called Al Qaidah, where I was taken on the last day of my visit, Friday 26 September. Perhaps most significantly, my employer (my family’s business, JM Heaford Limited) sent me to KSM’s front company in Yemen three months after I’d given my first very specific 9/11 warning to a customer in Toronto, after flying there from Boston's Logan airport on 11 June 1997. The HSA Group’s terrorism funding links dating back to 1984 were reported by Fox News in 2004.

American investigators were told in 1995 that Ramzi Yousef had spoken about using a hijacked civilian airliner as a missile*. That was when Yousef was working on the Bojinka Plot in Manila, a plan to down a dozen airliners using timed bombs hidden under seats. The Manila cell was busted in January 1995 and Yousef was arrested in Pakistan in February, but KSM avoided capture, still having sanctuary in Qatar with a no-show job at the water department on a government salary. Then, especially after the Air France Flight 8969 hijacking and failed kamikaze attack on Paris in December 1994, it seemed KSM’s tactics changed from targeting aircraft to hitting static targets like US embassies. What changed in September 1997 Yemen was the details in the travel warning I gave, suddenly making Ramzi Yousef’s musings about using a hijacked plane as a weapon a viable attack plan.

"When I got there in 1997, there was already an Al Qaeda presence. We knew about it. The Yemenis knew about it. Everyone knew about it." - Barbara Bodine, US Ambassador to Yemen (1997-01) Link

* (https://web.archive.org/web/20120121023647/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a012095secondwave#a012095secondwave) On 20 January 1995, after interrogating one of the Manila cell members, Filipino investigator Colonel Rodolfo Mendoza wrote a memo stating: “With regards to their plan to dive-crash a commercial aircraft at the CIA headquarters, subject alleged that the idea of doing same came out during his casual conversation with [Ramzi Yousef] and there is no specific plan yet for its execution. What the subject [has] in his mind is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit, and dive it at the CIA headquarters. He will use no bomb or explosives. It is simply a suicidal mission that he is very much willing to execute.” - Colonel Mendoza said he knew that memo was passed to his American counterparts.

Saturday, 20 September 1997

I arrived at Sanaa airport about 8am and despite being told someone would collect me from the airport, and not even having an address for the customer, I decided to take a taxi to find the factory myself. There was someone with a sign waiting in the arrivals hall, but it didn’t have my or my employer’s name on. Instead, he had the name of my new colleague technician from Manchester who’d refused to travel to Yemen on safety grounds due to the British government’s travel advice for Yemen – don’t go there. But I didn’t recognize that technician’s name in that moment and I walked straight past my contact and on to the taxi stand outside. As per my original customer database entry (pictured below), the customer name I had been given was “Genpak” in “Sa’ana”, but when giving me that information my works manager Tony Preece had told me the factory of this ‘new customer’ (it wasn’t a new customer) was actually in Taiz city. He said he didn’t have the exact address because the machine delivery address had only been to Sanaa airport – all part of a wider subterfuge to hide the true identity of the end customer. Tony Preece also gave me the serial number of an existing machine in Yemen (purchased by the HSA Group in 1993 and installed by my brother Paul in 1994) and instructions to carry out a service on it. I asked where that machine was, but Preece was again very vague, only saying that the 'new' customer would take me there. I now realise Preece was being deliberately economical with the truth. As will be explained later, even the customer name Genpak was wrong – a fake name given by the HSA Group's London office (Longulf Trading) in April 1997 Chicago. It wouldn’t be until 2015 that I even knew of the HSA Group or that it was their compound where KSM’s front company was located. The five-hour taxi ride from Sanaa was uneventful but interesting, with my taxi driver and his mate taking great care of me. As we reached the outskirts of Taiz around noon we stopped to ask directions from a lone old man, the only person out in the midday heat. He had no idea who “Genpak” were (because they didn’t exist) but after seeing me (a white Caucasian) he did give the driver directions and I was told they were taking me to “the foreigner’s compound”, the name the local had used to describe the HSA Group’s hilltop headquarters.

Our unannounced arrival at the secure entrance to the HSA’s compound caused a panic amongst the uniformed security guards who peered out of the heavy metal gates. I explained who I was and that I was there to install a machine - a guard told me to wait before the gate was closed tight again. I glimpsed a figure off to one side, looking over the compound wall at us; he was in civilian clothes and brandishing an assault rifle. He disappeared from view after a second or two and that was the one and only time I saw a firearm during my visit. A few minutes later a man (who I’ve since identified as HSA’s general manager Mohamed A. Salem, the US embassy’s contact for the supply of TNT component chemicals to the HSA Group in August 1996) opened the front gate a little and beckoned me inside - I nodded nervously to my taxi companions then stepped in, leaving my bags in their car. There was a tense atmosphere inside and a few guards slipped out of the gate after I'd stepped-in. Having introduced himself only as Mohamed and established who I was, Mr. Salem wanted me to follow him up the steep entrance road. But I protested, saying I hadn’t paid my taxi fare or got my bags yet, but he was very insistent, telling me the guards would take care of everything and that I should follow him. We proceeded to the office building on top of the hill. Once there I was briefly introduced to the managing director, “the Chief” as everyone called him, but I wasn’t warmly welcomed - I guess because I had walked past Mr. Salem in Sanaa airport (the man with the sign) and made my own way to Taiz, and because I kept mispronouncing Mr. Salem's first name, saying Mohammad instead of Mohamed. After my bags arrived, carried up the hill by the security guards, I was taken to the factory building to begin the installation. It was a brand new and very modern air-conditioned building, about the size of a football field but completely empty save for the machine I was installing. A quarter of the building was given over to brick-built offices which were marked ‘out-of-bounds’ to me, even the toilets. My machine had already been unpacked and setup perfectly – jobs I’d expected to do upon my arrival. I stayed onsite for about four hours before being taken to my hotel by Mohamed.

Sunday, 21 September 1997

The two machine operators I’d be training introduced themselves as Pakistani chemical engineering graduates. They were civil, if a little aloof, and I remember saying that as graduates they were overqualified for operating the flexographic printing plate mounting machine I was installing. But conversely, they didn’t know anything about printing. The operators introduced me to the factory mechanic who’d setup my machine before my arrival - they called him Dino, a mocking nickname he bore grudgingly. Nineteen years later, after seeing his photo on the news for the first time in May 2018, I realised ‘Dino’ was Saudi national Ahmed al Darbi, a Guantanamo military prison detainee transferred to Saudi custody in 2018. I guess the ‘Dino' nickname was a reference to the cartoon character Darby the Dinosaur, a play on al Darbi’s name. Whatever the reason, I sensed a hierarchy in the group, a condescending attitude from the Pakistani operators towards Dino. I complemented Dino on setting up the machine, but he was quite reserved and we didn’t speak for long before he returned to the out-of-bounds office area. An Italian service engineer, Nicholas of Bielloni, was at the YemPak factory for those first couple of days, measuring up for and planning the installation of a £1+ million printing press also purchased in April 1997 Chicago. We already knew each other, were staying at the same hotel, and dined together on Sunday after work.

Monday, 22 September 1997

Nicholas was in the factory briefly that morning and just before he left for the airport, he took me to one side. “There’s something very suspicious about this customer” he said quietly. I asked why and he explained that as well as knowing nothing about printing, they had no product to produce. I admit I dismissed his caution, thinking that this was simply a new project that someone with a lot of money was investing in. A few hours after Nicholas left, and as I was showing him the machine operation, one of the Pakistani chemistry graduates asked me about my travels in America and my advice for visiting New York as a tourist. My response was very specific:

Tuesday, 23 September 1997

The next day the second operator asked me about my warning, “What if the hijackers couldn’t smuggle guns aboard?” I showed him the boxcutters I carried in my document wallet, exposing the blade and saying I’d accidentally carried them on several domestic US flights without being detected. I highlighted their lethality and described how easy it would be to defend the narrow aisles of a plane while an accomplice took control of the cockpit. He asked me what would happen if the hijackers couldn’t subdue the passengers and I replied that as long as they took control of the cockpit first, it wouldn’t matter. I said that they’d just crash the plane without reaching their target and all the passengers and crew would still die in an act of terrorism. His last question was “Where would they put the bomb?”. Exasperated that they couldn’t see the threat that was so clear to me, I stressed that the plane was the bomb. I told them to imagine the force of a fully fuelled 767 travelling at 400mph striking the towers above New York and finally they appeared to accept my advice, if they ever made it to New York as tourists that was. He then asked what if the tower did not collapse and again I said it didn’t matter, explaining I’d read that the towers were full of asbestos and would likely have to be demolished anyway after such an explosive impact. I don’t recall it being an extended conversation - that exchange lasted no more than ten minutes. It was just a travel warning I gave (since my experience at Logan airport in June 1997) whenever the topic of visiting New York was raised. As that exchange with the operator ended I noticed Dino stood nearby, loitering but appearing to deliberately keep out of our conversation.

Wednesday, 24 September 1997

Wednesday was very quiet for me. The factory was empty, and I only saw people in passing that day except for Dino who I spent a couple of hours with showing him the maintenance tasks and fault finding / resolution methods. There was no discussion of my travel warning and I found him to be good company – technically competent and with a subtle sense of dry humour. A planned service visit to the existing machine was cancelled without reason and I was left twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the day. That’s when I think KSM was activating his network of sleeper agents in Germany, sending instructions to assemble in Hamburg and focus their efforts on aircraft. What makes me so certain that my conversations marked the beginning of the 9/11 plot? The first documented evidence of the Hamburg Cell both forming and specifically targeting aircraft comes from September 1997 Germany. The 2004 9/11 Commission (page 163) reported the following about hijacker / pilot Ziad Jarrah:

To tie in with my claim, Jarrah’s abrupt course change must have happened on or after Wednesday 24 September (my conversation about box-cutters was on Tuesday 23rd). Records of Jarrah’s course transfer request date at the Hamburg university will be in the US 9/11 files that President Trump now has the power to declassify. The second reason for my absolute certainty is the events, meetings and conversations that occurred on the last two days of my visit to Yemen, and subsequent meetings in Manila, Jakarta and twice in Dubai.

Thursday, 25 September 1997

Thursday morning was back to normal in KSM’s factory, the operators and factory mechanic being a little chattier than before. They told me the dozen or more security guards in the compound were also Pakistani and that the company’s correct name was YemPak, an abbreviation of Yemen-Pakistan cooperation. They said they all attended school at the impressive onsite mosque too. They mocked the factory mechanic Dino, belittling him in front of me. They bragged that Dino was just a mechanic, while they were working on important projects. I defended Dino because having spent a couple of hours working with him, I liked him and his dry sense of humour, so told the operators “He’s probably the most technically competent of us all”, placing his vocational skills over their university education. When I asked where he was from, Dino would only say Arabia and evaded being more specific. Dino said he was busy installing printing plate laser etching machines in the offices marked out-of-bounds to me, but when I asked to see it he told me it was too dangerous, explaining that “There are wires everywhere”.

Around midday I saw the Chief across the factory speaking with someone I hadn’t met but I now know was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Chief was Saeed Alrobaidi, the managing director of the HSA Taiz HQ who I’d met briefly when I arrived in Taiz on the 20th. Mr Alrobaidi crossed the factory alone to speak to me, asking how the installation was going and if my hotel was okay, then quietly asked if I had really warned the operators about another attack on New York. Wide eyed I nodded to him, then saying how shocking the lack of awareness and security was in the USA. Mr Alrobaidi considered my answer for a moment before saying someone would take me out to dinner that night. I assumed the conversation had moved on and said I’d look forward to dinner, asking who my companion would be. Alrobaidi said not to worry as my dinner companion would come to my hotel, and that he was not an employee but a friend. It wasn’t unusual to be taken out for dinner during a machine installation and so I wasn’t concerned. Alrobaidi then gave me the afternoon off but I protested saying I wanted to sign the machine installation off, but he told me he’d do that in the morning, when I’d expected to be on my way to the airport. The customer was giving me a new schedule; what could I do? Before Alrobaidi left, I asked for my hotel’s phone number and what seemed a simple request caused some consternation between him and the operators. They asked why I needed it and I said I planned to explore Taiz and if I got lost or in trouble it’d be my easiest solution – call my hotel. After conferring amongst themselves again, they accepted my reasoning and gave me the following name and number: Shawki Alariki - 9674 216301. At the time and for years afterwards I assumed this was my hotel’s phone number, and then thanks to WikiLeaks Guantanamo detainee assessments release, I discovered that detainee Abdu Ali Sharqawi was a Yemeni fixer for Jihadis in 1997 Taiz. ‘Shawki’ is my misspelling of Sharqawi and Alariki is Arabic for ‘caring leader’; from that information I’ve determined that my security contact / minder (a 'caring leader') in 1997 Taiz was in fact Abdu Ali Sharqawi. In one of his last acts as president, Joe Biden’s administration released Abdu Ali Sharqawi from Guantanamo on 6 January 2025, without ever charging him with a crime.

My dinner companion arrived at my hotel around 4pm, introduced himself as Yousef and invited me to walk to Al-Qahira Castle and a viewpoint overlooking the city. We spoke about my family and work as we ascended then he became more philosophical as we watched sunset. Yousef gestured over the city with one arm and asked what I saw. Lost for an appropriate answer I was glad of a group of children interrupting us. They'd seen my camera and wanted me to take their photo. They were delightful children - happy and polite - and they raised our mood too. As we returned to my hotel for dinner, we spoke about each generation's duty to leave a better world for the next, and the state of that world in the 1990s. I don't remember how the subject was raised but over dinner we discussed my travel warning given to the YemPak machine operators. But instead of the practicalities like weapons and bombs, we discussed the motivations for such an attack, the likelihood of it occurring, and the likely response. The justification I specifically remember discussing was the Palestine and Israel conflict because Yousef lamented the December 1995 assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Zionist extremist, describing it as "a lost last chance for peace". We both condemned Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace. Yousef asked if I wanted it to happen and my instant reply was "God no, it'd be an abhorrent act of mass murder, but someone will do it someday soon if US domestic security or foreign policy don't change drastically". Yousef appeared to agree with that answer before asking what I thought the US response would be. I'd only perceived one plane being used but expected tens-of-thousands to be killed in and around the World Trade Center towers. I asked how anyone could respond to such an attack without first asking "Why would someone do that?" and determining to fix the cause - US foreign policy. Yousef queried that by simply asking "Really?". I conceded it could be the start of a terrible cycle of violence, but again highlighted the 'genius' of the 1993 WTC bombing in that not group or country had been identified as being responsible, i.e. there would be no fixed target for the US to respond against. My theory was the ideology of the recent suicide bus bombings in Israel would combine with the ambitions of the 1993 WTC bombers and a few willing attackers would crash one plane into the WTC towers. It was Yousef who asked what if more than one plane was used; I was taken aback by the potential for a mass attack that I hadn't considered. I suggested a second hijacked plane could be landed safely as a demonstration of restraint on the attacker's behalf and as a way to open negotiations. It was a theoretical and hypothetical discussion - not a call to arms or malign scheming. Yousef mourning Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin and his agreeing such an attack would be an abhorrent act of mass murder were my takeaways from the conversation. I thought Yousef was a humanitarian who like me could see the reality of cause-and-effect in the post-Cold War era of the 1990s. I enjoyed our conversation and was surprised when Yousef excused himself early, about 8pm. I got an early night preparing for my journey home the next morning. I wasn't concerned about the nature of our conversation; Yousef's calm and considered demeanour gave no cause for concern - I'd had a pleasant evening and informed discussion with a friend of the Chief at the end of an installation visit. Nearly twenty years later, in March 2016, I discovered Yousef's double using facial recognition software to compare my 1997 Yemen photos with images of the 9/11 accused, first the hijackers and then the Guantanamo detainees. Yemeni national Guantanamo prisoner Ramzi bin al-Shibh and my dinner companion Yousef were a 100% match but are not the same person. I suspect al-Shibh and Yousef are brothers or cousins. I now know Yousef was vetting me before two meetings that were being planned for the next day.

Friday, 26 September 1997

My flight home from Sanaa, a five-hour drive away, was scheduled for about 2pm, so when Mohamed collected me from my hotel I expected a very brief stop at the HSA HQ to collect the signed acceptance forms before continuing to Sanaa. But instead of taking me to the HQ offices I was dropped at the factory and left alone there for about an hour. The machine operators and Dino passed by briefly while I was waiting and I took a photo of the installation. One of the operators wanted to be in the photo but peculiarly also said he didn't want his face showing. From memory, and because of their absence from my database, I don't think the operators ever told me their names either. Eventually the Chief, Saeed Alrobaidi, came to fetch me. Before leaving the factory, I asked the Chief for his name for my database. When he said ‘Alrobaidi’ I asked if ‘Al’ simply meant ‘the’, to which he smiled and nodded. In my ignorance, and frustration with having been left waiting for an hour, I dropped the ‘Al’ and entered his name as ‘Saeed Obadi’. Again, it was decades later that I discovered my mistake, when on 22 December 2019 I found the original database entry I’d made for ‘Genpak’. The contact name Tony Preece had given me for the existing machine service was Ahmed Alrobaidi. That triggered a memory recall of the conversation with the Chief detailed above, and a realisation that his correct name was Saeed Alrobaidi. On the assumption that Saeed and Ahmed Alrobaidi are related, I’ve determined that my brother Paul’s 1994 machine installation was also linked to the HSA Group’s support for terrorist activities. Our employer, JM Heaford Limited, was given a Queen’s Award for Export Achievement in 1995. After I’d entered his name in my database the Chief took me up to the office buildings to collect my signed acceptance form. As we entered an office upstairs, he pointed to my forms on a desk in the corner but there was something else occurring there. Dino (Ahmed al-Darbi), Mohamed A. Salem and an assistant were waiting for us – they said they wanted a group photo and proceeded to dress me in local attire. Still thinking about getting to Sanaa in time for my flight home, I objected, but my protests were ignored. They put a turban on my head and wrapped an izaar (male skirt) around my waist before presenting me with a jambiya (traditional dagger) to wear too. And then a side door opened and who I now know was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walked in. Significantly, after he’d entered the office, the side door was closed behind him by an unseen person in the side room. That mystery door closer was obviously someone intimately involved with these shenanigans but who didn’t want to be seen by me, most likely a Western Deep State operator. As KSM entered the room the Chief introduced him, “This is the Engineer”. Because I was a visiting technician, I asked why we’d not been introduced before. The Chief replied, “He’s working on other projects” and without further ado the photo line-up was convened. Something I noticed immediately was the Engineer’s shoes and their incredibly high heels; at the time I thought they were orthotic, but I now know it was KSM’s habit to wear platform shoes to compensate for his diminutive stature of 5’ 4”. Despite not even speaking to me or shaking my hand, the Engineer was next to me for the line-up and put his arm around my shoulder. The Chief took the first photo twice, using my camera and one of theirs, before swapping places with the office assistant and the process being repeated. As soon as that was done the group dispersed without any formality, the Engineer disappearing immediately. Mohamed passed me my signed acceptance forms and took me to a SUV waiting outside; finally I was on my way at about 10am and I hoped with some fast driving we still may make it to Sanaa in time for my flight.

Within a few minutes we reached a lone building where we turned off the dust track. I thought that building was our destination, but Mohamed kept driving towards a shack a hundred metres away across a field. Now I thought I was being kidnapped and that that shack was to be my prison, but Mohamed passed that too, bearing left along the side of the field. We passed through some bushes and emerged into what looked like a dry riverbed; Mohamed turned to me and grinned, clearly enjoying himself as he powered the SUV through the loose sand. His final turn was into a semi-hidden entrance on the right, taking us along a treelined track leading to some buildings. He parked the car just short of the buildings and jumped out of the vehicle before I’d had chance to say a word. In front of me there were two men in local dress; the nearest gestured for me to get out and then led me to a room in the first building on the right and indicated I should wait there. Now I felt sure I was being kidnapped. I sat down besides a long bench table with a dozen chairs, the only furniture in the spartan room, and watched the door whilst pondering my fate. Five minutes later about ten men entered the room in file; still thinking I was being kidnapped I chose not to acknowledge them, remaining seated with my head bowed. They sat down without a word being said and I maintained my subdued posture, noting their ages ranging from early twenties up to around forty years old, and their dress that I would describe as practical outdoor clothing. I don’t recall any military attire, but they did remind me of the Afghan Mujahideen I’d seen on the 1980s tv news. Food was served, individual plates of vegetables and a central meat dish – a large roasted joint. The men slowly began eating their vegetables, and so, with the sole aim of getting out of this situation, I decided to speed things up by reaching over and helping myself to a handful of the roasted meat. The moment I placed it on my plate the table froze and after a very unnerving pause the eldest man who was sat at the head of the table stood up, followed in unison by his companions. They paused again before leaving the room in file – all without a word ever being said, or me changing my posture – head down. Within a minute or two someone returned and led me back out to the SUV that had been turned round and was waiting to depart with it’s engine running but with a different driver. I didn’t see Mohamed A. Salem again since he’d abandoned me there fifteen minutes earlier. It appeared my tactics had achieved their aim, and I was soon back on the road to Sanaa with the new driver. It was a tense and silent four-hour drive to the airport and when we arrived I was very relieved to get out of the SUV, even though it was already past my flight’s departure time. But, true to Mohamed’s word, the plane was waiting for me. I was whisked through the airport like a VIP and escorted across the tarmac to the aircraft whose engines were already running. We started taxiing towards the runway the moment I sat down. As I pondered the morning’s events, I concluded the photo session with me wearing a skirt and a turban had been a joke at my expense. I couldn’t fathom the reason for the detour but concluded it was my poor table manners – not praying or washing before touching the communal roast dish – that had cut it short. It wasn’t until November 2017 that I found that meeting place on google maps and discovered the name of the nearby town – Al Qaidah. I now believe that was intended to be my recruitment interview to KSM’s terrorist network. If I hadn’t of cut the meeting short, I imagine I’d of had a tour of the entire valley after lunch before being taken to the nearby Taiz military airport for a helicopter ride to Sanaa.

Saturday, 27 September 1997

Why does my works manager Tony Preece figure so prominently in this narrative? Not only was he very economical with the customer details before my visit to Yemen, he was also the first person I spoke to upon my return. After handing the signed machine acceptance forms to him on the Saturday morning I stated very clearly that there was something very suspicious about the customer. “It doesn’t matter” he said. I tried to stress the point again but he told me not to worry about it as the customer had already paid. Wanting to tell him about the Italian technician Nicholas’s caution and my detour on the last day, I tried again but Tony stood-up and literally shooed me out of his office, telling me not to worry about it and to go enjoy my holidays that I’d postponed after being asked to travel to Yemen on very short notice by my parents. The next time I saw JM Heaford Limited’s senior service technician David Hughes, in October or November, I tried to ask his advice about my plane hijacking fears and experiences in Yemen but he too cut me short. He told me to never report such matters to authorities because it’d mean “your card will be marked every time you pass through airport security”. He gave me a reassurance that “there are people whose job it was to look out for things like that”.

A 2001 recording of CIA director George Tenet begging the Yemeni government to release an Al Qaeda suspect they'd arrested.

To follow - an updated and detailed report about Al Qaidah town