9/11 tip ignored

last updated 8 January 2015

Washington, D.C.

German intelligence agents gave the U.S. the first name and the telephone number of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers more than two years before the attacks, The New York Times reported this week. In March 1999, German officials asked the CIA to track Marwan al-Shehhi, who was connected to the German al Qaida cell that planned the suicide hijackings. The CIA apparently concluded that Shehhi was an associate of Osama bin Laden, but never tracked him down. Sixteen months later, Shehhi enrolled in an American flight school, and on Sept. 11, 2001, he was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 175 when it slammed into the south tower of the World Trade Center.