“In early 2000 bin Laden personally recruited the [9/11] plot’s tactical leader, Mohammed Atta, in Afghanistan. Atta was an Egyptian architect studying in Hamburg, Germany, who came to Kandahar with several colleagues to join al Qaeda. …Bin Laden made him the emir of the Manhattan Raid and dispatched him back to Germany to learn to fly an aircraft. Atta chose to take his flight training in Venice, Florida, instead and arrived in the United States in June 2000.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda, Pages 4-5