<<< Go Back

THE TERRORISTS IN BUILDING 12, July 2002
By Dr. Rob Foellinger

I suppose I reacted to the horrendous events of September 11 pretty much like most other Americans, with an overwhelming combination of disbelief, shock, bewilderment, sadness, fear, pride and anger. And, perhaps surprisingly, tremendous curiosity.

Why curiosity? Because terrorists live in apartments.

As a property management professional I wanted to know how these lunatics apparently slipped unnoticed through the resident application processes at seven different apartment communities and how they behaved after they became residents.

The television news media was absolutely no help in finding answers to these questions. TV news producers are much more interested in keeping us in a constant state of fear, endlessly discussing the latest dreamed-up "credible threat", breathlessly interviewing one solemn talking head "expert" with questionable credentials after another to speculate about all the unspeakable tragedies they've imagined could possibly befall us. Conjecture, terrifying hypothetical situations, scare tactics and speculation are good for improving TV ratings, but useless for my purposes. It could be said that many of these TV news programs are just exercising another form of terrorism by preying on our fears and feelings of uncertainty. Don't watch them, they'll make you crazy. Read quality newspapers and weekly news publications instead.

Studying FBI and police reports as well as many other sources of credible information proved to be much more helpful in satisfying my curiosity. It wasn't long after reading dozens of agency reports that clear, repetitive patterns of terrorist behavior became quite obvious. Many of those patterns were strikingly similar to the way other types of more familiar criminals behave.

Probably the most pervasive pattern was these terrorists' inability to successfully blend into their environment without calling attention to themselves. Despite the basic terrorist desire to operate without others noticing, others did notice. Lots of others noticed.

After the attacks, residents and managers at the communities where the terrorists lived would state to authorities that various suspicious behaviors exhibited by the 9/11 terrorists were "not all that noticeable". Yet they did notice, didn't they?

It may have been some completely normal, yet peculiar quirk of human nature that enabled dozens of witnesses to justify, deny, minimize or rationalize such odd patterns of terrorist behavior. My point is not that these witnesses were remiss in failing to report their observations. I do not think they can be faulted for their reluctance to formally report activities which, though suspicious, can be readily explained, justified, rationalized and/or denied. My point is, rather, that there was such an unbelievably plentiful supply of these behaviors to be noticed.

So, how did the 9/11 terrorists behave in their apartment environments that might have caused at least a little suspicion?

For example, roommate terrorists Alhazmi and Al-Midhar were always seen together, never separately. When seen, they were described as appearing incredibly busy, usually talking excitedly on cell phones and carrying all sorts of unusually shaped briefcases and luggage. They seemed to wear the same outfits of clothing much more often than one would expect and were definitely not interested in American fashion trends.

Neighbors also observed that they never had the lights on in their apartment at night, though they moved about at all hours. Later FBI investigations revealed that utilities were never connected in their apartment and they relied entirely on their cellular phones for telephone service.

Generally, the 9/11 group of terrorists always seemed to have plenty of money and paid cash for everything including rent in advance and security deposits as well as used cars and trucks which they bought only from private owners, never dealers (too much paperwork at a dealership).

Yet they obviously had no jobs, no visible means of support.

In many ways, they behaved like some drug dealers or other criminals might; however they were suicide-mission terrorists.

At the ground floor apartment of Mohamed Atta and his associates, neighbors and maintenance personnel noticed that the apartment was occupied by three grown men without a single piece of furniture in the unit.

Though Atta had a car of his own, he often was seen getting into flashy limousines with his cohorts, often heading to the airport for their many journeys. Sometimes the limos took Atta and the others to adult nightclubs where he was seen spending "amazing amounts" of cash showing off for the dancers. Neither he nor any of his companions ever ordered an alcoholic beverage.

Atta and other terrorists of the 9/11 group spent a tremendous amount of time using computers at the apartment community clubhouse or a public library for e-mail and research. One of the group members was always on guard to make sure o outsiders could not see what they were doing on the Internet.

The 9/11 terrorists received many bulky packages by mail. They were delivered to the apartment community office and managers noticed the packages were sent by individuals, some from foreign nations (rather than mail-order businesses), or had no return addresses at all. The terrorists would often stop by the office several days in a row to ask the apartment community office staff if a particular package they seemed extremely eager to receive had arrived yet.

Finally, virtually every person who came into contact with the terrorists remarked that they all seemed very impatient and extremely unfriendly, often refusing to acknowledge a direct greeting from a neighbor, especially if the neighbor was female.

Here's the point of this entire article: if you observe something that you consider questionable (even if the behavior is not particularly outrageous), ask yourself for possible plausible explanations. If you find your answers unsatisfying, perhaps you might choose to make a report to the police, the fire department, the FBI or another appropriate organization. To report information over the Internet log on to www.ifccfbi.gov or www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Usgresponse.shtml.

The chances of the FBI or some other anti-terrorist agency actually observing suspicious resident behavior firsthand are very, very slim. Your odds are much better!

Rob Foellinger, Ph.D is President of MarkeTactics Consulting Group and is a nationally recognized sales and marketing speaker, consultant and author.

Dr. Foellinger has many sophisticated and valuable articles of interest to property management professionals available at no charge by e-mail. If you are interested in receiving a list of articles available, simply e-mail your request foellinger@aol.com.