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For anyone who watched National Geographics "Inside 9/11," I was wondering if anyone else found the character of Zaid Jarrah particularly disconcerting and fascinating. Jarrah, from a fairly well-off, secular family in Lebanon, was part of the original Hamburg crew. He met Mohammed Atta and Marhwan al-Shehhi in the radical Hamburg mosque they all attended. He differs from the other hijackers in that he was married (to a secular Muslim woman), and this seemed to make him suspect for Atta, who was constantly worried that Jarrah would bail on the operation.
Three points of interest:
1) I always thought that Flight 93 made its turn too late. The plane cleared Pennsylvania entirely before it started turning around over Ohio. If you compare the flight paths of the other three planes, they all start the turn much earlier in the flight. Both Atta and Shehhi's planes (Flight 11 and Flight 175) turn very soon after take-off; Flight 77 takes a bit longer, but not that much longer. Flight 93 takes entirely too long, and there are indications that it wasn't even seized until it cleared PA. This has always been a curious point for me. Could it be that Jarrah's team was the weak link, committment-wise?
2) We're all familiar with Atta's staccato "We have some planes. Don't make any moves." It is hard and cold. The announcement from Flight 93, however, is much different. Jarrah is described in the documentary as good-humored and popular, known especially for his sense of humor. This seems to strangely transfer over into his in-flight announcement after the hijackers take the plane. He starts the announcement by saying "This is your captain speaking..." I found this incredibly bizarre, because in both tone and content, he appears to be joking.
3) Jarrah also asks another hijacker for advice when the passengers revolt. He says (in Arabic, I assume) "Should we end it now?" and is told "No. Not yet." On all the other planes, the pilots were the leaders. Here, Jarrah seems to be unsure of himself and taking orders from another.
I put these points up not as any kind of conspiracy theory, or any theory at all. I just found Zaid Jarrah a compelling, though obviously despicable, character. He's the one hijacker that comes through as a personality with depth, even below the media and government narratives.
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