The Last Night Document: Instructions for the September 11 Attack
On September 28, 2001 the FBI announced the recovery of important evidence relating to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They released photos of a four-page document, handwritten in Arabic, identical copies of which were recovered among the hijackers’ belongings in Boston, in Washington, DC, and at the Flight 93 crash site in Western Pennsylvania
Attorney General John Ashcroft made this statement at the press conference in Washington, DC:
"I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some details and context to reports of a letter that was found belonging to three of the hijackers. Copies of this letter in its original language will be provided. A four-page, hand-written letter was found in the suitcase of Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11. You may recall there was a suitcase that did not make it to the plane and was recovered by the FBI in Boston. A second copy of the letter was also found at Dulles Airport in a vehicle that was used by Nawaf al Haznawi, one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77."
Additionally, a third copy of the letter was found at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. These three documents, this letter, is clear evidence linking the hijackers on the three separate flights on September 11th."
The letter is written in Arabic and contains instructions to the hijackers, as well as Islamic prayers. It is a disturbing and shocking view into the mindset of these terrorists. The letter provides instructions to the terrorists to be carried out both prior and during their terrorist attacks.
Let me make clear that while this letter contains a number of religious references, I do not believe it to be representative of Muslims or the Islamic faith.
The letter is a stark reminder of how these hijackers grossly perverted the Islamic faith to justify their terrorist acts.
Media reports from the press conference referred to the document as “The Last Night,” the words that appear as a title on page-one. Because the FBI did not immediately provide a translation of the document, various media sources had the letter translated to appear with their reports published on September 28-October 1, 2001. Therefore, a number of different translations of the document have circulated.
Five years after its discovery, the copy of the document that was recovered from al Haznawi’s car at Logan airport and an English-language translation prepared by the FBI were entered as evidence in the 2006 sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.
“The Last Night” document exhibited at Flight 93 National Memorial is a photographic reproduction of the one recovered from Zone A, the crater, at the Flight 93 crash site. It appears to differ from the other versions only in its condition.