From about.com Urban Legands
It was not Muhammad Atta — believed to be the mastermind behind the September
attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon — who was convicted of the 1986 bombing and
machine gun attack on a bus in Samaria, sentenced to life imprisonment and later released. It was
Mahmoud Abed Atta, a Palestinian associated with the Abu Nidal terror organization. They are not
the same person.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Mahmoud Abed Atta fled to Venezuela after the bus attack but
was deported to the U.S. and eventually (in 1990) extradited to Israel, where he was tried and
sentenced for his crime. His subsequent release from prison, confirmed by the Israeli Justice
Ministry, had nothing to do with the Oslo Accord or intervention by either the Reagan or the
Clinton administration. It was the result of a finding by the Supreme Court of Israel that Abed
Atta's extradition process was flawed. The freed terrorist's whereabouts are now unknown, officials
say.
Accounts differ on when WTC terrorist Muhammad Atta became a political activist, but in any case
he was only 18 and living with his family in Cairo when the 1986 bus attack occurred. In 1992 he
moved to Germany, where he met his future co-conspirators and ultimately began plotting the
September 11 attacks.
The Jerusalem Post attributes confusion about the identities of the two terrorists to "rumors
circulating on the Internet," but in fact those rumors had their origin in erroneous press reports
during the first few days after September 11.
Sources and further reading:
Internet Rumors Aside, WTC Attacker Not Held by Israel
Jerusalem Post, 8 November 2001
A Case of Mistaken Identity
Anti-Defamation League, November 2001
Clues Emerge to the Making of a Fanatic
Sydney Morning Herald, 24 September 2001
Related:
Terrorism Rumors & Hoaxes
Coverage of rumors and Net hoaxes in the wake of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon
