Radicalization
After moving to Hamburg in 1998, Shehhi helped form the Hamburg cell with Mohamed Atta and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. There, his views became more and more radical. They met three or four times a week to discuss anti-American feelings and plot possible attacks. When someone asked why he and Atta never laughed, Shehhi retorted, "How can you laugh when people are dying in Palestine?"
In October 1999 Marwan al-Shehhi was filmed at Said Bahaji's wedding in Germany with other 9/11 hijackers including Ziad Jarrah.
In late 1999, Shehhi, Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Said Bahaji, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh decided to travel to Chechnya to fight against the Russians, but were convinced by Khalid al-Masri and Mohamedou Ould Slahi at the last minute to change their plans. They instead traveled to Afghanistan to meet with Osama bin Laden and train for terrorist attacks. Immediately afterwards, Atta, Shehhi, and Jarrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to erase travel visas to Afghanistan.
After their training, the hijackers began to attempt to hide their radicalism. Shehhi shaved his beard and seemed to his old friends like he had become less religious. After the attacks, a librarian in Hamburg reported that Shehhi boasted to her "There will be thousands of dead. You will think of me ... You will see, in America something is going to happen. There will be many people killed."
Shehhi returned to Germany in March 2000, and began to learn to fly airplanes. Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the most important 9/11 financial organizers, bought a Boeing 747 flight simulator program using Shehhi's credit card. Eventually they decided that German flight schools would not work for them, and they decided to train in the United States.
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