Show Notes
www.patreon.com/theconspiracypodcast Join the boys as they trace Al-Qaeda's origins from the Soviet-Afghan War to the eve of September 11th, 2001. Hosts unpack how Osama bin Laden and Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam built Maktab al-Khidamat, the recruitment network that seeded al-Qaeda's formal founding in a Peshawar house in August 1988 — with just fifteen men on its original roster. The episode connects the dots most true crime and history podcasts miss: how the 1993 WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, quietly financed that attack before becoming the architect of 9/11 himself. Listeners get the full arc — bin Laden's betrayal by the Saudi monarchy during the Gulf War, his exile in Sudan, the alliance with the Taliban, the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole attack — plus a deep dive into the unsettling human details rarely covered elsewhere: the hijackers' bizarre flight school behavior (including an abandoned Cessna left on a Miami taxiway), documented drinking and strip club visits that contradict their professed extremism, and two eerie traffic stops — including one just two days before the attacks — that could have changed everything. The episode closes on the edge of history: September 10th, 2001, with nineteen men in place and no one yet knowing what the next morning would bring. This is essential setup for the show's upcoming four-part 9/11 25th anniversary series, launching later this month.
More from The Conspiracy Podcast
Direct Channel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5A3YsZkbstxMfUHHk4zb9t Direct Channel Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/9-11-stories/id6811119815 You spent six years on the Fort Pierce police force, working your way up to detective. Then you became a flight attendant, the job you’d always wanted. On the morning of September 11th, you board United Flight 93 in Newark, bound for San Francisco, with a husband and four boys at home. This is 9/11 Stories, real accounts of the people who lived it, so they’re never forgotten. This is the last 9/11 story on the main channel. Sponsored and Produced by The Conspiracy Podcast Your Host, Eric Racheff
www.patreon.com/theconspiracypodcast Nine and a half years after President Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive,” Navy SEALs entered a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Thirty-eight minutes later, the most wanted man in the world was dead, and his body was gone within a day. In this final chapter of The Conspiracy Podcast’s 9/11 series, Eric, Sean and Jorge follow the hunt from start to finish, as the War on Terror unfolds around it. The story starts at Tora Bora in 2001, where bin Laden was within reach and walked away. It moves through the Iraq detour, the black sites and the courier whose nickname finally led investigators to a three-story compound with no phone line, no internet and a tall man who paced the courtyard but never let a camera see his face. Then the hosts walk through the raid minute by minute, from the helicopter crash in the courtyard to the competing accounts of who fired the shots, and the White House story that changed in three days. Then come the questions the government never answered. Where is the proof? Why were no photos released? Why did no sailors watch the burial? The hosts rank the theories from believable to far-fetched and open the files from the compound itself, including the details that were never meant to become public. Whatever you believe happened that night, there’s one thing nobody has been shown.
Direct Channel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5A3YsZkbstxMfUHHk4zb9t Direct Channel Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/9-11-stories/id6811119815 You’re running late. A phone call has put you half an hour behind, and you’re hurrying up Washington Street, trying to hail a cab. You’re forty years old, with a ten-month-old son at home and nearly ten years at Cantor Fitzgerald behind you. Your husband, Greg, is on the 84th floor of the South Tower. You push through the revolving doors of the North Tower and turn toward the elevators. Then the floor jolts beneath you. This is 9/11 Stories, real accounts of the people who lived it, so they’re never forgotten. Sponsored and Produced by The Conspiracy Podcast Your Host, Eric Racheff
www.patreon.com/theconspiracypodcast Eight parts. Ten hours. Thousands of documents, hearings, missed warnings and unanswered questions. Now it's time for the hosts to make the call. In the finale, Sean, Jorge and Eric each give an uninterrupted summation of everything the series covered, from the Cold War roots of Al-Qaeda to the morning the towers fell and the years of questions that followed. Patreon members voted on the speaking order. There's no banter and no tangents, just three hosts laying out what they believe happened on September 11th and why. They've spent months in the same evidence, and they've each landed somewhere. Do they agree? Where do they split? And whose case will make you rethink your own? If you haven't heard the rest of the series, go back to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and The Rise of Al-Qaeda, then start at Part 1. The summations build on everything that came before. You decide: Once you've heard all three, join the hosts in the After Hours and vote in the Spotify poll for the one you agree with most. Coming up: The War on Terror and The Hunt for Bin Laden.
Direct Channel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5A3YsZkbstxMfUHHk4zb9t Direct Channel Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/9-11-stories/id6811119815 Jason Thomas had been off active duty in the Marine Corps for only a few weeks when the morning of September 11th began, and his uniform was still in the back of his truck. By the time the North Tower fell, he had put it on and driven into Manhattan with no orders and no plan, just his training and a city in trouble. Before the day was over, he and another Marine in uniform would walk into a section of the site that rescue crews had been pulled out of, calling into the smoke and listening for an answer. This is the story of Sergeant Jason Thomas. Sponsored and Produced by The Conspiracy Podcast Your Host, Eric Racheff