Hamburg cell: what Wikipedia removed
The 9/11 cell. The 2005 opening described members intending “to wage jihad”. Jihad today: 0 in the opening, 12 in the body.
The word “jihad” appeared 4 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 12. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| jihad | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| terror | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| islamist | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| antisemitism | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The 9/11 cell’s antisemitism, removed from the sentence describing what they met to discuss.
- The cell was defined as radical Islamists by intelligence agencies. That framing was rewritten.
- The list naming Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers who led the September 11 attacks, removed from the opening.
Who made the cuts
Section titled “Who made the cuts”Wikipedia publishes who makes every edit. These removals were traced to the exact revision that made them:
- 2007-04-15, Nv8200pa, edit summary: “Remove image per WP:IFD” (see the diff)
- 2006-10-18, Quadell, edit summary: “Added Ziad Jarrah info” (see the diff)
- 2025-12-16, Grungeosmunge, edit summary: ”+” (see the diff)
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 16665803):
File:Hamburg cell apartment.jpg It was at this Marienstraße apartment where many of the September 11 conspirators met to plan their futures. The Hamburg cell was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists that included students who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks . Important members included Mohamed Atta al Sayed , who led the four hijacking teams in 2001 and piloted American Airlines Flight 11 ; Ramzi Binalshibh , who conspired with the other three members but was unable to enter the United States ; Marwan al-Shehhi , who piloted United Airlines Flight 175 ; and Ziad Jarrah , who piloted United Airlines Flight 93 . Less importa…
2026 (revision 1366512360):
Group of radical Islamists in Germany Further information: Planning of the September 11 attacks “The Hamburg Cell” redirects here. For the film, see The Hamburg Cell (film) . The cell planned the 11 September attacks in Mohamed Atta ‘s apartment on Marienstraße (Marien Street) in Hamburg The Hamburg cell ( German : Hamburger Zelle ; Arabic : خلية هامبورغ , Khaliyyat Hāmbūrġ ) was a terrorist cell of Islamist extremists living in Hamburg , Germany, around the late 1990s. They helped plan al-Qaeda ‘s terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001 (9/11), in which 19 men hijacked four airliners to try to crash them into American landmarks. In 1999, the cell left Hamburg to joi…
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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