Waleed al-Shehri
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Waleed M. al-Shehri (وليد الشهي, also transliterated Alshehri) was named by the FBI as a hijacker of American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles that crashed into the World Trade Center as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. His brother, Wail al-Shehri, is also a suspected 9/11 hijacker. The following birthdates have been associated with al-Shehri: September 13, 1974; November 5, 1975, January 1, 1976; March 3, 1976; July 8, 1977; December 20, 1978; and May 11, 1979.
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History
Waleed M. al-Shehri was from 'Asir Province, a poor region in southwestern Saudi Arabia that borders Yemen. He had begun but not finished college and did not speak English well. He did not ever attend flight school. According to some sources, Waleed al-Shehri and his brother Wail declared they were going to Chechnya to defend Muslims there in December 2000, after which they disappeared for a time[1] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A19549-2001Sep24).
After training in an al Qaida camp, Waleed was in the security force at Khandahar airport with a number of other future hijackers. After being selected for the operation, he trained with the other hijackers at al Matar complex under Abu Turab al Jordani.
In mid-November, 2000, the 9/11 Commission believes that three of the future muscle hijackers, Wail al Shehri, Waleed al Shehri, and Ahmed al-Nami, all of whom had obtained their U.S. visas in late October, traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then onward to Iran where they could travel through to Afghanistan without getting their passports stamped. This probably followed their return to Saudi Arabia to get "clean" passports. An associate of a senior Hezbollah operative is thought to have been on the same flight, although this may have been a coincidence.
After training he would have moved to a safehouse in Karachi before travelling to the United Arab Emirates. From the UAE, the muscle hijackers came to the U.S. between April and June of 2001. Waleed may have arrived April 23. Ramzi Binalshibh says that Bin Ladin had given a message to Waleed al Shehri for conveyance to Mohammed Atta earlier that spring, indicating that bin Laden preferred to attack the White House instead of US Congress. On May 4, 2001, he applied for and received a Florida drivers license. The very next day, he filled out a change-of-address form to receive a duplicate license. Five other suspected hijackers also receive duplicate Florida licenses in 2001, and others had licenses in different states. Some have speculated that this was to allow multiple persons to use the same identity.[2] (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-worldtrade-suspectprofiles.story)
Some sources report that al-Shehri "at times" stayed at lead hijacker Mohammed Atta's apartment in Hamburg, Germany at some period 1998 and 2001.[3] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/graphics/attack/hijackers.html)
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On May 19, Shehri and Satam al-Suqami flew from Fort Lauderdale to Freeport, Bahamas, where they had reservations at the Bahamas Princess Resort. The two were turned away by Bahamian officials on arrival, however, because they lacked visas; they returned to Florida that same day. The 9/11 Commission felt that they likely took this trip to renew Suqami's immigration status, as Suqami's legal stay in the United States ended May 21. On July 30, al-Shehri traveled alone from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. He flew to San Francisco the next day, where he stayed one night before returning via Las Vegas. While this travel may have been a casing flight – al-Shehri traveled in first class on the same type of aircraft he would help hijack on September 11 (a Boeing 767) and the trip included a layover in Las Vegas like the pilot's trips – al-Shehri was neither a pilot nor a plot leader, as were the other hijackers who took surveillance flights. |
The attack
On September 11, 2001, Waleed al-Shehri boarded American Airlines flight 11, and assisted in hijacking it, the first hijacking of the day. Mohammed Atta then flew the plane into the World Trade Center in a coordinated attack that killed thousands of people.
Although airport security cameras would have filmed the hijackers, none of this footage has been released by the FBI. The 9/11 Commission affirms that the photos exist.
Controversy
The BBC reported on September 23, 2001, that a man named Waleed A. al-Shehri (not Waleed M. al-Shehri) was alive and well in Casablanca, Morocco, working as a pilot for Saudi Airlines. He had trained in Florida in the mid-1990's and his personal details were subsequently confused with those of the hijacker. (It is possible that the photos of al-Shehri released by the FBI are of this man, although that is unclear.) He has since appeared in many newspaper and television interviews. He was interviewed by US officials in Morocco, and cleared of all charges against him. [4] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm)[5] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2001/ap092201.html) [6] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2001/embryriddle092101.html)[7] (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092101probe.story) He was not the same individual as the hijacker who came from an impoverished border region of Saudi Arabia and had never finished college or attended flight school.
Al-Shihri, (Waleed M. al-Shehri's father) says his son has been missing since for 10 months prior to September of 2001 [8] (http://web.archive.org/web/20020929001039/www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=9424&ArY=2001&ArM=9&ArD=17) An ABC News story 3/15/02 states the same. During an television story entitled "A Saudi Apology" for Dateline NBC on Aug 25 2002 NBC's reporter John Hockenberry traveled to Saudi Arabia’s Asir province. He interviewed Waleed's brother Salah who agrees that his 2 brothers are dead and that they were "brainwashed".
Another article explains that the pilot who lives in Casablanca was named Walid al-Shri (not Waleed M. al-Shehri) and that much of the BBC information regarding "alive" hijackers was incorrect according to the same sources used by BBC. [9] (http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,265160-2,00.html)
External link
- The Final 9/11 Commission Report (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/index.html)