Ahmed al-Ghamdi
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Ahmed Salah al-Ghamdi (Arabic: احمد الغامدي, also transliterated Alghamdi) was named by the FBI as one of the hijackers of United Airlines flight 175 as part of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack.
Al-Ghamdi was from the al Bahah province of Saudi Arabia, an isolated and underdeveloped area, and shared the same tribal affiliation with fellow hijackers Saeed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Ahmed al-Haznawi. This group is noted as being some of the more religiously observant of the hijackers. Al-Ghamdi quit school to fight in Chechnya against the Russians in 2000. His family saw him for the last time in December of that year. He called his parents in July of 2001, but didn't mention being in the United States.
In March of 2001, al-Ghamdi is reported to have met with a Jordanian who has been charged with providing false identification to at least 50 illegal aliens. Hijackers Majed Moqed, Hani Hanjour, and Nawaf Alhazmi are reported to have met with him at the same time.[1] (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/ap030602.html) Inexplicably, this is more than a month before al-Ghamdi first arrived in the United States, according to the FBI and the 9/11 Commission.
On May 2, al-Ghamdi arrived in the U.S. with fellow-hijacker Moqed, on a student visa. Oddly, he listed the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida as his permanent address on his driver's license. He and Moqed moved in with Hani Hanjour and Nawaf al-Hazmi in Falls Church, Virginia. All four later moved into an apartment in Paterson, New Jersey.
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Immigration records from the Philippines show that someone named Ahmed al-Ghamdi visited Manila more than a dozen times in the two years before the 9/11 attacks, and left the Philippines on the day before the attacks. This may be a different person, since no information besides the person's name is available.
Al-Ghamdi bought his 9/11 plane ticket on August 29 through the Internet using a Mailboxes Etc. address. On September 11, al-Ghamdi boarded flight 175, helped to hijack it, and assisted as the plane crashed into the World Trade Center in a coordinated attack that killed thousands of people.
External links
- The Final 9/11 Commission Report (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/index.html)
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm