Hamza al-Ghamdi
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Hamza al-Ghamdi (Arabic: حمزة 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.
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History
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 Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Saeed al-Ghamdi, and Ahmed al-Haznawi. This group is noted as being some of the more religiously observant of the hijackers, and they are thought to have met each other some time in 1999.
Some reports say that al-Ghamdi left his home to fight in Chechnya against the Russians in early 2000. (Other reports say he left in January of 2001.) He called home several times until mid-2001, saying he was in Chechnya. It is not known if he ever actually went to Chechnya or not.
Some time late in 2000, Hamza traveled to the United Arab Emirates, where he purchased traveler's cheques presumed to have been paid for by Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. Five other hijackers also passed through the UAE and purchased travellers cheques, including Majed Moqed, Saeed Alghamdi, Wail al-Shehri, Ahmed al-Haznawi and Ahmed al-Nami.
In January of 2001, al-Ghamdi rented a post office box in Delray Beach, Florida with another hijacker, Mohand al-Shehri. According to FBI director Robert Mueller and the 9/11 Commission however, Hamza did not first enter the United States until a London flight on May 28 with Mohand and Abdulaziz Al-Omari.
In March of 2001, al-Ghamdi was filmed in a farewell video that was aired on al Jazeera. In the video, many future 9/11 hijackers swear to become martyrs, although no details of the plot are revealed. Al-Ghamdi does not speak in the film, but is seen studying maps and flight manuals.[1]
He was one of 9 hijackers to open a SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit around June of 2001. Al-Ghamdi also applied for and received a Florida drivers license on June 27, 2001. In the next two month, he obtained two duplicate licenses simply by filling out change-of-address forms. 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]
The Attack
Hamza purchased his own eTicket for Flight 175 on August 29th, using his Visa card. The FBI also oddly claimed that he also purchased an eTicket for a 'Flight 7950' from Los Angeles to San Francisco on the 29th, although it does not give the projected date of flight.[3]
On August 30th, Hamza bought Ahmed al-Ghamdi an identical eTicket for Flight 175, and bought them each one-way tickets an AirTran flight on September 7th, from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. On the 7th however, Hamza instead went with Mohand al-Shehri to Newark, New Jersey on $139.75 tickets purchased from the Mile High Travel agency in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.
Hamza and Ahmed al-Ghamdi stayed at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass.. On September 8th they checked out of the hotel, and moved into the Days Hotel on Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, Mass. where they remained up until the attacks.[4][5]
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Hamza left the hotel with Ahmed al-Ghamdi, the two of them sharing a taxicab to get to Logan International Airport, where they 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.
Aftermath
On September 22nd 2001, Hamza al-Ghamdi's father told the Al-Watan newspaper that the FBI-released photograph bore absolutely no resemblance to his son.[6]