Hamza al-Ghamdi

Hamza al-Ghamdi (حمزة الغامدي, also transliterated as Alghamdi) (November 18, 1980 - September 11, 2001) was named by the FBI as one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 175 as part of the September 11 attacks.

Born in Saudi Arabia, al-Ghamdi left his family to fight in Chechnya and was probably sent to Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. He arrived in the United States in May 2001 on a tourist visa. On September 11, 2001, al-Ghamdi boarded United Airlines Flight 175 and hijacked the plane along with four other terrorists so that the plane could be crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center.

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 2001.) He called home several times until mid-2001, saying he was in Chechnya.

Known as Julaybeeb during the preparations, Hamza traveled to the United Arab Emirates some time in late 2000, 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 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 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.

He was one of 9 hijackers to open a SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit around June 2001. Al-Ghamdi also applied for and received a Florida drivers license on June 27, 2001. In the next two months, 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.

Attack
Hamza purchased his own eTicket for Flight 175 on August 29, using his Visa card. The FBI also claimed that he also purchased an eTicket for a "Flight 7950" from Los Angeles to San Francisco, although it does not give the projected date of flight.

On August 30, Hamza bought Ahmed al-Ghamdi an identical eTicket for Flight 175, and bought them each one-way tickets on an AirTran flight on September 7, from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. 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, Massachusetts. On September 8 they checked out of the hotel, and moved into the Days Hotel on Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts where they remained up until the attacks.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Hamza left the hotel with Ahmed al-Ghamdi. The two men shared a taxicab to get to Logan International Airport, where they boarded flight 175, helped to hijack it, and assisted Marwan al-Shehhi to crash the Boeing 767 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Aftermath
On September 22, 2001, Arab News reported that Hamza al-Ghamdi's father told the Al-Watan newspaper that an "FBI-released" photograph bore absolutely no resemblance to his son. However, the picture al-Ghamdi's father refers to is assumed to have not been a picture released by the FBI, as they did not make the hijacker's pictures available until September 27, 2001.

He appeared in a video released on September 7, 2006, that showed the planning of the attacks.