Nawaf al-Hazmi
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| Nawaf al-Hazmi | |
|---|---|
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| Born | September, 1976 Mecca, Saudi Arabia |
| Died | September 11, 2001 The Pentagon, United States |
Nawaf al-Hazmi (Arabic: نواف الحازمي, also transliterated Nawaq Alhazmi) (1976 - September 11, 2001) was one of five terrorists named by FBI as hijackers of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon in the September 11, 2001 attack. His younger brother, Salem al-Hazmi, was another of the 9/11 terrorists and helped hijack the same flight.
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[edit] History
Nawaf was born in Mecca to Muhammad Salim al-Hazmi, a grocer. He travelled to Afghanistan as a teenager in 1993. CNN's preliminary report following the attacks claimed that an unnamed acquaintance relayed "He told me once that his father had tried to kill him when he was a child. He never told me why, but he had a long knife scar on his forearm", and claimed that his older brother was a police chief in Jizan.
In 1995, he and Khalid al-Mihdhar went to fight for the Bosnian Muslim side in the Bosnian war. Afterwards, Nawaf returned to Afghanistan along with his brother Salem, and al-Mihdhar. The three there met al-Qaida, and fought against the Afghan Northern Alliance.
Nawaf al-Hazmi fought alongside Chechnyans sometime around 1998, possibly with his brother and al-Mihdhar, and returned to Saudi Arabia in early 1999.
In April 1999, both al-Hazmi brothers and Khalid al-Mihdhar obtained US visas through the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Police detective Mark Longo said Alhazmi entered U.S. from Canada and arrived in Cody, Wyoming on a Sunday afternoon in the autumn 1999 - one of two men delivering skylights to Cody High School. Leaving Cody 45 minutes later with the remaining load of cardboard boxes, the men asked "how to get to Florida." [1] [2]
The 9/11 Commission Report says that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were two of the first four terrorists hand-picked by Osama bin Laden to participate in a United States terrorist operation using hijacked planes. (They were originally slated to be pilots, but since both proved to be poor students and poor English speakers, other pilots were eventually found.) In the fall of 1999, these four attended the Mes Aynak training camp in Afghanistan. Nawaf and his brother then travelled to Karachi, Pakistan where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed instructed them in English, Western culture, and aviation.
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had identified al-Hazmi as an al-Qaeda associate in early 1999. (London Times, 9/2002) Former Saudi Intelligence Minister Prince Turki al Faisal has revealed that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were put on a Saudi terror watch list in late 1999. He also said that he revealed this to the CIA, saying "What we told them was these people were on our watch list from previous activities of al-Qaeda, in both the embassy bombings and attempts to smuggle arms into the kingdom in 1997." The CIA strongly denies having received any such warning. [3]
[edit] In the U.S.
[edit] 2000
The FBI and 9/11 Commission claim that Nawaf and al-Mihdhar first entered the United States in 2000, though the Washington Post, LA Times and others have claimed that they lived in the country beforehand. The dispute centers on whether they lived in the United States prior to their attending the January 5-8th Al Qaeda Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where it is believed key details of the attacks were arranged. Both were secretly videotaped at the meeting by Malaysian authorities who reported al-Mihdhdar spoke at length with perpetrators of the USS Cole bombing, including Tawfiq bin Attash.
A week afterwards, on January 15, 2000, Nawaf and al-Mihdhar flew to Los Angeles, California from Bangkok, Thailand. Identified by the CIA, they were not put on terrorist watchlist shared with other agencies.
Immediately after entering the country, Nawaf and al-Mihdhar met Omar al-Bayoumi in an airport restaurant. Al-Bayoumi claims he was merely being charitable in helping the two seemingly out-of-place Muslims move to San Diego where he helped them find an apartment near his own, co-signed their lease, and gave them $1500 to help pay their rent.
Al-Hazmi's name was on apartment 127 lease at Parkwood Apartments, a 175-unit complex in Clairemont section of San Diego on Mount Ada Road near Balboa Drive mosque. Al-Midhar shared the apartment.
After the attacks, Nawaf and al-Mihdar's neighbours told the media that the pair constantly played flight simulator games, owned no furniture, shared a gray early-90s Toyota Camry, and were also seen getting into limousines late at night. [1] [2] Residents said a total of four men spent time together at Parkwood, playing in the pool like children. [3]
April 18, 2000, Adel Rafeea received a wire transfer of $5000 from Ali Abdul Aziz Ali in the UAE, which he later claimed was money Nawaf had asked him to accept on his behalf. [4]
In June of 2000, al-Mihdhar returned to Yemen against the wishes of al-Qaeda who wanted him to remain in the United States helping Nawaf adapt. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was so angered by this that he decided to remove al-Mihdhar from the 9/11 plot, but he was overruled by Osama bin Laden. Hani Hanjour moved in with Nawaf after al-Mihdhdar's return to Yemen.[citation needed]
In September, Nawaf and al-Mihdhdar both moved into the house of FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh, although he did not report the pair as suspicious. [5] [6] Al-Mihdhar is believed to have left the apartment in early October, less than two weeks before the USS Cole Bombing. Nawaf continued living with Shaikh until December.
[edit] 2001
In 2001, al-Hazmi and Hanjour moved to Falls Church, Virginia. Eventually two other hijackers, Ahmed al-Ghamdi and Majed Moqed, moved in with them.
On April 1, 2001, al-Hazmi received a ticket for speeding in Oklahoma, as well as an additional unknown citation. C. L. Parkins ran his Californian license information as routine, to check for outstanding warrants or alerts, but there were none. His fine was $138.[7]
On May 1, 2001, al-Hazmi reported to police that men tried to take his wallet outside his Fairfax, Virginia residence, but before the county officer left, al-Hazmi signed a "statement of release" indicating he did not want the incident investigated. On June 30th, his car was involved in a minor traffic accident on the east-bound George Washington Bridge.
Al-Hazmi, along with at least five other future hijackers, traveled to Las Vegas at least six times in the Summer of 2001. They reportedly drank alcohol, gambled, and paid strippers to perform lap dances for them.[8]
On August 23rd, Israeli Mossad reportedly gives his name is given to the CIA as part of a list of 19 names they say are planning an attack in the near future. Only four of the names are known for certain - Nawaf, Atta, Marwan and al-Mihdhar.[9][10] On the same day, he is added to an INS watchlist, together with al-Mihdhar to prevent entry into the U.S.
An internal review after 9/11 found that "everything was done [to find them] that could have been done." But the search does not appear to have been particularly aggressive. A national motor vehicle index was reportedly checked, but al-Hazmi's speeding ticket was not detected for some reason. The FBI did not search credit card databases, bank account databases, or car registration, all of which would had positive results. Al-Hazmi was even listed in the 2000-2001 San Diego phone book, but this too was not searched until after the attacks.[11][12][13][14][15][16]
On August 27th, brothers Nawaf and Salem purchased flight tickets through Travelocity.com using Nawaf's visa card[17]
On September 1st, Nawaf registers for room #7 at the Pin-Del Motel in Laurel, Maryland. On the registration, he lists his drivers license number as 3402142-D, and lists a New York hotel as his permanent residence. Ziad Jarrah had checked into the hotel on August 27th.[18][19]
[edit] The attacks
Nawaf and al-Mihdhar purchased their 9/11 plane tickets on-line using a credit card with their real names. This raised no red flags, since the FAA had not been informed that the two were on a terrorist watchlist.[20][21]
On September 10, 2001, Hanjour, al-Mihdhar, and Nawaf checked into the Marriott Residence Inn in Herndon, Virginia where Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman Hussayen, a prominent Saudi government official, was staying - although no evidence was ever uncovered that they had met, or knew of each other's presence.
On September 11, Nawaf and four other hijackers boarded American Airlines Flight 77. According to the 9/11 Commission, al-Hazmi set off the metal detector at the airport and was screened with a hand-wand. He passed the inspection, however. Al-Hazmi was also randomly selected for extra scrutiny, but nothing suspicious was found in his bags. Sometime after takeoff, the plane was hijacked. It was flown into the Pentagon at 9:37 am, killing 189 people, including 125 individuals on the ground.
The next day, a car registered to al-Hazmi was found in Dulles Airport. The car contained Mohammed Atta's letter, a cashier's check made out to a flight school in Phoenix, Arizona, four drawings of the cockpit of a 757, a box cutter-type knife, maps of Washington D.C. and New York, and a page with notes and phone numbers.[22][23]
[edit] Timeline in America
Late in 2005, Army Lt. Col. Kevin Shaffer and Congressman Curt Weldon alleged that the Defense Department data mining project Able Danger had kept Nawaf, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi all under surveillance as Al-Qaeda agents.
- January 15, 2000: Al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar arrive in Los Angeles from Bangkok, Thailand.
- February 2000: Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar move to San Deigo.
- Autumn 2000: Al-Hamzi works at a gas station while living in San Deigo.
- March 2001: Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour move from Phoenix to Falls Church, Virginia.
- Mid-March 2001: Nawaf al-Hazmi, Ahmed Alghamdi, Majed Moqed, and Hani Hanjour stay for four days in the Fairfield Motor Inn, Fairfield, Connecticut. They meet with Eyad Alrababah, a Palestinian who may have provided false identification documents.
- April 1, 2001: Al-Hazmi is stopped for speeding by an Oklahoma police officer.
- August 2001: Nawaf al-Hazmi, Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Khalid Almihdhar, and Salem Alhazmi-the hijackers who boarded Flight 77-now all live in Laurel, Maryland.
[edit] References
- ^ One Sept. 11 Terrorist in Cody Two Years Ago, The Associated Press, October 23, 2001
- ^ Ex-hotel worker says she conversed with hijacker, Las Vegas Review-Journal, By GLENN PUIT and J.M. KALIL, Friday, October 26, 2001
- ^ Did the Saudis know about 9/11?, Salon.com, By Mark Follman, October 18, 2003
[edit] External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hazmi, Nawaf al- |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | نواف الحازمي (Arabic); Alhazmi, Nawaf (alternate transliteration); Alhazmi, Nawaq (alternate transliteration); Makki, Rabia al- (alias) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | 9/11 hijacker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | c.1976 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mecca, Saudi Arabia |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 11, 2001 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Washington, D.C., United States |
