Ahmed Al-Nami - History

History

Nami, much like Abdulaziz al-Omari, Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, and Mohand al-Shehri was born in the 'Asir Province in Saudi Arabia. Born to the Quraish tribe of Saudi Arabia, Nami served as a muezzin at the Seqeley mosque after having reportedly become very religious sometime in early 1999. That autumn he enrolled in the King Khaled University at Abha to study Sharia, he left his family home in Khamis Mushayt in the summer of 2000 to complete the Hajj, but never returned – instead travelling to the Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan where he met and befriended Waleed and Wail al-Shehri, two brothers from Khamis Mushayt, and Saeed al-Ghamdi. The four reportedly pledged themselves to Jihad in the Spring of 2000, in a ceremony presided over by Wail – who had dubbed himself Abu Mossaeb al-Janubi after one of Muhammad's companions. Dubbed "Abu Hashim", Nami was considered "gentle in manner" by his colleagues, and reported that he had a dream in which he rode a mare along with Muhammad, and that the prophet told him to dismount and fight his enemies to liberate his land.

During his time at al-Farooq, there is a curious mention under Mushabib al-Hamlan's details that Nami had recently had laser eye surgery, an uncited fact that does not reappear.

By October he had taken a prospective hijacker Mushabib al-Hamlan from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia where they both procured B-1/B-2 tourist/business visas on October 28 – but Hamlan then decided not to proceed and is thought to have returned to his family. Nami's Visa application has since been reviewed, and while he mentioned that Mushabib will be travelling with him, he listed his occupation as student but failed to provide an address for his school, and listed his intended address in the United States merely as Los Angeles – in the end he never used this Visa to enter the United States, and reported his passport (C115007, which showed evidence of travel to Afghanistan) as "lost", and procured a new one from Jeddah (C505363). He used the new passport to acquire a new B-1/B-2 visa in Jeddah on April 23, again recopying his answers from previously although crossing out the lines regarding Mushabib and previous attempts to acquire a visa. He was interviewed by a consular officer, who again approved his application. Records at the time only recorded past failures to procure a visa, so the officer had no way of realising that Nami had successfully received an earlier visa.

In mid-November 2000, the 9/11 Commission believes that Nami, Wail and Waleed al-Shehri, 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.

While in the United Arab Emirates, Nami purchased traveler's cheques presumed to have been paid for by Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Five other hijackers also passed through the UAE and purchased travellers cheques, including Majed Moqed, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Haznawi and Wail al-Shehri.