Ahmed Ressam - Terrorist Training in Afghanistan

Terrorist Training in Afghanistan

Ressam became friends with Raouf Hannachi, an al-Qaeda member who served as the muezzin at Montreal's Assuna Mosque, which attracted almost 1,500 mostly Algerian worshipers to Friday prayers. Hannachi returned from Afghanistan towards the end of the summer of 1997, where he had trained for jihad at Khalden Camp. He told Ressam about the experience and jihad, encouraged him to train as well, and ultimately arranged a trip to the camp for him and his roommate Mustapha Labsi.

On March 17, 1998, interested in joining jihad in Algeria, Ressam traveled using his fraudulent "Benni Noris" passport from Montreal, Canada to Karachi, Pakistan. There, he contacted al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubeida in Peshawar, Pakistan, who was in charge of the Afghan terrorist training camps funded and organized by Bin Laden. Abu Zubeida approved him, and arranged for him to be transported over the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan in April.

Using the alias "Nabil", he attended three camps for Islamic terrorists between March 1998 and February 1999. At Khalden Camp, which generally hosted 50–100 trainees at any time, he trained in light weapons, handguns, small machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPGs), explosives (including TNT, C4 plastic explosives, and black plastic explosives), poisons (including cyanide), poison gas, sabotage, target selection, urban warfare, tactics (including assassinations), and security. Trainees were from Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, and France. During the five to six months he was there, he met Zacarias Moussaoui. He then trained how to manufacture advanced explosives and make electronic circuits for six weeks at Derunta training camp, outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Abu Zubeida, in contrast, testified before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal that Khalden only trained fighters for "defensive jihad". He said trainees were explicitly instructed to only attack military targets, that it was an offense against Islam to kill or injure innocent civilians, and that Ressam would never have been sent to Khalden if he were thought to be someone who believed Islam justified attacking civilians.

A six-person terrorist cell that included Ressam was created, and tasked with meeting in Canada, and then attacking a U.S. airport or consulate before the end of 1999. The cell was directed by Abu Jaffar in Pakistan and Abu Doha in Europe.