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Waleed M. al-Shehri (Arabic: الشهري, also transliterated Alshehri) was named by the FBI as a hijacker of American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles that crashed into the World Trade Center as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. His brother, Wail al-Shehri, is also a suspected 9/11 hijacker. The following birthdates have been associated with al-Shehri: September 13, 1974; November 5, 1975, January 1, 1976; March 3, 1976; July 8, 1977; December 20, 1978; and May 11, 1979.
Early history
Waleed M. al-Shehri was from 'Asir Province, a poor region in southwestern Saudi Arabia that borders Yemen.
Studying to become a teacher like Wail, Waleed accompanied his brother's leave-of-absence after Wail complained of a mental symptom that had caused him grief, telling their father that he intended to seek aid from a religious healer in Medina.
The brothers arrived at the Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan where they met Ahmed al-Nami and Saeed Alghamdi. 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 Mohammad's companions.*
Waleed later served in the security forces at Kandahar airport along with Saeed al-Ghamdi. After being selected for the operation, he trained with the other hijackers at al-Matar complex under Abu Turab al Jordani.
Early media accounts said that Waleed had earned his pilot's license at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1997*
2000
In mid-November, 2000, the 9/11 Commission believes that three of the future muscle hijackers, Wail al Shehri, Waleed al Shehri, and Ahmed al-Nami, 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.
2001
After training he would have moved to a safehouse in Karachi before travelling to the United Arab Emirates. From the UAE, the muscle hijackers came to the U.S. between April and June of 2001. Waleed may have arrived April 23. Some sources report that al-Shehri "at times" stayed at lead hijacker Mohammed Atta's apartment in Hamburg, Germany at some period 1998 and 2001.* Others place him with Zacarias Moussaoui in London.
Ramzi Binalshibh says that Bin Ladin had given a message to Waleed al Shehri for conveyance to Mohammed Atta earlier that spring, indicating that bin Laden preferred to attack the White House instead of US Congress. On May 4, 2001, he applied for and received a Florida drivers license. The next day, he filled out a change-of-address form to receive a duplicate license. Five other suspected hijackers also received duplicate Florida licenses in 2001. Some have speculated that this was to allow multiple persons to use the same identity.* On May 19, Shehri and Satam al-Suqami flew from Fort Lauderdale to Freeport, Bahamas, where they had reservations at the Bahamas Princess Resort. The two were turned away by Bahamian officials on arrival, however, because they lacked visas; they returned to Florida that same day. The 9/11 Commission felt that they likely took this trip to renew Suqami's immigration status, as Suqami's legal stay in the United States ended May 21.
He was one of 9 hijackers to open a SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit around June 2001. While living in Boynton, neighbours reported that he seemed to be an enthusiastic fan of the Florida Marlins*
On July 16th, both Wail and Waleed were staying at a hotel in Salou, Spain where they were visited by Mohammad Atta* On July 30, al-Shehri traveled alone from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. He flew to San Francisco the next day, where he stayed one night before returning via Las Vegas.
According to librarian Kathleen Hensmen, Wail and Waleed al-Shehri used the Internet access at Delray Beach Public Library in August 2001, where they may have been looking at information on crop dusting; they reportedly left the library with a third Middle Eastern man thought to be Marwan al-Shehhi, whom Hensmen claims asked her for the name of a local restaurant.
The attack
Waleed and Wail are thought to have been the first two to reach Boston, having spent September 5-10th in room 432 of the Park Inn in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston, also referenced as Newton, MA.). This hotel was then the subject of an FBI search following the attacks.*
On September 11, 2001, three of the Flight 11 team Satam al-Suqami, Wail and Waleed were all selected by Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System and had their checked baggage inspected in Boston, while Mohammad Atta had been selected in Portland earlier. One of the five Globe Aviation security-screeners on-duty later reported that either Wail or Waleed had been using a crutch when they passed through security - and that the crutch had been X-rayed as per regulations. (The Boston Globe, Oct 10-01)
Once aboard Flight 11, Waleed sat in seat 2B next to Wail who was occupying 2A. Once the hijacking began, the two brothers are suspected of having stabbed two flight attendants.
Waleed boarded American Airlines flight 11, hijacked it, and assisted Mohammed Atta in flying it into the World Trade Center in an attack that killed thousands of people.
Aftermath
Waleed and Wail were both mistakenly reported to have been found alive and well, by the BBC later in 2001. They were initially reported in error by a Saudi newspaper editor as the sons of Ahmed Alshehri, a senior Saudi diplomat stationed in Bombay, India. On September 16, 2001, the diplomat Ahmed Alshehri denied that he was the father of the two hijackers. Wail claims he did attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida - but was the victim of mistaken identity, since he used that training to secure his current position with a Moroccan airline company. Saudi Arabia has confirmed his story, and suggested he was the victim of identity theft.
Muhammad Ali Al-Shihri, the hijacker al-Shehri brothers' true father, was identified prior to September 17, 2001, and told Arab News that he hadn't heard from his sons in ten months prior to September 2001.Al-Shihri says sons missing for 10 months, By Mutlaq Al-Buqami, Arab News Staff, 17 September 2001 An ABC News story in March 2002 repeated this, and during a report entitled "A Saudi Apology" for Dateline NBC on Aug 25 2002, NBC's reporter John Hockenberry traveled to 'Asir, where he interviewed the third brother, Salah, who agreed that his two brothers were dead and claimed they had been "brainwashed".
Furthermore another article explains that the pilot who lives in Casablanca was named Walid al-Shri (not Waleed M. al-Shehri) and that much of the BBC information regarding "alive" hijackers was incorrect according to the same sources used by BBC.*
References
External link
2001 deaths | Participants in the September 11, 2001 attacks | Saudi Arabian terrorists
"Waleed al-Shehri"