2025/04/14

Where Were the al-Ghamdi Brothers, Hijackers of United 175, Born?

by Leonardo Salvaggio and Sean Russell (Beyond Ground Zero). An Italian version of this article is available here.


Although the biographies of the nineteen hijackers have been meticulously reconstructed by investigators, at least one aspect remains unclear. There is still uncertainty about the names of the locations where the al-Ghamdi brothers were born, two of the muscle hijackers on United Flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Both were born in the al-Baha province, a rural area in southern Saudi Arabia from which eight of the fifteen Saudi hijackers originated. However, doubts arise about the exact name of the town or village, although it should first be noted that these are, of course, transliterations from Arabic and every transliteration is problematic.

Source: CIA 11 September: The Plot and the Plotters

According to the document 11 September: The Plot and the Plotters, published by the CIA in 2012, the two were born in the locations of:
  • Alamarassa for Ahmed al-Ghamdi
  • Ajandam for Hamza al-Ghamdi
However, neither of these names appears to exist outside of this document. The birthplace of Ahmed al-Ghamdi also appears with different spellings in other documents; in the summary about him produced by the FBI, the place name is also written as Almarrassa (without the second "a" and with two "r"s), and in one of the documents of the 9/11 Commission it is also written as Alamarrisa. In the visa application, the spelling is different again and appears as Almarassa.


In any case, none of these toponyms (at least in the Latin alphabet) seems to correspond to a real place, and a Google search only returns results directly related to the hijacker documents.

We can only speculate as to why: the most likely explanation is that it is a small village for which no transliteration has been used in other contexts. In any case, help from anyone familiar with Saudi toponymy is welcome to help us clarify this gray area.

Dove sono nati i fratelli al-Ghamdi, dirottatori del volo United 175?

di Leonardo Salvaggio e Sean Russell (Beyond Ground Zero). La versione in inglese di questo articolo è disponibile qui.


Nonostante le biografie dei diciannove dirottatori siano state ricostruite minuziosamente dagli inquirenti, c'è almeno un aspetto che ancora non è chiaro. Rimane infatti un dubbio sul nome delle località in cui sono nati i fratelli al-Ghamdi, due dei muscle hijackers del volo United 175 che si schiantò contro la Torre Sud del World Trade Center.

Entrambi sono nati nella provincia di al-Baha, zona rurale del sud dell'Arabia Saudita da cui provengono otto dei quindici dirottatori sauditi. I dubbi nascono però sul nome preciso del paese o del villaggio, anche se va anzitutto premesso che si tratta ovviamente di traslitterazioni dall'arabo e che ogni traslitterazione è problematica.

Fonte: CIA 11 September: The Plot and the Plotters

Secondo il documento 11 September: The Plot and the Plotters, pubblicato dalla CIA nel 2012, i due sarebbero nati nelle località di:
  • Alamarassa per Ahmed al-Ghamdi
  • Ajandam per Hamza al-Ghamdi
Tuttavia nessuno di questi due nomi sembra esistere al di fuori di questo documento. Il luogo di nascita di Ahmed al-Ghamdi presenta anche grafie diverse in altri documenti, nel summary su di lui prodotto dall'FBI il nome del luogo è scritto anche come Almarrassa (senza la seconda "a" e con due "r") e in uno dei documenti della 9/11 Commission è scritto anche come Alamarrisa. Nella richiesta di visto la grafia è ancora diversa ed è scritto Almarassa.


In ogni caso nessuno di questi toponimi (almeno in alfabeto latino) sembra corrispondere a un luogo e la ricerca su Google restituisce come unici risultati proprio i documenti relativi ai dirottatori.

Possiamo solo avanzare ipotesi sul perché: la spiegazione più probabile è che si tratti di un piccolo villaggio di cui non esiste una translitterazione che sia stata usata in altri contesti. In ogni caso l'aiuto di chiunque abbia familiarità con la toponomastica saudita è benvenuto nell'aiutarci a dipanare questa zona grigia.

2025/04/05

Nuovo episodio della serie con Adam Fitzgerald

Sono stato ospite per la settima volta sul canale YouTube di Adam Fitzgerald per il nostro consueto spazio ricorrente sul 9/11 Comission Report. In questo episodio parliamo del Millennium Plot, una serie di attentati progettati da al-Qaeda che avrebbero dovuto svolgersi l'1 gennaio del 2000 o nelle date circostanti. Gli attentati furono sventati grazie al lavoro preventivo di intelligence.


2025/04/04

Intervista all'ex agente speciale dell'FBI Mark Rossini sugli attentati contro le ambasciate in Africa del 1998

di Leonardo Salvaggio

Ho invitato nuovamente l'ex agente speciale dell'FBI Mark Rossini sul mio canale YouTube per un'intervista sugli attentati di al-Qaeda contro le ambasciate americane a Nairobi (in Kenya) e Dar es Salaam (in Tanzania) del 1998. Rossini è stato uno degli investigatori che hanno indagato su questo caso e quindi racconta la sua esperienza personale, oltre agli errori di intelligence che hanno permesso che gli attentati potessero avvenire.


2025/03/01

Nuovo episodio della serie con Adam Fitzgerald

di Leonardo Salvaggio

Io e il ricercatore americano Adam Fitzgerald abbiamo pubblicato il sesto episodio della nostra collaborazione. In questa occasione parliamo degli attentati del 1998 contro le ambasciate americane in Kenya e Tanzania, dal contesto storico in cui sono avvenuti fino alla reazione militare americana.

Il video è disponibile solo in inglese.


2025/02/21

Intervista all'ex Agente Speciale Supervisore dell'FBI Chris Anglin

di Leonardo Salvaggio

Ho invitato sul mio canale YouTube l'ex Agente Speciale Supervisore dell'FBI Chris Anglin per un'intervista. Anglin ha fatto parte di varie Join Terrorism Task Force e dopo l'11/9 ha lavorato sul reperimento di informatori, attività che ha portato all'arresto di terroristi di al-Qaeda di alto profilo. In seguito è stato inviato a Guantanamo come interrogatore.

L'intervista è disponibile solo in inglese.


2024/12/06

Who is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11

by Leonardo Salvaggio. The Italian original version is available here.


Although the most well-known name among the planners of 9/11 is that of Osama bin Laden, the true organizer of the attacks was the Pakistani terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (often referred to by the acronym KSM).

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was born in Pakistan in the region of Baluchistan on April 14, 1965, but spent his early years in Kuwait, where at the age of sixteen he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. After completing high school in 1983, he moved to the United States, enrolling at Chowan College in North Carolina. After just one semester, he transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he graduated in mechanical engineering in 1986.

After finishing his studies, he returned to Pakistan for the first time and there he joined the Afghan mujahideen in their resistance against the Soviet invasion. Between 1988 and 1992, he also worked with a non-governmental organization supported by the Afghan guerrilla leader Abd al-Rasul Sayyaf, which operated in Pakistan and Afghanistan, raising funds to support the Afghan resistance. In 1992, he fought in Bosnia before returning to Qatar, where he worked as an engineer for the Ministry of Electricity and Water.

In 1993, the terrorist Ramzi Yousef, KSM’s nephew who was only two years younger, was the perpetrator of the first bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. From that point, U.S. forces turned their attention to both KSM and his nephew. The attack carried out by his nephew gave KSM the idea of striking the U.S. with another terrorist attack, driven by American support for the state of Israel. In 1994, KSM moved for a few months to the Philippines with Ramzi Yousef, where they planned the attack known as “Bojinka” (which involved the simultaneous explosion of several airplanes in different parts of the world). The plot failed when one of their collaborators, the Pakistani terrorist Murad, accidentally detonated a bomb while assembling it. At the time of Murad's arrest, KSM had already fled to Qatar and from there moved to Afghanistan.

In 1996, KSM presented his original plan to bin Laden for what would later become the 9/11 attacks. The initial proposal involved hijacking ten planes to crash them into nine targets on both U.S. coasts. The last plane, piloted by KSM himself, would land at an unspecified airport where he would summon the media to address the American government in a worldwide broadcast. This plan would have placed KSM as the central figure in the operation. Bin Laden rejected it due to its evident complexity (and perhaps because he did not want to be overshadowed by KSM), and the plan was renegotiated over the following years, eventually leading to the final version.

During this time, bin Laden proposed to KSM that he formally join al-Qaeda, but KSM rejected the offer and never accepted it. Nonetheless, KSM moved to Kandahar to plan the attacks with the leadership of al-Qaeda, including bin Laden.

After the 9/11 attacks, in 2002, a video showing the beheading of CNN journalist Daniel Pearl was released, and the FBI believes that the killer, whose face is not shown, was actually KSM. That same year, the terrorist Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan, and during interrogations, he confirmed the important role KSM played in planning the attacks. KSM himself later confirmed this in an interview with journalists Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding, which was published in the book Masterminds of Terror.

KSM was captured in 2003 while he was sleeping, and for the first three years, he was detained in various prisons across Europe. The terrorist was interrogated and tortured, providing partial and sometimes completely false information. For example, he gave useful information about the whereabouts of Hambali (another planner of 9/11), but he said nothing about the hiding places of Osama bin Laden or al-Zawahiri. He also fabricated claims that al-Qaeda possessed nuclear weapons, a completely invented allegation.

Since 2006, he has been held at Guantanamo, and his trial began in 2021.


Sources: