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Marwan al-Shehhi
Marwan al-Shehhi (Arabic: مروان الشحي, also transliterated Alshehhi) (May 9, 1978 - September 11, 2001) was named by the FBI as the suicide pilot aboard United Airlines flight 175 in the September 11, 2001 attacks. He trained at the Huffman Aviation pilot school with Mohammed Atta. He has used the aliases Marwan Yusif Muhammad Rashid Al-Shehi, Marwan Yusif Muhammad Rashid Lakrab Al-Shihhi, and Abu Abdullah.
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History
Al-Shehhi was born in Ras al Khaimah, in the United Arab Emirates, to a Muslim cleric. Al-Shehhi was seen as a quiet and devout Muslim.
In February 1996, al-Shehhi enrolled in a language institute in Bonn, Germany. He boarded with a local family. It took two years for him to learn enough German before he enrolled in a university with a military scholarship. He spent several months in 1998 trying to pass a language exam in Hamburg, but he came back to Bonn after he failed. In Germany, all foreign students must be fluent in the German language to graduate.
Al-Shehhi moved to Hamburg in 1999, and helped form the Hamburg cell with Mohammed Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh. There, his views became more and more radical. They met three or four times a week to discuss their anti-American feelings and plot possible attacks. Al-Shehhi committed himself to fighting and dying for his beliefs.
In late 1999, al-Shehhi, Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Said Bahaji, and Ramzi Binalshibh decided to travel to Chechnya to fight against the Russians, but were convinced by Khalid al-Masri and Mohamedou Ould Slahi at the last minute to change their plans. They instead traveled to Afghanistan to meet with Osama bin Laden and train for terrorist attacks. Immediately afterwards, Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jerrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to erase travel visas to Afghanistan.
After their training, the hijackers began to attempt to hide their radicalism. Al-Shehhi shaved his beard and seemed to his old friends like he had become less religious. Interestingly, it was about this time that al-Shehhi boasted to a librarian in Hamburg that he was planning a terrorist attack. "There will be thousands of dead. You will think of me. . . You will see, in America something is going to happen. There will be many people killed." He also reportedly mentioned the World Trade Center specifically.[1][2][3] There are other instances where other hijackers boasted of the plot ahead of time, but aparently no one acted on these claims.
Shehhi returned to Germany in March of 2000 and began to learn to fly a jet. Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, one of the most important 9/11 financial organizers, bought a Boeing 747 flight simulator program using al-Shehhi's credit card. Eventually they decided that German flight schools would not work for them, and they decided to train in the United States.
In the United States
Al-Shehhi left for the United States on May 29, 2000. Mohammed Atta joined him the next month, and the two began to search for flight schools. Al-Shehhi posed as a body guard of a "Saudi Arabian royal family member" (really Atta) while the two of them took flying lessons in Venice, Florida. They also logged hundreds of hours on a Boeing 727 flight simulator. They received their licenses by December of 2000. Their expenses were paid for by Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.
Al-Shehhi travelled to Morrocco to reassure his family that he was well, and then returned to the U.S. He and Atta visited Virginia and Georgia for unknown reasons, and then returned to Florida. They moved into an apartment together. Al-Shehhi traveled to Cairo, Egypt on April 18, 2001, and met with Atta's father. The reason for this trip is unknown. He returned on May 2, recieved his drivers license, and waited for the "muscle" hijackers to arrive. He and Atta helped to greet the recent arrivals and help them prepare for the attacks. He began to take "surveillance flights" in the summer, watching the operations of the flight crews and making final preparations.
On September 10, 2001, the night before the suicide attack, al-Shehhi and several other hijackers called around for prostitutes, but declined to sleep with them or pay them because it was too expensive.[4]
Al-Shehhi is believed to have been related to Mohammed Atta. According to US authorities, he assisted in organising the attacks from within the USA. According to testimony by FBI Director Robert Mueller, al-Shehhi was in charge of most of the funds, receiving money from Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mohammed Yousef Mohamed Alqusaidi , who may be his brother.
The attack
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, al-Shehhi called Mohammed Atta at 6:45 on the morning of 9/11. This seems to have been the final confirmation for the attacks. He boarded flight 175 around 7:25. About a half an hour into the flight, the plane was hijacked. Al-Shehhi is believed to have taken control of the plane and directed it to New York City. The plane flew into the south tower of World Trade Center in a coordinated attack that killed thousands of Americans. Al-Shehhi was 23 years old.