Mohammed atta and abdulaziz alomari
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20 years later, they&#;re haunted by their encounters with 9/11 hijackers
Mike Tuohey was the ticket agent for US Airways at the Portland jetport who checked in Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
SOUTH PORTLAND — At half past five, a blue Nissan Altima pulled into the parking lot of the Comfort Inn on Maine Mall Road in South Portland. It was a cloudy afternoon – off the coast, a hurricane was working its way farther out to sea – but the forecast for the next morning, September 11, , was for brilliant, clear skies.
Two men were in the car. Mohamed Atta was 37, wiry, 5-foot-7, an Egyptian trained as an engineer and urban planner with a piercing stare. Housemates and co-workers would later describe him as disciplined, stoic, detail-oriented and intensely religious. With him was Abdulaziz al-Omari, a year-old Saudi of similar height and build with an easy smile and a small scar on his cheek. “I am writing this in expectation of the end, which is near, an end that is really a beginning,” al-Omari said in a videotaped statement addressed to the United States and released a year later by Osama bin Laden. &#;We will get you. We will humiliate you. We will never stop following you.”
Atta entered the lobby and checked them both in, receiving the
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Photo by Martyr Frey/Getty Images
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Abdulaziz al-Omari
Saudi terrorist and 9/11 hijacker (–)
Abdulaziz al-Omari (Arabic: عبد العزيز العُمري, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-ʿUmarī, also transliterated as Alomari or al-Umari; 28 May – 11 September ) was a Saudi imam and terrorist who was one of five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 as part of the September 11 attacks in
Prior to the attacks, al-Omari was an imam at his mosque in Saudi Arabia's al-Qassim province. He arrived in the United States in June on a tourist visa, obtained through the Visa Express program. On September 11, , al-Omari boarded American Airlines Flight 11 and assisted in the hijacking of the plane, which was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, as part of the coordinated attacks.
Early life and career
[edit]Abdulaziz al-Omari (or Alomari) was born on 28 May in a poor Arab family.[1] He was born in Aseer, Saudi Arabia and was a fellow countryman of brothers Wail al-Shehri and Waleed al-Shehri, fellow hijackers in the September 11 attacks.[2] It is alleged he graduated with honors from high school.[3] He attained a degree from Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, got married, and had a daughter briefly before the attacks.[2][3] He taught as an imam at his m