Some reports say that Hamza left his home to fight in Chechnya against the Russians in early 2000. He called home several times until late 2001, saying he was in Chechnya. Known as Julaybeeb during the preparations, Hamza traveled to the United Arab Emirates some time in late 2000, where he purchased traveler's cheques presumed to have been paid for by Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Five other hijackers also passed through the UAE and purchased traveller’s cheques, including Majed Moqed, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Wail al-Shehri, Ahmed al-Haznawi and Ahmed al-Nami. In January 2001, Ghamdi rented a post office box in Delray Beach, Florida with another hijacker, Mohand al-Shehri. According to FBI directorRobert Mueller and the 9/11 Commission however, Hamza did not first enter the United States until a London flight on May 28 with Mohand and Abdulaziz al-Omari. In March 2001, Ghamdi was filmed in a farewell video that was aired on al Jazeera. In the video, many future 9/11 hijackers swear to become martyrs, although no details of the plot are revealed. Ghamdi does not speak in the film, but is seen studying maps and flight manuals. He was one of 9 hijackers to open a SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit around June 2001. Ghamdi also applied for and received a Florida driver's license on June 27, 2001. In the next two months, he obtained two duplicate licenses simply by filling out change-of-address forms. Five other suspected hijackers also received duplicate Florida licenses in 2001, and others had licenses in different states. Some have speculated that this was to allow multiple people to use the same identity.
Attacks
Ghamdi purchased his own eTicket for Flight 175 on August 29, using his Visa card. The FBI also claimed that he also purchased an eTicket for a "Flight 7950" from Los Angeles to San Francisco, although it does not give the projected date of flight. On August 30, Hamza bought his brother, Ahmed al-Ghamdi an identical eTicket for Flight 175 and bought them each one-way tickets on an AirTran flight on September 7, from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. However, Ghamdi instead went with Mohand al-Shehri to Newark, New Jersey on $139.75 tickets purchased from the Mile HighTravel agency in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Hamza and Ahmed al-Ghamdi stayed at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On September 8 they checked out of the hotel, and moved into the Days Hotel on Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts where they remained up until the attacks. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Hamza left the hotel with Ahmed al-Ghamdi. The two men shared a taxicab to get to Logan International Airport, where they boarded Flight 175. Hamza and Ahmed pushed the passengers and crew to the back of the plane while Fayez Banihammad and al-Shehri killed the pilots Victor Saracini and Michael Horrocks allowing al-Shehhi to take control of the plane.
Aftermath
On September 22, 2001, Arab News reported that Hamza al-Ghamdi's father told the Al-Watan newspaper that an "FBI-released" photograph bore absolutely no resemblance to his son. However, the picture Ghamdi's father refers to is assumed to have not been a picture released by the FBI, as they did not make the hijacker's pictures available until September 27, 2001. He appeared in a video released on September 8, 2006, that showed the planning of the attacks.
