Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi travel to San Diego from Los Angeles. Though Omar Bayoumi is assumed to drive them, the 9/11 Commission reports (p. 218) states that the two were driven by Mohdar Abdullah, a Yemeni university student in his early 20s.
The two sign a four-month lease at Parkwood Apartments (Apartment #150) on 6401 Mount Ada Road, the same apartment complex where Bayoumi lives. Bayoumi held them to fill out the lease application and reportedly pays the deposit and the first month’s rent, also co-signing the lease, because the two had not opened a bank account and the manager would not take cash. (Mihdhar later opens a Bank of America account in San Diego with $9,900.)
Shortly after moving in, Bayoumi throws a party for the two to introduce the two to the Arab community in San Diego.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed later tells U.S. intelligence that it was his idea that the two should reside in San Diego, far from the region where the operation would take place, and also a community with a significant Saudi Muslim population. He tells the two to enroll in an English language course and then, once their English is satisfactory, to enroll in a flight school. He says that he was worried that Hazmi’s English (and aptitude) was so weak that he would not be able to train as a pilot. But Osama bin Laden had personally selected the two (who would both go on to be “muscle men” on the flight that attacked the Pentagon.
Day: February 4, 2021