Ramzi bin al-Shibh (1 May 1972-) was one of the founders of the Hamburg cell of al-Qaeda in Hamburg, Germany during the 1990s. al-Shibh was responsible for recruiting 19 9/11 hijackers in this position, but the expiration of his visa prevented him from taking part in the terrorist attacks. He was captured by the Pakistani ISI in Karachi in 2002, and Bin al-Shibh was detained at Guantanamo Bay for over ten years.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Ramzi bin al-Shibh in 1996
Ramzi bin al-Shibh was born on 1 May 1972 in Ghayl Bawazir, South Yemen to a working-class Sunni Muslim Arab family. He was taken care of by his mother and brother after his father died, and from 1987 to 1995 he worked as a clerk at the International Bank of Yemen. In 1995, he failed to obtain a United States visa (the USA did not want people from Yemen, a poor country, to overstay their visas and gain employment in America), so he headed to Germany instead.
Hamburg cell[]
Ramzi bin al-Shibh in 2001
In 1997, he met Mohamed Atta at a mosque in Hamburg, and he was roommates with Atta for two years. Bin al-Shibh and Atta founded the Hamburg cell, and the group would recruit 19 people to take part in the 11 September 2001 9/11 attacks. Ramzi bin al-Shibh befriended Ziad Jarrah at the University of Greifswald and convinced him to attend the al-Quds Mosque with him, starting him on his path towards radicalization. Bin al-Shibh had moderate Muslims such as Yasser Breish evicted from the mosque, only allowing Islamists into the mosque, where jihadists such as Mohammed Haydar Zammar spoke. He eventually persuaded Zammar to allow Jarrah to accompany him to meet Osama bin Laden, who was planning a special mission; he needed other people to take part in it aside from Atta and Bin al-Shibh, and it would be up to them to recruit other men for the operation.
9/11 attacks[]
Bin al-Shibh in 2008 in Guantanamo Bay
In November 1999, Bin al-Shibh traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan to be trained by al-Qaeda, and he helped in the planning of the 9/11 attacks. He was supposed to be one of the hijacker pilots alongside Jarrah and Atta, but he was refused a US entry visa four times due to the fears in America about illegal immigration. His friend Zakariya Essabar, another al-Qaeda member, was also denied entry. Ramzi bin al-Shibh paid for Zacarias Moussaoui to take flight lessons in Florida as a replacement for him, and he was still involved in planning the attacks, although he would not take part in the attacks.
In 2001, he met Atta for the last time in Spain, telling him that he would fight a new great battle for Islam just as Muhammad's companions had done in the 7th century AD, and bin al-Shibh was in contact with the hijackers until the end. On 11 September 2002, the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Ramzi bin al-Shibh was captured by the Pakistani ISI and the American CIA in Karachi after a shootout with police, and he was interrogated over the next decade while he was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba; his trial began in 2012. He was one of the first major al-Qaeda leaders to be arrested, and his capture was very important due to his role in planning out the 9.11 attacks.