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September 8, 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Seen with Unidentified Middle Eastern Male

2001-09-08

9/11 hijackers Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed fail to cash a check at the First Union Bank, where they are accompanied by an unidentified Middle Eastern male. The unidentified male presents a Pennsylvania driving license to a bank employee. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 265 pdf file] However, there is no record of any of the hijackers obtaining a Pennsylvania driver’s license. For example, no such license is mentioned in the 9/11 Commission’s Terrorist Travel monograph, which lists the documents the hijackers obtained in the US. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 20-33 pdf file] There is only one known instance of any 9/11 hijacker visiting Pennsylvania before 9/11, and that was a three day trip by Ziad Jarrah to Philadelphia in June 2001. Interestingly, Jarrah was seen with an unknown older man during that trip (see June 3-4, 2001). It is unclear whether the unidentified male with Hanjour and Moqed is an associate of the hijackers, or whether one of the hijackers obtained a Pennsylvania driver’s license and the FBI and 9/11 Commission failed to uncover this.