The 19 hijackers apply and receive a total of 23 visas at five different posts from November 1997 through June 2001. Hani Hanjour, Khalid Almihdhar, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami, Saudi citizens, apply twice at Jeddah. Only Hanjour applies for a student visa, others for tourist/business visa. [United States General Accounting Office, 10/21/2002 
; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 7-45 ] 
The fifteen Saudi hijackers apply for their visas in their home country. Four at the embassy in Riyadh: Hamza Alghamdi (10/17/2000), Mohand Alshehri (10/23/2000), Majed Moqed (11/20/2000) and Satam Al Suqami (11/21/2000). Eleven at the US consulate in Jeddah: Hani Hanjour (11/2/1997 and 9/25/2000), Khalid Almihdhar (4/7/1999 and 6/13/2001), Saeed Alghamdi (9/4/2000 and 6/12/2001), and Ahmed Alnami (10/28/2000 and 4/28/2001), Nawaf Alhazmi (4/3/1999), Ahmed Alghamdi (9/3/2000), Wail Alshehri (10/24/2000), Waleed M. Alshehri (10/24/2000), Abdulaziz Alomari (6/18/2001), Salem Alhazmi (6/20/2001), and Ahmed Alhaznawi (11/12/2000). Fayez Ahmed Banihammad and Marwan Alshehhi apply in their home country, the United Arab Emirates, respectively at the US embassy in Abu Dhabi on 6/18/2001 and at consulate in Dubai on 1/18/2000. Mohamed Atta (Egyptian) and Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese) apply, as third-country national applicants, at the US embassy in Berlin, respectively, on May 18 and 25, 2000.
Summer 2001: CENTCOM Commander Franks Is Concerned that Al-Qaeda Will Use Planes to Attack Western Facilities
Army General Tommy Franks raises concerns that al-Qaeda will attack Western facilities in the Middle East using planes loaded with explosives. [Franks and McConnell, 2004, pp. 235-236; Globe and Mail, 10/9/2004] As commander in chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), Franks is in charge of US military operations in an area covering 25 nations in North Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East. [CNN, 10/24/2001; ABC News, 1/7/2006] “Through the spring of 2001 and into the summer, protecting our deployed troops from terrorists remained an ever-present concern,” he will later write. During the summer, CENTCOM intelligence officers work with the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, “collecting and analyzing persistent but unspecific indications of planned terrorist activity in the Middle East.” On several occasions, Franks increases CENTCOM’s force protection posture—the “Threatcon”—“but never as a result of a specific threat” (see June 21, 2001). “Something was brewing, but the best minds at the CIA and the National Security Agency could not pin down the threats with any degree of certainty,” he will comment. “Where would we see a terrorist act… and when?” As he reads “the increasingly alarming reports of potential attacks on Western facilities in the region,” it occurs to Franks that al-Qaeda might carry out suicide attacks using aircraft. “Al-Qaeda had used cars, trucks, and boats as suicide bombs,” he will write. “What about small planes loaded with high explosives?” He sends a note—first to the US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and then to the other US embassies within CENTCOM’s area of responsibility—in which he asks the ambassadors to pass on his concerns to their hosts. He tells them, “We should work to tune the host nations in the region in to this type of threat.” [Franks and McConnell, 2004, pp. 235-236]
