June 1, 2001: 9/11 Hijacker Almihdhar Acquires New Saudi Passport Despite Presence on Saudi Watchlist

9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar obtains a new passport in Saudi Arabia, despite being on the terrorist watch list there due to his part in a failed gunrunning plot (see 1997). The passport contains an indicator of possible terrorist affiliation used by the Saudi authorities to track terrorist suspects (see November 2, 2007) and lacks an expiry date. Although the nature of the indicator is not clear, one of the other hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, has an overlay of the Koran in his passport and immigration officials in the United Arab Emirates are said to find this suspicious, so the indicator in Almihdhar’s passport may be similar. Nevertheless, Almihdhar uses it to obtain a US visa (see June 13, 2001) and travels to the US on it (see July 4, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 24, 27 ]