Fathers Say 9-11 Suspects Gave No Warning

ByABC News
March 15, 2002, 10:29 AM

K H A M I S  M U S H A Y T, Saudi Arabia, March 15 -- When Saudi businessman Mohammed Alshehri opened the local newspaper a week after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was astonished to see two of his sons listed among the 19 suspected hijackers.

"It was a huge shock for me, for their mother, and for all of their brothers and sisters," he said.

Alshehri read that U.S. authorities believed his sons, Wail, 25, and Waleed, 21, were among the hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Although the two boys had disappeared months earlier without a word to their family, Alshehri could not believe they were among the hijackers. He had never heard them talk of Osama bin Laden or fighting a holy jihad against the United States, he told ABCNEWS' Barbara Walters in his first interview since the attacks.

Alshehri also said he has yet to see any hard evidence that his sons were involved. "Even if they were on board that plane, maybe they were just passengers," he said.

Abdullah Alnami, whose son Ahmed has been identified as one of the hijackers on board hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, is also holding out hope. "Perhaps somebody used his passport," he told Walters.

Bred in Remote, Conservative Southwestern Province

The Alshehri and Alnami families both live in the isolated, mountainous province of Asir in the southwestern corner of Saudi Arabia. The province's name means "difficult" in Arabic, and underdevelopment has left many of its young men jobless and frustrated. Tribal tradition and religious conservatism run high in the province, and it was home to four of the 15 Saudis among the suspected hijackers.

Alshehri, a prosperous real estate developer who donated a mosque to the local town, Khamis Mushayt, has a total of 14 sons and six daughters, born to four wives.

He said that Wail, an arts teacher, became depressed and went to the holy city of Medina in December 2000 with his brother to consult a religious teacher. When they came back, said another brother, Saleh, Wail and Waleed did not seem to be any more religious than before, though Wail told the family that seeing the religious teacher had lifted his depression.