Hamza al-Ghamdi

Terror organization: Al Qaeda.

Status: A key leader.

Role: Hamza al-Ghamdi is a native of Saudi Arabia and a senior leader of the terrorist group Al Qaeda. Before September 11 terror attack, Al-Ghamdi was one of Usama bin Laden’s most trusted associates and head of bin Laden’s security detail.

Al-Ghamdi fought invading Soviet troops alongside bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He participated in terrorist attacks in Tajikistan in the early 1990s and also operated an Al Qaeda guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan.

In December 2001 he fought in the last battle of Tora Bora, a U.S. military operation in eastern Afghanistan aimed at capturing or killing bin Laden in response to the September 11 attacks.

Al-Ghamdi wrote a letter in which he pledged to abide by AQ’s line of succession and revealed that he was now part of the organization’s Shura council. He also worked with senior AQ leaders Abd al-Rahman al-Maghrebi and the now-deceased Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Location: Unknown, possibly Afghanistan

Also Known As: Hamza al-Ghamdi (Hamza Salih bin Sa’id al-Ghamdi) aka Abu Mariam