An Egyptian-American

cab driver "Cab Driver" is a song written by Carson Parks and performed by The Mills Brothers featuring Sy Oliver, Sy Oliver and His Orchestra. It reached #3 on the Adult Contemporary (chart), Easy Listening chart, #21 on the ''Cashbox (magazine), Cashbo ...

, Ihab Mohamed Ali Nawawi became a personal pilot to

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

in the early 1990s.

Life

Nawawi moved to the United States as a youth with his family, and attended an Orlando high school before traveling to fight in the

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. He trained at the Airman Flight School in

Norman, Oklahoma Norman () is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,097 as of 2021. It is the largest city and the county seat of Cleveland County, Oklahoma, Cleveland County, and the second-largest city in the Oklahoma C ...

, before joining the fledgling

al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

in the

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

.Benjamin, Daniel & Steven Simon. "The Age of Sacred Terror", 2002 Bergen, Peter, " Holy War, Inc.", 2001 In the 1990s, he worked for the

Muslim World League The Muslim World League (MWL; ar, رابطة العالم الاسلامي, Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami, ) is an International Islamic NGO based in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that promotes what it calls the true message of Islam by advancing moderate v ...

in Pakistan.

L'Houssaine Kherchtou L'Houssaine Kherchtou (born May 15, 1964) was an early initiate in al-Qaeda, joining the militant group in 1991. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder, but as he was the chief witness against four of his former colleagues, all of whom ...

later testified in the United States that he had seen an Egyptian briefing Nawawi on

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

procedures, leading him to believe that an attack on an airplane, possibly in Saudi Arabia, was in the works.

Sudan

After

Wadih el-Hage Wadih Elias el-Hage ( ar, وديع الحاج, ''Wadī‘ al-Ḥāj'') (born July 25, 1960) is Lebanese, and naturalized American citizen, who is serving life imprisonment in the United States based on conspiracy charges for the 1998 United State ...

asked

Essam al-Ridi A veteran of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,Benjamin, Daniel & Steven Simon. "The Age of Sacred Terror", 2002 Essam al-Ridi was an American who was tasked to purchase a light aircraft by Osama bin Laden in 1993; but fled after accidentally crash ...

to sell a private Sabre-40 jet on the Egyptian market, al-Ridi traveled to

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...

where he met with Nawawi and the pair of them tried to repair the plane; however the brakes failed after a test flight with both men flying, and the plane crashed into a

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

. The event attracted public attention, since the plane was unique in being a private aircraft at

Khartoum International Airport Khartoum International Airport (Arabic:مطار الخرطوم الدولي) is the principal airport in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The current airport will be replaced by the New Khartoum International Airport in Omdourman 40 kilom ...

and known to belong to

. Worried that the Egyptian

Mukhabarat ( ar, مخابرات, also transliterated '' / ''), is the Arabic term for intelligence, as used by an intelligence agency. In most of the Middle East, the term is colloquially used in reference to secret police agents who spy on civilians. Organi ...

would learn of his whereabouts, al-Ridi fled the Sudan.United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
January 14, 2001

Return to United States

Nawawi returned to the United States in 1996. When Ali Mohamed moved to the United States, Nawawi helped him make the transition. When Mohamed was arrested as a

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

working for both

Egyptian Islamic Jihad The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...

and the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

, a letter from Nawawi was discovered in his house that urged him to give "best regards to your friend Osama". He was arrested May 18, 1999, in Orlando.Murphy, Chuck. 'Pilot Led a Quiet Life in Orlando.' St. Petersburg Times: Oct. 28, 2001. In September 2000, he was charged with

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...

and

perjury Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...

. In March 2001, Nawawi pleaded guilty to perjury, criminal contempt and conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. At a May 2009 sentencing, he received time served after spending a decade in prison and was released.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nawawi, Ihab Ali American aviators American al-Qaeda members Living people Egyptian emigrants to the United States Year of birth missing (living people)