Mohamed Atta
Atta was born in 1968 in a small town in Egypt's Nile Delta. He was 10 years old when he moved with his family to the Abdeen section of Cairo. Atta studied architecture at Cairo University, graduating in 1990, and continued his studies in Germany at the Hamburg University of Technology. In Hamburg, Atta became involved with the al-Quds Mosque, where he met Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ziad Jarrah, together forming the Hamburg cell. Atta disappeared from Germany for periods of time, spending some time in Afghanistan, including several months in late 1999 and early 2000 when he met Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders. Atta and the other Hamburg cell members were recruited by bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for the "planes operation" in the United States. Atta returned to Hamburg in February 2000, and began inquiring about flight training in the United States.
Mohamed Said Samatar
He was born in Wardheer, in 1933 (officially on September 5, 1928) a town in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. While very young, he participated in the fight for his country's independence. In 1947 he joined the Somali Youth League, a movement opposing the British occupation. After attending normal school, he became an elementary teacher, then worked for BBC Somali and Radio Mogadishu and, in 1958, went to Rome, where he was placed in charge of RAI's Africa and Somali Service (Italian Radio Broadcasting and Television Company) broadcasts to Africa. While in Rome, he studied political science at the university of level.