Mohamed Atta
Atta was born on September 1, 1968, in Kafr el-Sheikh, located in Egypt's Nile Delta region. His father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, was a lawyer, educated in both sharia and civil law. His mother, Bouthayna Mohamed Mustapha Sheraqi, came from a wealthy farming and trading family and was also educated. Bouthayna and Mohamed married when she was 14, via an arranged marriage. The family had few relatives on the father's side and kept a distance from Bouthayna's family. In-laws characterized Atta's father as "austere, strict, and private," and neighbors considered the family reclusive. Atta was the only son; he had two older sisters who are both well-educated and successful in their careers — one as a medical doctor and the other as a professor.
Mohamed Ag Najem
He is thought to be born at the end of the 1950s in the Adrar des Ifoghas massif. His father of the Kel Adagh tribe was killed by the Malian army in the 1963 Tuareg rebellion at a time where he was a young child. At 20 years old he was recruited as a volunteer in the Libyan army under Gaddafi. He served in Libya and in Chad before returning to Mali to take part in the 1990 Tuareg rebellion led by Iyad Ag Ghaly. He then returned to Libya, rejecting the peace agreement signed between the Malian government and the Tuareg rebels. He became a colonel in the Libyan army and was put in charge of an elite unit in the city of Sabha. The civil war in Libya prompted his return to his homeland.