Ahmed Ressam (Arabic: احمد رسام; also Benni Noris; born May 9, 1967), also known as the "Millennium Bomber", is an Algerian al-Qaeda member who lived for a time in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

He was convicted in 2001 of planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve 1999, as part of the foiled 2000 millennium attack plots.

[7] He left Algeria on September 5, 1992, due to the civil war in the country, entering France on a forged Moroccan passport in the name of "Nassar Ressam".

[15] Ressam entered Canada on February 20, 1994, using a fake, illegally altered French passport in the name of "Anjer Tahar Medjadi".

[10][16] When immigration officials at the Montreal-Mirabel International Airport arrested him and confronted him about the altered passport, he divulged his real name and applied for refugee status.

[10] In his effort to obtain political asylum, he told the Canadian authorities a false story about having been subjected to abuse and torture in Algeria.

[19] According to Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials, he was under surveillance as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist ring from 1996 until he left the country.

He told Ressam about the experience and jihad, encouraged him to train as well, and ultimately arranged a trip to the camp for him and his roommate Mustapha Labsi.

[7][15][21] On March 17, 1998, interested in joining jihad in Afghanistan, Ressam traveled using his fraudulent "Benni Noris" passport from Montreal to Karachi, Pakistan.

[7][10] There, he contacted al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah in Peshawar, who was thought to supervise Afghan terrorist training camps funded and organized by Bin Laden.

[10][17] Abu Zubeida, in contrast, testified before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal that Khalden only trained fighters for "defensive jihad".

[10] Ressam returned to Montreal in February 1999 under the name "Benni Noris", bringing $12,000 in cash he had obtained in Afghanistan to fund the attack.

[10][14] In the summer of 1999, informed by Abu Doha that the other members of his cell had been unable to reach Canada due to immigration issues, he chose to continue without them.

[1][17] He planned to conduct a rehearsal using a luggage cart, putting it in a place that was not suspicious, and observing how long it would take for airport security to notice it.

[17] In November, with Dahoumane's assistance, he bought urea and aluminum sulfate from nurseries, and mixed it together with nitric and sulphuric acid he stole from fertilizer manufacturers to create a TNT-like explosive substance.

[14][23] In early November he recruited Haouari to assist him in what he described as "some very important and dangerous business in the U.S.", by providing continued funding for his project, a credit card, and a fake ID.

In addition, Haouari in turn recruited Brooklyn, New York-based Algerian illegal immigrant Abdelghani Meskini, a con man who he said was involved in bank fraud, to assist Ressam.

[25] In December Ressam called Abu Jaffar in Afghanistan to ask whether Osama bin Laden wanted to take credit for the attack, but did not get an answer.

[23][24] He also called Abu Doha in London, told him that he wanted to return to Algeria after the attack, and was assured he would receive money and documents.

Meskini would assist him by helping him rent a car and communicate in English, driving him, and giving him a cell phone and money withdrawn with a stolen bank debit card.

[2][9][10] Following a 19-day trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, with approximately 120 witnesses, a jury found Ressam guilty on all counts of his indictment on April 6, 2001.

[1] Ressam provided information to law enforcement officials of the U.S. and six other countries with regard to al-Qaeda's organization, recruitment, and training activities.

In addition, Ressam said that Ahcene Zemiri, a fellow Algerian who was being held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, was involved in the plot.

[10] Ressam's accusations were used as the basis of 7 of the 12 unclassified allegations in the Summary of Evidence memo prepared for Abu Zubeida's Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

[21][22] The Globe and Mail opined that the intelligence analysts' reliance on Ressam's confessions was due to wanting unclassified allegations against Abu Zubeida to be based on evidence that was not gained through torture.

[34] According to the Seattle Times, the judge used the occasion of Ressam's sentencing to unleash a broadside against secret tribunals and other war on terrorism tactics that abandon 'the ideals that set our nation apart.

In January 2007, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle reversed Ressam's conviction on the count of carrying an explosive "during the commission of" the felony of making a false statement to a US customs official.