[4] Following his service in the Egyptian Army, he told his father he wanted to study in the United States, but instead moved to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at the age of 19.

[4] Dressed as a Saudi sheikh and calling himself Fawzi Al-Harbi,[4] he was arrested in Canada when immigration official Gordon Peterson became suspicious of his story of being an "Arab volunteer" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ordered a search of his luggage and found his fake identity cards.

While in prison, on charges of using a forged document, fraud and illegally entering the country, Marzouk applied for refugee status, claiming he feared religious and political persecution in Egypt.

[4] He was once shown a Time magazine article about the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and asked if he knew any of the people involved, in the presence of his lawyer Phil Rankin.

Dahab later told Egyptian interrogators he had withdrawn $3,000 from a Californian bank account on orders of bin Laden himself,[18] to offer as bail money to Marzouk's lawyer.

[22] That year, Marzouk co-founded an import-export business named 4-U Enterprises with his "best friend" in Canada, former Egyptian Amr Hamed who shared his love of sports.

[15] After five years, and his wife getting a divorce from him, Marzouk left Canada and flew to Turkey, where he is believed to have met with Ahmad Agiza before returning to Eastern Afghanistan.

[15] In August, a wiretapped phonecall tipped off the Israeli Mossad that a rendez-vous between Ihab Saqr and an Iranian MOIS official was planned in Baku, Azerbaijan.

[29][30] In November 2001, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated claims that an "al-Qaeda office" in Kabul had business cards reading 4-U Enterprises and included an address for a rented postal box in a B.C.