He became involved with militancy in December 1999 at secondary school, when he attended gatherings to watch videos about the glory of Jihad and detailing the atrocities of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Yugoslav wars.
[citation needed] On February 15, 2000, Hamlan received a passport and after completing the Hajj, went to Sharjah, UAE, to obtain a visa to enter Pakistan.
[1] After injuring himself at the camp, Hamlan was assigned to guard Kandahar Airport, a task that the eventual hijackers Saeed al-Ghamdi and Waleed al-Shehri shared.
They also had their passports falsified to suggest that they were world travelers visiting locations such as Singapore, Malaysia, Egypt and Turkey.
After a meeting with Muhammad Atef, they flew to Tehran, Iran, onward to Qatar and back into the UAE before arriving in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.