Ahmed Ressam (Arabic: احمد رسام‎; also Benni Noris or the Millennium Bomber; born (1967-05-09)May 9, 1967, in Bou Ismaïl, Algeria) is an Algerian al-Qaeda member who lived in Montreal, Canada.

He was convicted of attempting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve 1999, as part of the foiled 2000 millennium attack plots. He was initially sentenced to 22 years in prison, but in February 2010 an appellate court held his sentence to be too lenient, and ordered that it be extended.

The eldest of seven children, he grew up in a town west of Algiers, and graduated from high school in 1988. In 1984 Ressam traveled to Paris, France, for special medical treatments and it was his first time out of Algeria. Ressam failed the exams to college and applied for jobs with police or security forces but was turned down. Over the next four years he worked with his father in a coffee shop.

He left Algeria on September 5, 1992 due to the civil war outrage in the country, entering France on a forged Moroccan passport in the name of "Nassar Ressam". He was arrested on immigration violations in Corsica, a territorial collectivity of France, in November 1993, and France deported him to Morocco on November 8, 1993, and banned him from returning for three years.Morocco determined that he was not in fact Moroccan, however, and returned him to France. Faced with a March 1994 hearing, he instead flew to Montreal, Canada.

George Y. Massenburg (born Baltimore, Maryland) is a recording engineer and inventor. Working principally in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Nashville, and Macon, Georgia, Massenburg is widely known for submitting a paper to the Audio Engineering Society in 1972 regarding the parametric equalizer.

At 15, Massenburg worked part-time both in the recording studio and in an electronics laboratory. He attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and Johns Hopkins University, majoring in electrical engineering. As a sophomore, he left the University and never returned.

Massenburg authored a technical paper entitled "parametric equalization" which was presented at the 42nd convention of the Audio Engineering Society in 1972. He is regularly published in professional journals and trade magazines worldwide. In 1973 and 1974, he was chief engineer of Studio Europa-Sonor in Paris, France. During those years, Massenburg also did freelance engineering and equipment design in Europe.

Massenburg participated (individually and collaboratively) in over two hundred record albums over the past thirty years. His work includes recordings of James Taylor, Billy Joel, Toto, Dixie Chicks, Journey, Madeleine Peyroux, Little Feat, Randy Newman, Lyle Lovett, Aaron Neville, Kenny Loggins, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Linda Ronstadt, Earth, Wind & Fire and many more. He has designed, built and managed several recording studios, notably ITI Studios in Hunt Valley, Maryland and The Complex in Los Angeles. In addition, he has contributed to the acoustical and architectural design of many other studios, including Skywalker Sound and The Site in Marin County, California.

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.

As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.

Ahmed Arif (1927 Diyarbakır -1991) was a Kurdish poet of Turkey.

Ahmed Arif has studied philosophy at Ankara University. He has been arrested on political grounds in 1950 and spent time in prison till 1952. Published in various literary journals, his poems were widely read due to their original lyricism and imagery influenced by Anatolian folk cultures. He has published only one collection of poetry: Hasretinden Prangalar Eskittim (Fetters Worn Out by Longing/1968) – a volume which has gone through a record number of printings.