FBI confirms Saudi Arabia's suspected ties to the 9/11 attacks by revealing the name of diplomat who 'helped the attackers'
The FBI has revealed the name of a former Saudi Embassy official who is suspected of helping two Al-Qaeda hijackers in the 9/11 terror attacks.
According to published news reports, the mistake was made in a recent filing in response to a lawsuit from families of 9/11 victims who have accused the Saudi government of being complicit in the terrorist attacks.
In the document, which was filed in April but unsealed last week, lawyers forgot to redact Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah's name. He was assigned to the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC, in 1999 and 2000.
Authorities suspected that al-Jarrah, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, instructed two people to assist Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar settle in the US ahead of the attacks. Hazmi and Mihdhar participated in the hijacking of the American Airlines plane that flew into the Pentagon, killing 125.
Court filings were intended to support the Justice Departments desire to keep the official's identity secret.
In the declaration, which was filed by Jill Sanborn, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, she refers to a 2012 report which was heavily redacted, but showed two people who were possibly linked to the Saudi government.
Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar al-Bayoumi were investigated for assisting the hijackers while the name of a third man was redacted but he is believed to be a high-ranking government official in Riyadh. US authorities suspect al-Jarrah of being the 'third man'. At the time, al-Thumairy, a Saudi Islamic Affairs official and radical cleric, served as the imam of the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles, and al-Bayoumi, was a suspected Saudi government agent.
According to the 2012 report, FBI agents had uncovered 'evidence' that Thumairy and Bayoumi had been 'tasked' to assist the hijackers by another individual. In one instance, investigators discovered that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar had traveled to Los Angeles in January 2000. Once they arrived in Los Angeles, al-Bayoumi found them an apartment, lent them money and set them up with bank accounts.
2000 KUALA LUMPUR AQ SUMMIT, THE MALAYSIAN CONNECTION, PARTICIPATION OF HAZMI & MIHDHAR AND CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
CIA agents tracked two September 11 plotters attending an Al Qaeda terror summit in Malaysia and watched them re-enter the United States - but failed to tell the FBI as disclosed by a news report.
Saudi-born terrorists Khalid Mihdhar and Nawaf Hazmi, who were aboard the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon, could have led the FBI to ringleader Mohamed Atta and at least five other terrorists months before the deadly attacks.
The intelligence screw-up has led to angry showdowns in the White House, including one meeting in which top State Department consular official Wayne Griffith reportedly blew up at a CIA agent.
As CIA officials prepare for Senate Intelligence Committee hearings this week, a senior FBI official branded as “unforgivable” the spy agency’s failure to put domestic law enforcement in the loop.
“There’s no question we could have tied all 19 hijackers together,” the official said.
The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center had Almihdhar, 26, and Alhazmi, 25, under the microscope in January 2000 – 20 months before Sept. 11 – when they attended the terror summit in an upscale condo in Kuala Lumpur, according to the report, which appears in this week’s issue of Newsweek.
With U.S. law-enforcement agencies already on red alert for an al Qaeda strike, the magazine said, CIA agents tracked Alhazmi as he flew back to Los Angeles on the same flight as Almihdhar and returned to an apartment they were renting in San Diego.
But instead of immediately alerting the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which could have refused them entry, or informing the FBI, which could have shadowed the pair, the CIA waited until Aug. 23 – three weeks before the attacks – before warning law enforcement to be on the lookout for the men.
With the FBI out of the loop, Alhazmi and Almihdhar lived openly in San Diego, taking flying lessons and using their real names on driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and credit cards.
Atta, who piloted the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, visited the San Diego house, according to neighbors.
When Alhazmi, who was listed in the phone book, was picked up for speeding in Oklahoma five months before the attacks, a state trooper ran his license through criminal databases and turned up nothing.
The CIA, which is prohibited from spying on people within the United States, also failed to pass on information that it had linked Almihdhar with a terrorist involved in the bombing of USS Cole in Yemen in Oct. 2000, the report said.
Unaware of the link, the State Department’s Consular Office in Saudi Arabia issued Almihdhar the new visa he used to re-enter the United States, through New York, two months before Sept. 11.
If the Feds had tracked the pair in the months before the attacks, they would have found Alhazmi opening bank accounts with five other 9/11 terrorists in New Jersey.
One month before the strikes, Almihdhar also met with Atta and several other hijackers in Las Vegas.
The latest evidence of glaring security lapses follows intense criticism of the FBI’s failure to act on clues pointing to a major terror attack.
Despite the CIA’s reluctance to share critical information, the agency’s director, George Tenet, told a Senate panel that he was proud of its record.
He claimed the terrorist strikes were not due to a “failure of attention and discipline and focus and consistent effort – and the American people need to understand that.”