Biden Declassifies Secret FBI Report Detailing Saudi Nationals' Connections To 9/11
The Biden administration has declassified a 16-page FBI report tying 9/11 hijackers to Saudi nationals living in the United States. The document, written in 2016, summarized an FBI investigation into those ties called Operation ENCORE.
The partially redacted report shows a closer relationship than had been previously known between two Saudis in particular — including one with diplomatic status — and some of the hijackers. Families of the 9/11 victims have long sought after the report, which painted a starkly different portrait than the one described by the 9/11 Commission Report in 2004.
While the Commission was largely unable to tie the Saudi men to the hijackers, the FBI document describes multiple connections and phone calls.
Years ago, the Commission wrote that when it came to the Saudi diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy, "We have not found evidence that Thumairy provided assistance to the two hijackers." A decade later, it appears FBI agents came to a different conclusion. The report says Thumairy "tasked" an associate to help the hijackers when they arrived in Los Angeles, and told the associate the hijackers were "two very significant people," more than a year before the attacks.
The report also casts new light on the meeting of a Saudi government employee with the hijackers in a restaurant. What was once portrayed as a chance meeting is now painted as a preplanned, well orchestrated event. The 2004 9/11 Commission had described the Saudi employee, Omar al-Bayoumi, as "gregarious." Investigators wrote that they found him "to be an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamic extremists."
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/12/1036389448/biden-declassifies-secret-fbi-report-detailing-saudi-nationals-connections-to-9-
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