Saudi Arabia really might have funded 9/11

Brainster said:
Don't know if this is really new or not, but investigators for the 9/11 families have uncovered a startling video, taken by Omar Al-Bayoumi, in which he travels around Washington DC, filming major buildings and talking about his intention to "report in detail what is there." At one point he mentions "the plan." The video was found in a search of Al-Bayoumi's flat in London, and reportedly turned over to the FBI shortly after the attacks.
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Yeah this is rather...eyebrow-raising, to put it mildly.
 
Allen773 said:
A lot of this comes from FBI documents.
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I don't understand. Are you claiming that the FBI's allegations are the evidence that those allegations are true? Do you not want the FBI to present the evidence that supports their allegations rather than simply asserting that their allegations are supported by evidence?
 
You have to read the FBI report, it's here:

https://vault.fbi.gov/9-11-attacks-...sive-to-executive-order-14040-2-d-part-2/view

A whole lot is redacted, and in the end the FBI looks like it's trying to fill in holes for things they should have been on top of in the late 1990s. There is a lot of supposition, and not much in the way of hard evidence. Don't know if this is by design, or their blind spot was worse than we thought (which is more likely the case).

And keep in mind this is against the backdrop of a civil case. If there is a document and or transcript of an intercepted conversation between Saudi government employees and Al Qaeda it hasn't been made public. Doesn't mean there was no Saudi help, just that there is no evidence, just FBI assumptions, deductions, and allegations that are internal Bureau discussions, and not official positions.

To put it another way, we're still in the same place we were on 9/12/2001 on this issue.
 
A Saudi official took a video of the Washington monument and the capitol. That does not support the claim that Saudi Arabia funded the 9/11 attacks.
 
Puppycow said:
The question for me was always whether they wittingly funded it. If they gave them money and assistance, but had no idea what they planned to do, that's a little different.
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Is this an important question?

The Saudis have been funding Muslim extremist education for decades as the means to offset their pact with the Great Satan and their debauchery.
Just because they might not have known that their funds would be used this way doesn't excuse them from giving the funds to people who would.
The law puts up a very high bar for providing that you only unwittingly supported terrorists.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The law puts up a very high bar for providing that you only unwittingly supported terrorists.
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And as Axxman pointed out, these documents are part of a civil case brought by a large group of 9/11 victims’s families against the Kingdom, a case they could only make because of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) which provides a means for plaintiffs to bypass the diplomatic immunity of foreign governments and find them civilly liable in US courts in cases of terrorist acts on US soil.

What the plaintiffs in this case have argued is that a group of Saudi officials and agents who were employed in their embassy in Washington and their consulate in Los Angeles not only provided substantial assistance to some of the 9/11 hijackers, but that such assistance was decisive in enabling them to carry out the 9/11 attacks. They point in particular to Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, who not only had extensively reported contact with some of those aforementioned Saudi officials and agents (particularly Omar al-Bayoumi, Fahd al-Thumairy, and their associates) but, unlike the Hamburg cell hijackers Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, had no experience in the West, spoke no English, and certainly didn’t know anyone in America when they arrived in early 2000.

It’s thus perfectly reasonable to assume that al-Qaeda would have arranged for Hazmi and Midhar to have received help from fellow travelers who were already established in the US. And Thumairy, Bayoumi, and many others of those named in these FBI documents had, or are alleged to have had, multiple ties to al-Qaeda and other jihadist/extremist groups.

Remember, civil suit = preponderance of evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. Certainly a lower standard of evidentiary proof required here.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
Is this an important question?

The Saudis have been funding Muslim extremist education for decades as the means to offset their pact with the Great Satan and their debauchery.
Just because they might not have known that their funds would be used this way doesn't excuse them from giving the funds to people who would.
The law puts up a very high bar for providing that you only unwittingly supported terrorists.
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Read The Looming Tower. Osama's charitable arm in Afghanistan was not called Death to the Great Satan, it was named Social Services. Tens or even hundreds of millions went through its coffers; in total the 9-11 attacks probably cost about $500,000.
 
Oof.

'Co-opted’ by Saudi intelligence, FBI informant allegedly played vital role in 9/11 preparations

Dr. Abdussattar Shaikh, the FBI informant who shared his home with Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, had in fact been “co-opted” by a Saudi intelligence asset with whom he shared a close, years-long relationship.

The allegation surfaced in federal court in New York in the long-running civil court case in which families and survivors of 9/11 are suing Saudi Arabia for the role the Kingdom’s employees allegedly played in the attack. It is contained in a document filed by the plaintiffs.
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Some elements to Shaikh’s story that have not yet emerged in court – the assertion of a former senior FBI counterterrorism agent, identified only as CS-22, that the “post 9/11 investigation into Shaikh’s activities showed that he was receiving funds from the Saudi Arabian government while he was serving as an informant for the FBI.” CS-22’s statement is contained in a July 2021 sworn declaration by Donald Canestraro, a defense team investigator for Guantanamo detainee Ammar al Baluchi.

Then there is the fact that, although Shaikh repeatedly said the hijackers had not “used” his phone, later analysis of the records showed that they did at least receive calls on it. In Summer 2000 there were a flurry of calls to the house from the phone of a young Saudi prince, Nawaf bin Saud bin Mohammed bin al Saud. Between June and November, meanwhile, there were 16 calls from an al Qaeda safe house in Pakistan, FBI reports say.
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https://www.floridabulldog.org/2024/09/co-opted-saudi-intelligence-fbi-informant-shaikh-allegedly-played-role-9-11-preparations/
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. (7News) — A group called 9/11 Justice, which is made up of families of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, held a press conference at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Monday morning, where they demanded the Saudi government extradite a man for his role in helping carry out the deadly terrorist attack.

It comes after 60 Minutes released a bombshell report on evidence first obtained by the British government, implicating Omar al-Bayoumi surveilled the U.S. Capitol and assisted two hijackers in the lead-up to the attacks.
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The group claims the FBI was given this evidence but that it "remained buried for more than twenty years." Justice 9/11 also demanded that new FBI leadership explain why past officials failed to act on this information.
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wjla.com

9/11 families demand Saudi government extradite man involved in terrorist attack

Survivors, families and first responders of 9/11 are calling for the Saudi government to extradite Omar al-Bayoumi.
wjla.com wjla.com

I’m not holding out hope. The US government (and others) will proceed with Saudi Arabia doing business (literally) as usual. They do buy a lot of our weapons, and they do have a lot of money from all that oil…and highly-compensated friends in Washington. It’s incredibly cynical and transactional, but that’s (geo)politics for you.

Meanwhile the 9/11 Truth movement has spent over two decades fixated on the idea that there were controlled demolitions at of World Trade Center, missiles hitting the Pentagon, and other obvious nonsense (along with The Joos being the real culprits, naturally …Al Qaeda and presumably, their funders and facilitators in countries like Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Pakistan, Yemen being as innocent as “patsy” Lee Harvey Oswald, per Truther ill-logic.

Anyway, I’m rooting for the 9/11 families here, but again…I’m skeptical much will come of this.
 
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Some more discussion of what was found at al-Bayoumi's flat, including a sketch of an airplane and what appears to be a formula estimating the rate of descent for a plane to hit a target at the horizon, based on the altitude of the plane. His explanation seems a bit far-fetched:

Omar al-Bayoumi (translator speaking English during deposition): Perhaps this was an equation that we studied before in high school and I was trying to remember whether I'm going to be able to figure out and solve it or not.

Attorney (during deposition): And what is it an equation for?

Omar al-Bayoumi (during deposition): I don't know. Just– just doesn't matter. Just equation.
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Al-Bayoumi has always been suspicious AF, but that sketch (shown at the link) is just about conclusive. He was in on the plot.
 
It is equally reasonable that Omar al-Bayoumi is an idiot who got his job through connections with the Saudi royal family. If you know anything about the Saudi government you know that the odds of this being true are better than 70%. I want to be done with 9-11. I'll bottom-line it:

Did the Saudis fund 9-11? No.
Did a few Saudis contribute money to Al Qaeda? Yes. Al Qaeda had earned a reputation in the Afghan War. Wahabism is a thing.
Did these Saudis know Al Qaeda was going to strike America? Few, maybe. AQ had struck American targets in the Middle East, but a strike on CONUS is a whole different beast.
Did these few Saudis know the details of 9-11? No. I doubt most of the actual hijackers knew.

To me the whole "The Saudis did 9-11" is the kind of lazy, racist thinking that made 9-11 possible. Al Qaeda's stated goal is control of Saudi Arabia, and Mecca. Why would the Saudi's knowingly give them cash? I've posted before that the Saudis did an internal audit, and a couple of key players were later found dead in the desert. The Saudis are in a hot-zone, and are adept negotiators unafraid to pay big money, and facilitate deals to keep a peace that keeps them in power on the peninsula. This is why Al Qaeda hates them, among other reasons (working with Israel being a big one). The Saudis have been a huge help since 2001 with targeting intelligence. To tar the Saudis with the actions of a half-dozen isn't reasoned thinking.

And no, the current administration doesn't give a crap:

 
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There’s a lot of room between “the Saudi government did 9/11” and “Some Saudi officials who sympathized with Al Qaeda helped them do 9/11” or “A lot of Al-Qaeda’s money came from Saudi Arabia/the Gulf and some of the donors know perfectly well that their money fuels violent jihad.”

Just speaking for myself: I’m not accusing the late King Abdullah or other senior princes and officials of knowingly funding terrorism against the US. I am accusing them of carelessness in their charitable contributions and poor judgment in some cases (trusting the wrong people, because so-and-so’ really wants a job for his nephew at the Saudi embassy in Washington—nevermind that said nephew is a religious fanatic).

But like you said, they’ve gotten a lot better about this since 9/11 (well really since 2003 when al Qaeda launched a massive terrorist campaign within the Kingdom itself). Still an awful regime though again, that’s geopolitics for you.
 
Would still be nice to fill in the blanks. al-Bayoumi isn't the only Saudi we need pulled back for questioning to help fill in the missing details, Fahad al-Thumairy and Qualid Benomrane are another key part of the puzzle that remains covered up. We still don't know who's name was on the credit card used to prebook the room at the LAX Hilton that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi stayed at the first night they arrived in the US.. because it's been redacted and the FBI won't tell us...
 
On the subject of the Saudis and 9/11, one thing that bothers me is the myth that members of the royal family, the bin Laden family, and other well-connected Saudis were allowed to leave the US "when all other flights were grounded."

In reality there was one flight with some princes that took off on September 13 AFTER the 48-hour nationwide ban on air traffic (other than US military aircraft) was lifted. The other flights were in the days and week or two after that.

The al-Saud and bin Laden families are rich and well-connected, and they were obviously terrified of all of the atmosphere in the immediate aftermath of the attacks after it emerged that Osama bin Laden was behind them and that most of the hijackers were Saudi nationals. That's why, with the help of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and the authorization of the US government, they wanted and were able to get out of the US as soon as they could after 9/11. None of this means that they had anything to do with the attacks, even if a lot of Saudi money has gone indirectly to al-Qaeda or that there were many "fellow travelers" in the Kingdom at the time.
 
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