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House passes bill to let 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia

September 9, 2016

House passes bill to let 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia, Washington Examiner, Susan Ferrechio, September 9, 2016

The House on Friday cleared a Senate-passed bill that would make it easier for the families of the Sept. 11 terror attack victims to sue the Saudi Arabian government, which some suspect enabled the perpetrators.

The bill was approved by voice-vote, sending a strong signal toPresident Obama that votes are there to override a threatened veto.The House vote comes four months after House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., signaled it might not make it to the House floor because he disapproved of the bill. GOP aides said they decided to change course after consideration of the legislation and support for it by House lawmakers.

The vote occurred two days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks, which falls on Sunday this year.

The Senate passed the bill in May by voice vote, a signal that not one senator in the chamber opposed the bill.

Obama said he believes the bill would damage relations with the Saudis, who are key Middle East allies.

But with wide bipartisan support and sponsorship by the the top Democrat and Republican leaders in the Senate, Obama may lose this one.

The bill was authored by Sen. Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the No. 3 Democrat who is expected to become party leader in the Senate next year.

“We would easily get [the two-thirds majority] should the president veto it,” Schumer said when the Senate passed the bill.

Senate aides say the Obama administration has already tried lobbying Democrats to oppose the bill but has not switched a single vote.

Categories: 9/11, Foreign policy, Obama and terrorism, Saudi Arabia - 9/11, US Congress
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Reflections on 9/11’s Vulnerabilities

September 9, 2016

Reflections on 9/11’s Vulnerabilities, Front Page Magazine, Michael Cutler, September 9, 2016

worldtradecenter

It is hard to believe that 15 years have passed since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

What may be overlooked as the news media discusses the attacks of 9/11 is that in 1993, more than 23 years ago, terrorists from the Middle East also carried out two deadly attacks in the United States.

On January 25, 1993 a Pakistani citizen, Mir Aimal Kansi stood outside CIA Headquarters with an AK-47 and opened fire on the vehicles of CIA officials reporting for work.  When the smoke cleared, two CIA officer lay dead and three other were seriously wounded.  Kansi fled the United States and was ultimately brought back to stand trial.  He was found guilty and executed for his crimes. He had applied for political asylum.

Kansi’s strategy of fleeing the United States after the attack is one often used by alien terrorists and criminals to evade U.S. law enforcement authorities.  These foreign nationals have a sort of “trap door” they can escape through and all too often, this tactic is successful. In the case of Kansi, however, because of the nature of his crimes, our government took the extraordinary measures of tracking him down and capturing him in Pakistan.  He was apprehended by American law enforcement agents who were assisted by Pakistani officials. The New York Times reported on his capture in an article published on June 18, 1997, “U.S. Seizes the Lone Suspect In Killing of 2 C.I.A. Officers.”

On February 26, 1993, a bomb-laden truck was parked in the garage under the World Trade Center complex and detonated. The blast killed six innocent people and injured more than one thousand and inflicted an estimated one-half billion dollars in damages to that complex of buildings just blocks from Wall Street.

That attack was also carried out by alien terrorists who managed to not only game the visa process in order to enter the United States and get past the inspections process at ports of entry, but game the immigration benefits program as well.

On May 20, 1997, I participated in my first congressional hearing. That hearing was conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims and was predicated on those two terror attacks.  The topic of that hearing was “Visa Fraud And Immigration Benefits Application Fraud.”

There were a number of additional hearings conducted by the House of Representatives and the United States Senate about the terror attacks of 1993 and fact that aliens seeking to launch terror attacks had been easily able to gain entry into the United States.

On February 24, 1998, just two days shy of the fifth anniversary of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the U.S. Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information conducted a hearing on the topic, “Foreign terrorists in America : five years after the World Trade Center.”

That transcript and the transcript of other hearings have apparently been gathering dust. The hearing made it clear that failures of the immigration system were leaving our nation vulnerable to terrorists from foreign countries and yet, nothing of consequence was done about it.

It is notable that during the hearing Senator Dianne Feinstein hammered failures of the immigration system more than three years before the attacks of September 11, 2001 and included in her testimony this statement:

I am also concerned that we need to strengthen further our immigration laws and procedures to counter foreign terrorist operations. I have grave reservations regarding the practice of issuing visas to terrorist supporting countries and INS’ inability to track those who come into the country either using a student visa or using fraudulent documents through the Visa Waiver Pilot Program.

Now, however, when Donald Trump proposes blocking the entry of aliens from countries that sponsor terrorism, he is roundly accused of being an “extremist” by the media and by the Democrats.

Yet Senator Diane Feinstein’s comments about the wisdom of issuing visas to aliens from such problematic countries raised no such complaints in 1998.

Feinstein went on to state, in part:

The Richmond Times recently reported that the mastermind of Saddam Hussein’s germ warfare arsenal, Rihab Taha, studied in England on a student visa. And England is one of the participating countries in the Visa Waiver Pilot Program, which means, if she could have gotten a fraudulent passport, she could have come and gone without a visa in the United States.

The article also says that Rihab Taha, also known as “Dr. Germ,” that her professors at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, speculate that she may have been sent to the West specifically to gain knowledge on biological weaponry.

What is even more disturbing is that this is happening in our own backyard.

The Washington Post reported on October 31, 1991, that U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq discovered documents detailing an Iraqi Government strategy to send students to the United States and other countries to specifically study nuclear-related subjects to develop their own program. Samir AJ-Araji was one of the students who received his doctorate in nuclear engineering from Michigan State University, and then returned to Iraq to head its nuclear weapons program.

The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy found in September 1997 that many terrorist-supporting states are sending their students to the United States to get training in chemistry, physics, and engineering which could potentially contribute to their home country’s missile and nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs.

If you think these issues have been addressed to protect us, you would be wrong.

On November 20, 2013, ABC News reported, “Exclusive: US May Have Let ‘Dozens’ of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees.”  This is not a new problem. On July 13, 2011 the Washington Times published a truly disturbing article, “Visas reviewed to find those who overstayed / Aim is to find any would-be terrorists.”

Consider that on September 2, 2014 ABC News reported, “Lost in America: Visa Program Struggles to “Track Missing Foreign Students.”

Here is how this report began:

The Department of Homeland Security has lost track of more than 6,000 foreign nationals who entered the United States on student visas, overstayed their welcome, and essentially vanished — exploiting a security gap that was supposed to be fixed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

“My greatest concern is that they could be doing anything,” said Peter Edge, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who oversees investigations into visa violators. “Some of them could be here to do us harm.”

Homeland Security officials disclosed the breadth of the student visa problem in response to ABC News questions submitted as part of an investigation into persistent complaints about the nation’s entry program for students.

ABC News found that immigration officials have struggled to keep track of the rapidly increasing numbers of foreign students coming to the U.S. — now in excess of one million each year. The immigration agency’s own figures show that 58,000 students overstayed their visas in the past year. Of those, 6,000 were referred to agents for follow-up because they were determined to be of heightened concern.

“They just disappear,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. “They get the visas and they disappear.”

Coburn said since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, 26 student visa holders have been arrested in the U.S. on terror-related charges.

Tightening up the student visa program was one of the major recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, after it was determined that the hijacker who flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had entered the U.S. on a student visa but never showed up for school.

It was clear to everyone that multiple failures of the immigration system enabled all of those terrorists to enter the United States and launch their deadly attacks in 1993.  Yet while some laws were enacted to address the vulnerabilities of the immigration system, those laws were of scant value because the former INS did not get any additional agents or other enforcement personnel.  In fact, the Clinton administration implemented a program, Citizenship USA (CUSA), which enabled an estimated 1.2 million aliens to acquire U.S. citizenship via the naturalization process.

That process required that the applications be moved so quickly that thousands of aliens were granted citizenship before their fingerprints were run through the system.  Moreover, to make certain that the bureaucratic machinery was able to move at “warp speed,” Doris Meissner, the Commissioner of the INS back then, decided to streamline the process for conferring citizenship to the point that many applications were adjudicated without even a face-to-face interview.

U.S. citizenship provides the “keys to the kingdom” and is a serious matter.

The failures of the Clinton administration to address the vulnerabilities of the immigration system literally and figuratively left the door wide open for the terror attacks of 9/11.

On December 6, 2014 Fox News published a report, “Saudi-born US naval engineer allegedly gave undercover agent info on how to sink carrier” that focused on how Mostafa Ahmed Awwad was educated in the United States, became a resident alien and then acquired U.S. citizenship, and later agreed to provide an FBI undercover agent with the plans of the Gerald R. Ford, a 13-billion-dollar aircraft carrier that is still under construction and has brand-new unique innovations. Allegedly Awwad even told the undercover agent where the ship would be most vulnerable to being sunk by a missile strike.

I addressed the significance of the naturalization process in terms of national security in my article, “The Immigration Factor – Naturalized U.S. Citizen Added to FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List.”

The “War on Terror” grinds on and numerous additional terror attacks were attempted by radical Islamists within our borders and in countries around the world.  Fortunately not all of the attempted attacks were successful and our law enforcement officers were able to identify some terror plots before they could be carried out.  Yet some attacks, such as the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15, 2013 and the attack in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, caused death, injuries and mayhem.

Once again, immigration failures were behind the ability of the terrorists to carry out these and other attacks.  Yet the administration continues to admit Syrian refugees who cannot be vetted, and so-called “sanctuary cities” go unpunished for harboring and shielding illegal aliens from detection by the federal government, in clear violation of our immigration laws and the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel detailed numerous examples of instances where terrorists committed visa and immigration benefit fraud — including political asylum fraud — to enter and embed themselves in the United States.

Page 54 of the report contained the following excerpt under the title “3.2 Terrorist Travel Tactics by Plot”:

Although there is evidence that some land and sea border entries (of terrorists) without inspection occurred, these conspirators mainly subverted the legal entry system by entering at airports.

In doing so, they relied on a wide variety of fraudulent documents, on aliases, and on government corruption. Because terrorist operations were not suicide missions in the early to mid-1990s, once in the United States terrorists and their supporters tried to get legal immigration status that would permit them to remain here, primarily by committing serial, or repeated, immigration fraud, by claiming political asylum, and by marrying Americans. Many of these tactics would remain largely unchanged and undetected throughout the 1990s and up to the 9/11 attack.

Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations were missed.

In my recent commentary, “Hillary Clinton’s Immigration Goals Would Irrevocably Undermine National Security,” I focused on how the fatally flawed adjudications process conducted by USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), which has provided terrorists with political asylum and even United States citizenship, would require the beleaguered employees of USCIS to provide unknown millions of illegal aliens with lawful status under the aegis of Clinton’s amnesty program.

There would be no ability to conduct in-person interviews or field investigations, hence no way to verify their identities, backgrounds or possible affiliation with criminal or terrorist organizations.  There would be no way to determine when, where or how they actually entered the United States.

Ms. Clinton has certainly not learned the lessons of 9/11.

Categories: 9/11, Islamic immigration, Islamic terrorism, U.S. borders, Visa fraud, Visas and terrorists
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Not Just the Saudis: Iran’s Huge Role in 9/11 Also Covered Up

July 19, 2016

Not Just the Saudis: Iran’s Huge Role in 9/11 Also Covered Up, PJ Media, Robert Spencer, July 19, 2016

Iran and Saudi

“Satan in Flames” was the Iranian’s elaborate plot to hijack three passenger jets, each packed full of people, and crash them into American landmarks: the World Trade Center, which jihadis took to be the center of American commerce; the Pentagon, the center of America’s military apparatus; and the White House.

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The 28-page section of the 9/11 report detailing Saudi involvement in the terror attack has finally been released (although with substantial portions still redacted). We now know why one president who held hands with the Saudi King and another president who bowed to him worked so hard all these years to keep these pages secret. The 28 pages confirm that the 9/11 jihad murderers received significant help from people at the highest levels of the Saudi government.

However, Saudi involvement in 9/11 was not the only subject of a cover-up: Iran’s little-noted role in 9/11 has been covered up as well.

As I detail in my new book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran, on December 22, 2011, U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels ruled in Havlish, et al. v. bin Laden, et al., that Iran and Hizballah were liable for damages to be paid to relatives of the victims of the September 11, 2001 jihad attacks in New York and Washington.

Judge Daniels found that both the Islamic Republic and its Lebanese proxy had actively aided al-Qaeda in planning and executing those attacks. He found that Iran and Hizballah had cooperated and collaborated with al-Qaeda before 9/11, and continued to do so after the attacks.

Before 9/11, Iran and Hizballah were implicated in efforts to train al-Qaeda members to blow up large buildings. This training resulted in the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

Shortly after the Cole attack, the 9/11 jihad plot began to come together — and Iran was involved.

Former MOIS operative Abolghasem Mesbahi, a defector from Iran, testified that during the summer of 2001 he received messages from Iranian government officials regarding a plan for unconventional warfare against the United States. The plot was entitled Shaitan dar Atash (“Satan in Flames”).

“Satan in Flames” was the Iranian’s elaborate plot to hijack three passenger jets, each packed full of people, and crash them into American landmarks: the World Trade Center, which jihadis took to be the center of American commerce; the Pentagon, the center of America’s military apparatus; and the White House.

A classified National Security Agency analysis referred to in the 9/11 Commission report reveals that eight to 10 of the 9/11 hijackers traveled to Iran repeatedly in late 2000 and early 2001.

The 9/11 Commission called for a U.S. government investigation into Iran’s role in 9/11 — but none was ever undertaken.

So Kenneth R. Timmerman of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran was, in his words, “engaged by the Havlish attorneys in 2004 to carry out the investigation the 9/11 Commission report called on the U.S. government to handle.”

Timmerman noted that during the 9/11 hijackers’ trips to Iran, they were “accompanied by ‘senior Hezbollah operatives’ who were in fact agents of the Iranian regime.” Iranian border agents did not stamp their passports so that their having been inside the Islamic Republic would not arouse suspicion when they entered the United States. The CIA, embarrassed by its failure to recognize the import of these trips, tried to suppress this revelation.

However, Timmerman contends that even the available evidence is explosive enough. In his words, he reveals that the Islamic Republic of Iran:

  • Helped design the 9/11 plot
  • Provided intelligence support to identify and train the operatives who carried it out
  • Allowed the future hijackers to evade U.S. and Pakistani surveillance on key trips to Afghanistan — where they received the final order of mission from Osama bin Laden — by escorting them through Iranian borders without passport stamps
  • Evacuated hundreds of top al-Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan to Iran after 9/11 just as U.S. forces launched their offensive
  • Provided safe haven and continued financial support to al-Qaeda cadres for years after 9/11
  • Allowed al-Qaeda to use Iran as an operational base for additional terror attacks, in particular the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The Ayatollah Khamenei knew about the plot. During the summer of 2001, he instructed Iranian agents to be careful to conceal their tracks. He told them to communicate only with al-Qaeda’s second-in-command — Ayman al-Zawahiri — and Imad Mughniyah of Hizballah.

Mughniyah was Iran’s key player in the 9/11 “Satan in Flames” plot. During the Havlish trial, former CIA agents Clare M. Lopez and Bruce D. Tefft submitted an affidavit stating:

Imad Mughniyah, the most notable and notorious world terrorist of his time, an agent of Iran and a senior operative of Hizballah, facilitated the international travel of certain 9/11 hijackers to and from Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan, and perhaps various other locations for the purpose of executing the events of September 11, 2001.This support enabled two vital aspects of the September 11, 2001 plot to succeed: (1) the continued training of the hijackers in Afghanistan and Iran after securing their United States visas in Saudi Arabia, and (2) entry into the United States.

The Obama-era CIA went to great pains to try to ensure that information about Iran’s role in 9/11 did not come out in the Havlish case.

In August 2010, a CIA official pressured a Havlish witness to withdraw his testimony in exchange for a new identity, new passport, and new job.

In December of that year, another CIA operative approached a different Havlish witness, showed him documents stolen from the case, and took him to a U.S. embassy where he was subjected to five hours of interrogation. He was finally offered cash if he recanted his testimony. Says Timmerman:

After I reported those attempts at witness tampering to a Congressional oversight committee, they ceased.

Judge Daniels determined that Iran, Hizballah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and other Iranian government departments — as well as the Ayatollah Khamenei himself and former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — were all directly implicated in Iranian efforts to aid al-Qaeda in its 9/11 plot.

Daniels awarded the plaintiffs in the Havlish case $394,277,884 for economic damages, $94,000,000 for pain and suffering, $874,000,000 for mental anguish and grief, $4,686,235,921 in punitive damages, and $968,000,000 in pre-judgment interest for a total of $7,016,513,805.

The Havlish plaintiffs will not receive a check for that amount from the Islamic Republic of Iran neatly signed by the Ayatollah Khamenei. Still, the judgment provided a small bit of solace for the loss of life and years of trauma these families suffered as a result of the Islamic Republic’s war against the United States.

Most importantly, the judgment stands as an acknowledgment of Iran’s role in the 9/11 attacks.

Clearly, Iran is and has been at war with the United States, Over a period of many years, Iran has conducted that war on numerous unconventional fronts while threatening conventional attacks if its agenda is thwarted in any way.

For the Islamic Republic this war is very real, a principal focus of its energy and expenditures. But it appears that only one side is fighting.

This was underscored in March 2016, when it came to light that Iranian hackers who were accused of being tied to the Islamic Republic had attempted to hack into the operating system of the Bowman Avenue Dam north of New York City, as well as into financial conglomerates Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, and HSBC – and the New York Stock Exchange.

Said Attorney General Loretta Lynch:

These attacks were relentless, they were systematic, and they were widespread.

Such attacks, if they had been successful, could have caused catastrophic damage to New York City and the American economy. Yet true to form, the Obama administration only indicted the accused (none of whom it had in custody). He took no measures against the Iranian government.

After 9/11, the U.S. declared war on terror and entered Afghanistan and Iraq. But if Bush had really been serious about attacking jihad terror at its root, he would have invaded Saudi Arabia and Iran instead. Under Obama, the denial and willful ignorance have only gotten exponentially worse.

Categories: 9/11, Contempt for America, Cover-up, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Iran and 9/11, Iran and terror, Iran scam, Khamenei, National secuity, Obama and 9/11, Obama and Iran, Obama and Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia - 9/11
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White House: No evidence of Saudi role in 9/11

July 16, 2016

White House: No evidence of Saudi role in 9/11, Al Arabia News, July 16, 2016

(Please see also, Yes, the Saudi government helped the 9/11 terrorists  — DM)

FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo the twin towers of the World Trade Center burn behind the Empire State Building in New York after terrorists crashed two planes into the towers causing both to collapse. The government is preparing to release a once-classified chapter of a congressional report about the attacks of Sept. 11, that questions whether Saudi nationals who helped the hijackers with things like finding apartments and opening bank accounts knew what they were planning. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday July 15, 2016, that the release of the 28-page chapter is "imminent.” (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)

FILE – In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo the twin towers of the World Trade Center burn behind the Empire State Building in New York after terrorists crashed two planes into the towers causing both to collapse.

US intelligence officials have finished reviewing 28 classified pages of the official report on the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and they show no evidence of Saudi complicity, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Friday.

“It will confirm what we have been saying for quite some time,” Earnest told reporter during a daily White House briefing.

The 28 pages that will be sent to the U.S. Congress on Friday contain no new evidence that Saudi Arabia played a role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Earnest said.

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Abdullah al-Saud, said in a statement: “We hope the release of these pages will clear up, once and for all, any lingering questions or suspicions about Saudi Arabia’s actions, intentions, or long-term friendship with the United States.”

Last Update: Saturday, 16 July 2016 KSA 02:03 – GMT 23:03

 

Categories: 9/11, Cover-up, Obama and Saudi Arabia
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Yes, the Saudi government helped the 9/11 terrorists

July 16, 2016

Yes, the Saudi government helped the 9/11 terrorists, NY Post, Paul Sperry, July 15, 2016

flowers in NY

Now we know why the missing 28 pages on 9/11 were kept under lock and key for 15 years: They show the hijackers got help across America from Saudi diplomats and spies in the run-up to the attacks. Because of the coverup, a Saudi terror support network may still be in place inside the United States.

A CIA memorandum dated July 2, 2002, stated unequivocally that the connections found between the hijackers, the Saudi embassy in Washington and Saudi consulate in Los Angeles are “incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi government.”

“Numerous” FBI files also fingered two Saudi government employees who assisted the 9/11 hijackers as “Saudi intelligence officers,” the newly declassified documents reveal.

Though much is still redacted, they also show the Saudi government’s ties to the hijackers and other al Qaeda suspects were so extensive that the FBI’s Washington field office created a special squad to investigate the Saudi angle.

But this special focus on Saudi Arabia occurred belatedly, only after the 9/11 attacks, “due to Saudi Arabia’s status as an American ‘ally.’ ” Astoundingly, investigative resources were not dedicated to Saudi involvement in financing and supporting terrorism prior to 9/11.

The explosive information was locked up in a top-secret, highly secured room in the basement of the US Capitol for the past 15 years, ostensibly to protect the Kingdom from embarrassment. (The Post helped get the declassification ball rolling with the December 2013 piece, “Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup.”)

That means for 15 years, 9/11 victims and their families have been denied by their own government critical evidence they’ve sought to sue the Saudi government for responsibility in the death of their loved ones.

It also means Washington has misled the American people about foreign sponsorship of 9/11. For 15 years, we’ve been told that al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. We were led to believe that 15 Saudi nationals who barely spoke English received no help while in America; that they operated in isolation, like visitors from outer space.

It was all a monstrous lie.

FBI files show Saudi agent Omar al-Bayoumi provided “substantial assistance” to Saudi hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000. Hazmi was the leader of the cell that attacked the Pentagon, while Mihdhar was one of that cell’s muscle hijackers. The two even stayed at Bayoumi’s apartment, working out in his gym.

At the same time he was aiding the hijackers, Bayoumi was getting large salary increases from a Saudi defense front company tied to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, where he worked as a ghost employee. Another alleged Saudi intelligence officer who handled the hijackers, Osama Bassnan, worked closely with Bayoumi.

According to a CIA memo, cited by the now-uncensored 28-page section of the 9/11 report, “Bassnan reportedly received funding and possibly a fake passport from Saudi government officials.”

More alarming, “he and his wife have received financial support from the Saudi ambassador to the United States and his wife.” That would be Prince Bandar, who was promoted to Saudi intelligence minister after 9/11.

The same report says Bassnan, described as a “supporter of Osama bin Laden,” also got “a significant amount of cash” from another “member of the Saudi Royal Family.”

FBI documents and a CIA memo further indicate that the hijackers had contact with Shayk Fahad al-Thumairy, then a Saudi consular official in Los Angeles. Records show the accredited Saudi diplomat had dozens of phone conversations and at least one meeting with Bayoumi in advance of the hijackers’ arrival.

But wait, the Saudi-9/11 conspiracy gets even worse.

A Saudi interior ministry official stayed at the same hotel in Herndon, Va., with Hazmi and other Pentagon cell hijackers on the night before they hijacked the plane that departed that fateful Sept. 11, 2001, morning from nearby Dulles airport. FBI agents felt Saleh al-Hussayen lied about not meeting with or even knowing the hijackers, but when they tried to re-interview him, it was too late — he had been spirited out of the country along with dozens of other Saudi VIP suspects at Bandar’s request, and with the White House’s permission.

Speaking of Bandar, it turns out that an unlisted phone number connected to the good prince’s Aspen chalet was found in the phone book of senior al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaida when he was captured in Pakistan in 2002. Zubaida also just happened to have a contact number for Bandar’s bodyguard at the Saudi Embassy.

Mind you, these stomach-turning revelations are gleaned from merely summaries of FBI case files and CIA memos. There is much rawer intel that remains classified about the Saudi government’s role in 9/11.

The treachery may still be worse than we know. And it may be ongoing. As the 28 pages warn: “Saudi government officials in the United States may have other ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”

Categories: 9/11, Cover-up, Saudi Arabia
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Muslim DHS Advisor Called Israel A ‘Suspect’ In September 11 Attacks

June 16, 2016

Muslim DHS Advisor Called Israel A ‘Suspect’ In September 11 Attacks, Daily Caller, Peter Hasson, June 16, 2016

A current adviser to the Department of Homeland Security is a Muslim leader who has accused America of doing Israel’s “dirty work,” named Israel as a “suspect” in the September 11 terror attacks and has been criticized as an apologist for terrorists.

Salam Al-Marayati is the president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He currently serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Committee’s (HSAC) Foreign Fighter Task Force, as well as the HSAC Subcommittee on Faith Based Security and Communications. (Note: this is not the Muslim DHS advisor The Daily Caller wrote about on Monday.)

In 2001, Al-Marayati suggested that Israel — not Islamic extremists — was ultimately behind the September 11 terror attacks.

“If we’re going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies,” he said.

In 2013, Judicial Watch noted that Al-Marayati told attendees at a 2005 conference for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) that “Counter-terrorism and counter-violence should be defined by us. We should define how an effective counter-terrorism policy should be pursued in this country. So, number one, we reject any effort, notion, suggestion that Muslims should start spying on one another.”

In 2012, in a debate on RT, Al-Marayati accused the United States of doing Israel’s “dirty work” for them.

“The other point here, which is very important historically, the United States has done a lot of dirty work that has served the interests of Israel,” he said. “It destroyed Iraq. It supported the destruction and crippling of Egypt. It has crippled the Gulf.”

In 2015, the Obama administration was sharply criticized for inviting Al-Marayati to a three-day summit on fighting extremism — a fact the White House initially tried to conceal from reporters.

Investor’s Business Daily took an editorial stand against the invite, arguing that: “Al-Marayati has a long record of defending terrorists and justifying violence against non-Muslims — an easy one for the White House to vet for extremism.”

According to White House visitor records, Al-Marayati has visited the White House 11 times since 2009.

The IBD editors went on to note that “In a 1999 PBS interview, moreover, he called Hezbollah terrorist attacks ‘legitimate resistance,’ doubling down on his months-earlier claim that Hezbollah’s 1983 suicide bombing of more than 240 Marines in Lebanon was not terrorism but a ‘military operation — exactly the kind of attack that Americans might have lauded had it been directed against Washington’s enemies.’”

Kyle Shideler, the director of the Center for Security Policy’s Threat Information Office, told The Daily Caller that “Al-Marayati’s association with the HSAC underlines what an unfortunate farce the entire [Combatting Violent Extremism] program is. Al-Marayati’s only notable counter-terrorism contribution is having suggested Israel be included as a suspect on 9/11.”

“His very organization, MPAC has historically co-sponsored events in support of the very kinds of extremists he’s been appointed to help oppose, which is no surprise given that the organizations roots lay with men who literally studied at the foot of Muslim Brotherhood leader Hassan Al-Banna,” Shideler said.

“As long as the Obama Administration is more concerned with keeping groups like Al-Marayati’s happy with them instead of investigating actually terrorism, we will never have a sane counter-terror policy.”

The Daily Caller previously reported on Monday that a current sitting member on the HSAC Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism, Laila Alawa, is a 25-year-old immigrant of Syrian heritage who said that the 9/11 attacks “changed the world for good” and has consistently disparaged America, free speech, and white people on social media.

The Department of Homeland Security has not replied to multiple requests for comment regarding Alawa and Al-Marayati’s advising roles.

 

Categories: 9/11, Countering violent extremism, Islam and Israel, Islam and Jews, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamist moral values, Islamists in America, Law enforcement, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism
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Muslim Leader Advertises that 9/11 was ‘Israeli-Jewish Job’’

June 8, 2016

Muslim Leader Advertises that 9/11 was ‘Israeli-Jewish Job’, Front Page Magazine, Joe Kaufman, June 8, 2016

(Just another tolerant, peaceful bunch of warm and fuzzy American Islamists. Obviously, the more the merrier. — DM)

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Sofian Zakkout, President of the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), is always looking for new ways to promote hatred of Jews. Recently, he advertised on his Facebook page an article about how the Nazi Holocaust was “faked.” Now, he is targeting Jews by posting onto social media a claim that they perpetrated the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Will any of the hate he is peddling do harm to the relationships he and his group have made, both financial and otherwise, with organizations associated with fighting crime?

Usually, anti-Semites — those rabid ones who are violently opposed to Jews — attach themselves to one of two categories, white supremacists or Muslim terrorists. Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, who is Muslim himself, strongly supports both.

When it comes to white supremacy, Zakkout is a fervent follower of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Zakkout has described Duke as “David Duke, a man to believe in!” and Zakkout has said of Duke, “I respect him for his honesty!” Zakkout’s Facebook page and the websites of his organization AMANA each have been used to promote Duke and his bigoted videos. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has previously cited Zakkout and his group for posting what the ADL described as a “venomous” anti-Semitic Duke video onto AMANA’s official site.

This past February, Zakkout advertised on social media a report claiming that the horrors committed by Nazi Germany during the 1930s and 1940s were fabricated. Aptly titled ‘How the Holocaust was faked,’ it begins: “The alleged ‘Holocaust’ of ‘6 million Jews’ at the hands of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist Germany during WWII is the biggest lie ever foisted upon humanity.” It was produced by The Realist Report, an anti-Jew, anti-black, anti-gay independent media outlet, which describes Hitler as “the greatest leader in modern Western history.”

Zakkout is also very open about his strong support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. In August 2015, he wrote in Arabic on Facebook, “Hamas is in my heart and on my head.” In July 2014, Zakkout organized a pro-Hamas rally held outside the Israeli Consulate in downtown Miami. On video, Zakkout is shown smiling, as event goers repeatedly shout, “We are Hamas.” Following the rally, Zakkout wrote the following in Arabic, above photos from the event: “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”

On April 21st, Zakkout took to Facebook to promote a report discussing Jewish involvement in the September 11th attacks. Attached to the report was a graphic depicting an Israeli flag next to the burning World Trade Center towers, one tower totally engulfed in flames, with the caption, ‘Israeli CONNECTION to 9/11.’ Another photo from the report shows the burning towers with a Jewish Star affixed to one. The report begins, “It ain’t debatable! Soup to nuts, top to bottom, the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. were an ‘Israeli’-Jewish job.”

The report names twelve Jews, who it calls the “REAL planners and executors of 9/11.” According to the report, they include former and current Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert; then-soon-to-be Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg; and then-head of the criminal division of the Justice Department Michael Chertoff. It labels them “chosenite brethren.”

The website which published the report and which Zakkout linked to is Mouqawamah Music, a site that openly calls for “Death to Israel” and curses the Jewish religion. The site states, “[A]fter 132 some odd years of Jewish colonization in the Holy Land, there are only three words that properly encapsulate our pain, our sadness and our rage: DEATH TO ‘ISRAEL.’” And “What is today called Judaism is NOT a nice religion. It is and has always been a conspiracy against humanity, more of a domination strategy than a religion… [I]t is clearly wicked and filth-ridden…”

Sofian Zakkout has, once again, found a way to target Jews. Whether it is organizing pro-Hamas rallies, promoting David Duke videos, advertising Holocaust denial reports, or helping to push the absurd notion that Jews were behind 9/11, if it is a way to spread hatred of the Jewish people, Zakkout will gladly embrace it.

Unfortunately, Zakkout and his group’s anti-Semitic actions have had little effect on how he is viewed by some organizations associated with fighting crime. Zakkout’s name is still found on the official website of Citizens’ Crime Watch of Miami-Dade County as a Member at Large on the group’s Executive Committee. Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers has also been reluctant about removing Zakkout from its Board, and Zakkout’s AMANA previously received a $70 thousand grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — for counter-terrorism purposes, yet!

Nothing affiliated with Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout should receive any legitimacy or funding from any organization, especially those organizations associated with fighting crime. To do so would be a crime in itself.

Categories: 9/11, Holocaust, Islam and Jews, Islamic integration, Islamic radicalization, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Islamists in America, Israel
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Article In Saudi Daily: U.S. Planned, Carried Out 9/11 Attacks – But Blames Others For Them

May 19, 2016

Article In Saudi Daily: U.S. Planned, Carried Out 9/11 Attacks – But Blames Others For Them, MEMRI, May 19, 2016

(An “interesting” perspective. — DM)

On the eve of President Obama’s April 2016 visit to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Congress began debating the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), that would, inter alia, allow the families of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue the Saudi government for damages. Also in April 2016, the New York Times published that a 2002 congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks had found that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a hand in the plot. The commission’s conclusions, said the paper, were specified in a report that has not been released publicly.[1]

The JASTA bill, which was passed by the Senate on May 17, 2016, triggered fury in Saudi Arabia, expressed both in statements by the Saudi foreign minister and in scathing attacks on the U.S. in the Saudi press.[2] On April 28, 2016, the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat published an exceptionally harsh article on this topic by Saudi legal expert Katib Al-Shammari, who argued that the U.S. itself had planned and carried out 9/11, while placing the blame on a shifting series of others – first Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, then Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, and now Saudi Arabia. He wrote that American threats to reveal documents that supposedly point to Saudi involvement in 9/11 are part of standard U.S. policy of exposing archival documents to use as leverage against various countries – which he calls “victory by means of archives.”

Following are excerpts from Al-Shammari’s article:[3]

“Those who follow American policy see that it is built upon the principle of advance planning and future probabilities. This is because it occasionally presents a certain topic to a country that it does not wish [to bring up] at that time but [that it is] reserving in its archives as an ace to play [at a later date] in order to pressure that country. Anyone revisiting… [statements by] George H.W. Bush regarding Operation Desert Storm might find that he acknowledged that the U.S. Army could have invaded Iraq in the 1990s, but that [the Americans] had preferred to keep Saddam Hussein around as a bargaining chip for [use against] other Gulf states. However, once the Shi’ite wave began to advance, the Americans wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein, since they no longer saw him as an ace up their sleeve.

“September 11 is one of winning cards in the American archives, because all the wise people in the world who are experts on American policy and who analyze the images and the videos [of 9/11] agree unanimously that what happened in the [Twin] Towers was a purely American action, planned and carried out within the U.S. Proof of this is the sequence of continuous explosions that dramatically ripped through both buildings… Expert structural engineers demolished them with explosives, while the planes crashing [into them] only gave the green light for the detonation – they were not the reason for the collapse. But the U.S. still spreads blame in all directions. [This policy] can be dubbed ‘victory by means of archives.’

“On September 11, the U.S. attained several victories at the same time, that [even] the hawks [who were at that time] in the White House could not have imagined. Some of them can be enumerated as follows:

“1.   The U.S. created, in public opinion, an obscure enemy – terrorism – which became what American presidents blamed for all their mistakes, and also became the sole motivation for any dirty operation that American politicians and military figures desire to carry out in any country. [The] terrorism [label] was applied to Muslims, and specifically to Saudi Arabia.

“2.   Utilizing this incident [9/11], the U.S. launched a new age of global armament. Everyone wanted to acquire all kinds of weapons to defend themselves and at the same time battle the obscure enemy, terrorism – [even though] up to this very moment we do not know the essence of this terrorism of which the U.S. speaks, except [to say that] that it is Islamic…

“3.   The U.S. made the American people choose from two bad options: either live peacefully [but] remain exposed to the danger of death [by terrorism] at any moment, or starve in safety, because [the country’s budget will be spent on sending] the Marines even as far as Mars to defend you.

“Lo and behold, today, we see these archives revealed before us: A New York court accuses the Iranian regime of responsibility for 9/11, and we [also] see a bill [in Congress] accusing Saudi Arabia of being behind it [sic]. This is after the previous Iraqi regime was accused of being behind it. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were also blamed for it, and we do not know who [will be blamed] tomorrow! But [whoever it is], we will not be surprised at all, since this is the essence of how the American archives, that are civilized and respect freedoms and democracy, operate.

“The nature of the U.S. is that it cannot exist without an enemy… [For example,] after a period during which it did not fight anyone [i.e. following World War II], the U.S. created a new kind of war – the Cold War… Then, when the Soviet era ended, after we Muslims helped the religions and fought Communism on their [the Americans’] behalf, they began to see Muslims as their new enemy! The U.S. saw a need for creating a new enemy – and planned, organized, and carried this out [i.e. blamed Muslims for terrorism]. This will never end until it [the U.S.] accomplishes the goals it has set for itself.

“So why not let these achievements be credited to the American administration, while insurance companies pay for the damages, whether domestic or foreign? This, my dear Arab and Muslim, is the policy of the American archives.”

 

Endnotes:

[1] Nytimes.com, April 15, 2016.

[2] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6397, Against Backdrop Of Obama’s Visit To Riyadh: Saudi, Gulf Press Furious At Allegations Of Saudi Involvement In September 11 Attacks, April 21, 2016.

[3] Al-Hayat (London), April 28, 2016.

Categories: 9/11, Saudi media
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Saudi Influence in Washington Must End

April 22, 2016

Saudi Influence in Washington Must End, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, April 22, 2016

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The 28 pages of a Congressional report detailing where the 9/11 hijackers got their financing have been classified for years, but what they contain is an open secret. Former Senator Bob Graham explained: “The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier.” So why keep this information secret? Because the Saudis wield undue influence in Washington, among both parties – an influence that has deformed our response to the global jihad threat, and continues to do so.

Responding to a bill that would allow 9/11 victims’ families to sue governments linked to terror attacks inside the U.S., the Saudis have acted like neither an ally nor an innocent party: they’ve threatened to sell $750 billion in U.S. asserts, vividly demonstrating why their influence in Washington is so detrimental.

Nonetheless, they still have a friend in Barack Obama, a man who has never hesitated to reach out in friendship to those who threaten the United States. Obama is trying to get Congress to reject the bill, and his solicitude for the Saudis is drawing criticism even from members of his own party. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) called on him to release the 28 pages: “If the president is going to meet with the Saudi Arabian leadership and the royal family, they think it would be appropriate that this document be released before the president makes that trip, so that they can talk about whatever issues are in that document.”

The New York Daily News, normally a reliable Democratic Party organ, fumed: “If the President allows himself to get pushed around this way in front of the world, then he earns every bit of the anger being directed at him by the extended family of September 11.”

Of course, all too many Republicans are just as much in the tank for the Saudis as the Democrats. CBS News reported on September 30, 2001, on George W. Bush’s watch, that “two dozen members of Osama bin Laden’s family were urgently evacuated from the United States in the first days following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, according to the Saudi ambassador to Washington.” If Hitler had had twenty-four relatives on U.S. soil on December 8, 1941, would FDR have urgently evacuated them to Berlin?

The FBI under both Bush and Obama has likewise been an apparently willing servant of the Saudis. The Miami Herald reported on July 1, 2014 that “freshly released but heavily censored FBI documents include tantalizing new information about events connected to the Sarasota Saudis who moved suddenly out of their home about two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, leaving behind clothing, jewelry and cars….This release suggests that the FBI has covered up information that is vitally important to public safety.” These “Sarasota Saudis” were a family that abruptly fled the country shortly before 9/11, “leaving behind three vehicles, food in the refrigerator and toys in the swimming pool.” Mohammed Atta may have visited their home. Yet for years, the FBI insisted that they had nothing to do with the 9/11 jihad plot, and has been extremely reticent about sharing information about their investigation. Whom is the FBI protecting, and why?

Meanwhile, the Saudis have spent untold billions of dollars spreading their Wahhabi ideology, including material such as “Jihad: The Forgotten Obligation,” in areas of the Islamic world where jihad had indeed been forgotten, largely if not completely. The Saudis have, in reawakening Muslims to this obligation, set the world on fire: al-Qaeda was a product of the Wahhabi ideology, and the Islamic State, with its unquenchable desire to commit as many jihad mass murder attacks as possible on American soil, despises the House of Saud and is determined to overthrow it but is nevertheless its demon child. The Saudis remain one of the world’s chief financiers of jihad terror.

This is an ally of the United States? No. The Saudis are not an ally of the U.S. and have not been since 9/11 and before. A presidential candidate who really wants to strike a blow against the global jihad would vow to release the 28 pages and to stand up to the Saudis’ threats, and to break the Saudis’ economic hold on the U.S. by putting the full weight of the U.S. government behind offshore drilling, oil pipelines, fracking, and the development of alternative energy sources.

In 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt not only wasn’t making sure that Hitler’s relatives were safely back home; he also wasn’t meeting with the Führer to discuss a German-U.S. alliance. It is long past time that the United States stop behaving like a weak client state of the House of Saud.

 

Categories: 9/11, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Islam and terrorism, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic jihad, Obama and Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Supporting Islamic terrorism, Wahhabi
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Saudi Arabia Threatens To Sell Off $750 Billion In U.S. Assets If Congress Allows 9-11 Families To Sue

April 18, 2016

Saudi Arabia Threatens To Sell Off $750 Billion In U.S. Assets If Congress Allows 9-11 Families To Sue, Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley, April 18, 2016

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The Obama Administration is shrugging off the insult to our legal system by a country that violates every core principle of due process and civil liberties in their own country.

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While the level of protection afforded Saudi Arabia in Washington is hardly a secret, the level of that support was on display this month when officials pushed the Obama Administration to release long-withheld pages from the 9-11 report, as we previously discussed. Those pages reportedly implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9-11 attacks. Saudi Arabia response with an express threat to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars of assets if Congress were to pass a bill allowing the Kingdom to be held liable for the attacks. One would think that the response would be outrage at the threat. After all, the bill would only allow citizens to sue and a bipartisan group of Senators have joined to support the 9-11 families. Saudi Arabia could still defend itself (and according to its government, vindicate itself) in a court of law. Of course, the United States has a real court system as opposed to the government controlled, Sharia “courts” used in the Kingdom to mete out medieval justice.

The Administration not only is staying silent about this insulting threat but is doing precisely what the Saudis are demanding in trying to block the bill. When push comes to shove between the victims or 9-11 and the Saudis, the choice appears clear.

So that there would be no mistake about the threat, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month — threatening a sudden sell-off of $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets to cripple the economy. The rationale is to avoid the assets from being frozen by American courts. Interestingly, this assumes that you are likely to be found guilty of complicity in the worst terrorist attack in United States history. What is interesting is that the use of al-Jubeir seemed calculated to maximize the threat. The same message could have been delivered through leaks that the Saudis were preparing such a selloff for strategic reasons. The open threat was a serious miscalculation by the Saudis in my view. Few Americans would take the threat as anything short of a slap in the face of the victims of 9-11 and the country as a whole.

The Obama Administration is shrugging off the insult to our legal system by a country that violates every core principle of due process and civil liberties in their own country. Instead, it is suggesting that holding Saudi Arabia liable for American deaths could put Americans at legal risk overseas. Whatever the merits of the argument against the access to the courts for these citizens (and I would be very interesting to hear them), the Administration should have delivered a clear message that we do not respond to such threats, particularly when another country is balancing American lives against foreign investments.

What do you think?

Categories: 9/11, Foreign policy, Obama and Islam, Obama and Saudi Arabia, Obama's weakness, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, U.S. courts
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