FBI releases newly declassified document related to 9/11 probe after Biden's order

WASHINGTON: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released the first document related to the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and suspected Saudi government support for the hijackers.

"This material is being released in response to the executive order, signed Sept 3, 2021, (by US President Joe Biden) on the declassification review of certain documents concerning the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001," Sputnik reported, quoting the FBI as saying on Saturday.

The FBI electronic communication document, dated April 4, 2016, consists of over a dozen pages of witness testimony collected mainly during a November 2015 interview, regarding "significant logistic support" provided to two 9/11 hijackers, identified as Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Midhar.

According to the document, the people who provided support to the hijackers include Omar Al Bayoumi and Fahad Al Thumairy. Bayoumi appears to have been more involved in providing "logistic support to Hazmi and Midhar including translation, travel assistance, lodging and financing."

Bayoumi is also said to have had contacts with Osama Bassnan, a man who allegedly knew the Bin Laden family and maintained communication with them.

The FBI document says that on Oct 17, 1992, Bassnan hosted a party in Washington DC for the "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Towers bombing.

Thumairy is said to have served as an administrative officer at the Saudi Consulate. According to FBI sources, he had extremist beliefs. He appears to have helped arrange meetings between Bayoumi and the two 9/11 hijackers.

The families of the 9/11 victims have long pushed the US government to declassify information related to the links Saudi Arabia may have had to the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.

On Sept 11, 2001, members of the Al-Qaeda crashed two hijacked commercial planes into the World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York, while another plane hit the Pentagon near Washington, DC. The fourth hijacked aircraft fell down in the state of Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

-- BERNAMA