At least two of the 9/11 hijackers were being closely monitored by the CIA and may have even been recruited by the agency well before they helped fly a pair of Boeing 767s into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, newly-released documents reveal.
The jaw-dropping court filing contains extensive testimony by multiple FBI investigators who maintain that the CIA obstructed official investigations into the notorious terrorist attack in order to conceal its connections to al-Qaeda*.
Perhaps even more shockingly, one FBI agent explained that American bank accounts were opened for the two hijackers – and a San Diego based apartment rented for them – “at the behest of the CIA.”
Skeptics have long focused their attention on the extremely close relationship between 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar and alleged Saudi intelligence agent Omar al-Bayoumi, who arranged a steady stipend as well as accommodations for the pair immediately after their arrival in the US. Al-Bayoumi has publicly maintained that his incredible generosity towards them was based on a mere ‘chance encounter’ at a restaurant after they landed in California.
According to one agent, who’s code-named “CS-23” in the documents, the CIA has long been working to stonewall the FBI’s investigation into the 2001 terrorist attack, in part by refusing to divulge information regarding the agency’s relationship with al-Bayoumi.
According to CS-23, when first asked, “CIA officials responded to the [FBI’S] San Diego field office and reported that the CIA held no files on al-Bayoumi,” a claim which the agent said was “a falsehood,” given “the CIA maintained ‘operational files’ on Omar al-Bayoumi” and that their relationship had left a noticeable “paper trail.”
Indeed, “information concerning al-Bayoumi was never passed to the FBI,” the agent explained – likely because Omar al-Bayoumi was “an intelligence officer in [the] employ of the Saudi government,” who was “directed to attempt to recruit Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar as intelligence sources while they were in San Diego.”
Even more horrifying is the fact that “the attempt to recruit al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar was an operation directed by the Central Intelligence Agency,” CS-23 maintains.
According to that FBI agent, “the CIA used their liaison relationship with the Saudi intelligence services to conduct an operation on US soil,” the legal filing reveals.
Such an arrangement would be necessary since “the CIA is forbidden by law to conduct intelligence operations within the US,” the agent explained, noting that “the CIA has used its relationship with allied intelligence services to conduct operations inside the United States in the past.”
Likely seeking to avoid any similar disclosure, CS-23 explained, “when FBI officials in San Diego and at FBI headquarters became aware of both al-Bayoumi's affiliation with Saudi intelligence and subsequently the existence of the CIA's operation to recruit al-Harmi and al-Mihdhar through al-Bayoumi… senior FBI officials suppressed investigations into the above.”
Furthermore, the FBI investigator revealed the CIA had effectively tainted the entire inquiry before it even got off the ground by tampering with witnesses.
“CS-23 also told me that FBI agents testifying before the Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks were instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Oaeda,” the report concludes.
* A terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries.