New Evidence in Claim Saudi Arabia Supported Terrorists

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Summary: The lawsuit against Saudi Arabia presented roughly 5,000 pages of evidence backing up their claim that the government helped the terrorists prepare for 9/11.

The ongoing lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian government received new evidence today. According to the evidence, officials from the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC supported a “dry run” for the 9/11 attacks.

  

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The evidence suggests that two of the embassy’s employees may have been used to perform “dry runs” to prepare for the attacks involving two dozen hijackers that flew two planes into the Twin Towers, leaving 3,000 people in 2001.

The class-action lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of 1,400 family members of the victims, alleges that the government paid two nationals to pose as students taking a flight from Phoenix to Washington. Their purpose was to test out flight deck security levels.

The lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Sean Carter, said, “We’ve long asserted that there were longstanding and close relationships between al Qaeda and the religious components of the Saudi government.”

Of course, the Saudi Arabia denies any participation with the terrorist group. Their lawyers have filed motions to dismiss the claims of the lawsuit. The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act voted into law by Congress a year ago, will allow the lawsuit to go to trial unless the plaintiffs can provide enough evidence to support their claims. Former President Barack Obama had vetoed had the law allowing survivors and victims’ families to sue foreign governments involved in terrorist acts in U.S. federal courts.

The New York Post reported that the documents show “a pattern of both financial and operational support” by the Saudi Arabian government to the hijackers during the months leading up to the September attacks. These documents from the FBI claim that Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shalawi were members of “the Kingdom’s network of agents.” They were allegedly trained in Afghanistan with several other al-Qaeda operatives involved in the attacks.

Qudhaeein was employed at the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Shalawi was a “longtime employee of the Saudi government” in Washington D.C. The documents state that in 1999, the men boarded an America West flight headed to Washington D.C. While on the plane, they tried to enter the cockpit on numerous occasions and asked “technical questions” from the flight attendants, making them “suspicious.” On one of the instances, Qudhaeein had asked staff where the bathroom was. When they pointed in the direction of the bathroom, he went in the opposite direction towards the cockpit and tried to enter it. The plane ended up making an emergency landing in Ohio so the men could be passed off to the FBI for questioning. The Saudi Embassy had paid for their plane tickets. The men were soon after released.

The new evidence presented in nearly 5,000 pages also claims that the same two men attended a symposium in Washington that the Saudi embassy organized in association with the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America. The group had employed late al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki as a lecturer. He had helped the hijackers get housing and IDs when they arrived in the country in early 2000.

According to The Post, the men lived in Arizona with frequent communication with Saudi officials. A total of 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Do you think Saudi Arabia as a government is responsible or possibly just members of their government acting on their own to help the terrorists? Tell us in the comments below.

To learn more about Saudi Arabia, read these articles:

• Human Rights Lawyer Sentenced in Saudi for Signing Protest
• Saudi Arabia Opens First Female Law Firm
• Lawsuits Going after Saudi Arabia’s Role in 9/11 Increase

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org