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Government documents and
newspaper clippings best tell the story of the two San
Diego based hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi
and Khalid al-Midhar and their intimate relationship with a former San Diego
State Professor Abdussattar Shaikh, who happened to be a longtime FBI
undercover asset. All of the following are direct quotations, no
explanation required. |

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Nephew of Saudi FAA
Chief Lived With, Funded 9.11 hijacker in
San Diego
Uncle adamantly opposed a 1999 attempt
to fire his employee, a Saudi spy who Feds say ‘set up the San Diego cell’
Roommates lived together at home of
longtime FBI Counterterrorism Informant
FBI Informant's Handler admits he
investigated hijackers before 9.11, but investigation was killed
The Mad Cow
Morning News
October 14, 2004-Venice,FL.
Due to
the fact the United States government has failed to convict -- or even
prosecute -- a single person for any crime relating to the 9/11 plot, one
might assume that these terrorists lived in self-contained bubbles. They did
not. Rather they lived at places like the home of a veteran FBI confidential
informant who specialized in counter-terrorism and whose FBI handler was
investigating the 9/11 hijackers.
Hmmm...
And shockingly it would seem, the public
has already been made privy to this damning information by such insiders as Sen.
Bob Graham.
But how much can you trust the former
Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the life-long friend of
Porter Goss to tell give
you the real deal?
As expected, Bobby only mentioned 10% of
the horror. Read on for the remainder.
The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Shaikh, a retired
educator and Muslim leader, invited them [the hijackers, al-Hazmi and
al-Midhar] to share his five-bedroom Lemon Grove house…
Newsweek:
Shaikh also
happens to be a "tested" undercover "asset" who had been working
closely with the FBI office in San Diego on terrorism cases.
Institute for
Public Affairs, September 29, 2003:
Abdussattar
Shaikh… was a long-time undercover FBI counterterrorism informant
in regular contact with… the bureau's San Diego office.
Congressional
Joint Inquiry into 911:
During the post
9-11 investigation “the FBI concedes that the hijackers may have known
the informant [Shaikh] months earlier than the informant admitted.”
Congressional
Joint Inquiry into 911:
The informant
also acknowledged that al-Hazmi had contacts with at least four
individuals the informant knew were of interest to the FBI and about whom
the informant had previously reported to the FBI.
Congressional
Joint Inquiry into 911:
The informant has
made numerous inconsistent statements to the FBI during the course of
interviews after September 11, 2001… the FBI has acknowledged that there
are 'significant inconsistencies' in the informant’s statements about
these contacts.
San Jose Mercury
News September 29, 2001:
Next door neighbor
[of Shaikh] Deborah Fortner said she is sure that Atta visited
Shaikh's home during the time the two suspected hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and
Khalid Almihdhar lived there… "He definitely was here," said Fortner,
pointing to Atta's picture, which appeared along with the other 18 suspected
hijackers in Friday's San Diego Union-Tribune. "His eyes you cannot
mistake them."
Two other
neighbors of Shaikh, who lives on a cul-de-sac in suburban Lemon Grove, also
said Friday that they told the FBI nearly two weeks ago that they recognized
Atta as having visited Shaik's home.
Dennis and
Marna Adair said they didn't know Atta's name and had not yet seen his photo in
news accounts when they first picked him out from the photographs shown to them
by FBI agents who interviewed Shaikh and his neighbors repeatedly in the
days immediately after the terrorist attacks.
"It was a week ago
last Monday [Sept 17, 2001]," said Marna Adair. When agents showed her several
pictures, she said, "I told them, 'That one definitely,' " she said
pointing to Atta's photo…
neighbors… said
they saw him [Atta] often enough that they would exchange greetings. And they
recalled that he was friendly and more outgoing than many of the Muslim men who
stayed with Shaikh.
The houses of
Shaikh, Fortner and the Adairs are clustered close together around a small
private drive that extends off a residential street in the working-class suburb
of Lemon Grove.
Fortner and the
Adairs said they have spoken repeatedly with FBI agents in the last three
weeks about their recollections…
In explaining why
they went public, the neighbors also said they have been frustrated with
Shaikh and what they perceive as his unwillingness to be more forthcoming
with them and the media.
911 Commission
Report Notes:
Although Hazmi's
housemate [Shaikh] claims that the "Hani" whom Hazmi introduced him [on Dec 8,
2000] to is not the same person pictured in Hanjour's photograph, we have little
doubt that the housemate did in fact see Hanjour on the day he and Hazmi left
San Diego.
Congressional
Joint Inquiry into 911:
Administration
and the FBI have objected to the [Congressional] Joint Inquiry’s request to
interview the informant… Known information relies solely on FBI documents.
The Washington
Post:
[In Shaihk’s case]
the FBI has deviated from its typical secrecy to issue a statement that he is
not a suspect.
SD Union Tribune:
[Senator] Graham
[head of the Senate Intelligence Committee] also discusses at length the
congressional investigators' unsuccessful attempts to question the FBI
informant, identified as Abdussattar Shaikh, a retired professor and community
leader from Lemon Grove.

FBI officials
would not deliver a congressional subpoena to Shaikh… The FBI also failed to
give Shaikh, whom Graham said had been relocated by the FBI, a list of
written questions from the investigators until he had hired a prominent
attorney with ties to the Justice Department. The attorney demanded immunity
from prosecution for Shaikh, which the congressional intelligence committees
refused to grant, so the questions went unanswered.
FBI Agent Steven Butler
Institute for Public Affairs,
September 29, 2003:
Abdussattar
Shaikh… was… in regular contact with a terrorism case officer in the
bureau's San Diego office.
The San Diego
Union-Tribune:
He [Shaikh]
said he met FBI Agent Steve Butler – whom sources have identified as
Shaikh's "handler" – about eight years ago.
The New York
Times:
Several officials
said the F.B.I… would not authorize the agent who was his contact to
testify…
U.S. News & World
Report December 9, 2002:
Government officials told
U.S. News that Butler disclosed that he had been monitoring a flow of
Saudi Arabian money that wound up in the hands of two of the 9/11 hijackers.
The two men had rented a room from a man Butler had used as a
confidential informant, the sources say. According to officials
familiar with his account, Butler said that he had alerted his
superiors about the money flows but the warning went nowhere.
"Butler is claiming ... that people [in the FBI] didn't follow up," says a
congressional source. Adds another: "He saw a pattern, a trail, and he told his
supervisors, but it ended there."
Saudi Agent Omar al-Bayoumi
Newsweek:
Almihdhar and
Alhazmi later rented a room from another friend of al-Bayoumi's, Abdussattar
Shaikh…
The Los Angeles
Times:
Shaikh has
acknowledged to the newspaper that Al Bayoumi was a friend.
The Telegraph July
22, 2003:
Bayoumi had a
meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles in January 2000 and then went
straight to a restaurant where he met al-Mindhar and al-Hamzi, whom he
accompanied back to San Diego. He later arranged for the men to move into a flat
next to his home, paid their rent for the first two months and threw a welcoming
party for them. Sources have said Baymoumi also helped them open a bank account
and enlisted a friend to help them obtain social security cards and contact
flight schools in Florida to arrange flying lessons.
Newsweek:
In January 2000,
al-Bayoumi had a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles—and then went
directly to a restaurant where he met future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and
Nawaf Alhazmi, whom he took back with him to San Diego. (Al-Bayoumi later
arranged for the men to get an apartment next to his and fronted them their
first two months rent.)… A 28-page section of the report dealing with the Saudis
and other foreign governments will be deleted. “They are protecting a foreign
government,” charged Sen. Bob Graham, who oversaw the inquiry.
SD Tribune:
In January 2000,
al-Bayoumi had a closed-door meeting at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and
then went to a restaurant where he picked up Alhazmi and Almihdhar and brought
them to San Diego.
The San Diego
Union-Tribune:
Al-Bayoumi [is]
whom federal investigators have identified as the front man who prepared the way
for the hijackers in San Diego…
The San Diego
Union-Tribune:
Law enforcement
and community sources in San Diego said money was funneled here to Al-Bayoumi
from Saudi Arabian sources and used to finance the hijackers. "Al-Bayoumi came
here, set everything up financially, set up the San Diego cell and set up the
mosque," said a federal investigator who asked to remain anonymous to protect
his job.
The Wall Street
Journal:
The FBI first
opened a counterterrorism investigation on Mr. Bayoumi in September 1998 and
discovered he was in contact with several other people under scrutiny… Following
a search of Mr. Bayoumi's residence at one point, the FBI concluded that "he is
providing guidance to young Muslims and some of his writings can be interpreted
as jihadist."
Newsweek:
[A] former top FBI
official who helped oversee the al-Bayoumi investigation [stated]… “We firmly
believed that he had knowledge [of the 9/11 plot]”
The Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review:
Omar al-Bayoumi
now is living in Saudi Arabia. With no reason being stated, the FBI closed its
investigation on him.
Knight Ridder:
Graham wrote that
the staff of the congressional inquiry concluded that two Saudis in the San
Diego area, Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassan, who gave significant financial
support to two hijackers, were working for the Saudi government.
Sun Sentinel:
But Graham said
the commission's findings were based on an interview with al-Bayoumi in Saudi
Arabia with Saudi Arabian officials present. ``He had no motivation to speak
truthfully as to his role,'' he said.
911 Commission
Report Notes:
Another possible
source of suspicion is his [Bayoumi’s] passport, which contains a cachet that
intelligence investigators associate with possible adherence to al Qaeda. It is
a marking that can be obtained by especially devout Muslims.
911 Commission
Report Notes:
The rental
application states that Hazmi and Mihdhar resided in Bayoumi's apartment from
January 15 to February 2, 2000, but Bayoumi denies it, and we have found no
reason to dispute his denial.
San Diego Union
Tribune, September 8, 2004:
Al-Bayoumi helped
the future hijackers get settled in San Diego and, [Senator] Graham said, his
income from Saudi sources rose significantly during their stay in the area.
" . . . That
increase came from two sources, a Saudi government contractor and a member of
the Saudi royal family. From these two sources, al-Bayoumi was funneled in
excess of $40,000 above his usual salary – somewhere between one-sixth and
one-twelfth the estimated total amount needed to fund the September 11 attacks,"
Graham wrote.
Wall Street
Journal, August 11, 2003:
For seven years,
the finance department of a Saudi Civil Aviation Presidency project called
Air Navigation Systems Support employed Mr. Bayoumi. The project is managed
by Dallah Avco Aviation, a unit of the giant Dallah Al-Baraka business group,
which for five of the seven years was reimbursed by the government agency for
Mr. Bayoumi's salary. During the five-year period, Mr. Bayoumi was considered a
Saudi civil servant.
Sept. 11 figure
Omar Bayoumi is shown by documents to have been hired for an aviation
project by order of the Saudi government.
The newly reviewed
documents are on letterhead from Dallah Avco and Saudi government…
The ANSS project
was based in Saudi Arabia, but in August 1994, Mr. Bayoumi showed up in
California and began taking English classes at San Diego State University's
College of Extended Studies, in its American Language Institute.
The Journal of
Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International 2003 Summer:
Saudi authorities…
admit that Dallah Avco Aviation, a branch of the Dallah al-Baraka Group,
a gigantic banking and business conglomerate, manages the Air Navigation Systems
Support project on which al-Bayoumi worked. The head of the Dallah al-Baraka
Group is Saleh Abdullah Kamel, whose name appears in the "Golden
Chain," a roster seized by Bosnian authorities in Sarajevo in March 2002
listing Saudi donors to bin Laden and his associates. Kamel is named
as a supplier of funds to Adil Abdeljalil Batterjee, founder of the Benevolence
International Foundation, designated a terror-financing entity by the Treasury
Department.

Federal News
Service October 22, 2003:
The Golden Chain
list of wealthy Saudi sponsors is an internal Al- Qaida document seized by the
Bosnian police during searches in the offices of Benevolence International
Foundation in Sarajevo in March 2002. Our team was granted access to this
document, among others, following an order of the Supreme Court of Bosnia
Herzegovina ordering the US government to release this maternal.
The Golden Chain
lists the top 20 Saudi financial sponsors of AI- Qaida. It includes 6 bankers
and 12 businessmen, among which there are 2 former ministers.
According to our
estimates, their cumulative corporate net worth totals more than $85 billion
dollars, or 42% of the Saudi annual GNP and equivalent to the annual GNP of
Venezuela.
They include
former leading Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz, businessman Saleh Abdullah
Kamel, the Bin Laden family, and several bankers representing the three
largest Saudi banks (National Commercial Bank, Riyadh Bank and Al Rajhi Bank).
al-Salmi family (Uncle Mohammed and Nephew
Yazeed)
Wall Street
Journal, August 11, 2003:
"When Mr. Al-Bayoumi
arrived in August [1994 in San Diego], his placement tests showed that he was
not ready to ... enroll in SDSU courses," Linda Lawton, a college official,
wrote in a Dec. 6, 1994, letter to Mohammed Ahmed al-Salmi, director general
of the Presidency of Civil Aviation... Mr. Bayoumi's work… started in June
1995… at the direction of the aviation authority…
In 1999, the
records show, Dallah Avco sought to end Mr. Bayoumi's annual contracts. "The
company is not willing to renew the period for another year and we
wish this to be known," a Dallah official wrote to Mr. Salmi of the aviation
authority. Mr. [Mohammed Ahmed] Salmi responded, in a letter marked
"extremely urgent," that the government wanted Mr. Bayoumi's contract renewed
"as quickly as possible."
The following
year, Mr. Bayoumi's contract lapsed again and civil-service rules required
him to return to Saudi Arabia to keep his job. Instead of returning, he
took a two-year leave from his government-paid job, according to the
records, and Dallah Avco agreed to request to hire him directly and to
continue paying his salary, which the company did.
911 Commission
Report Notes:
[Yazeed al-]Salmi
arrived in San Diego on August 7, 2000, and three days later moved into the
house [Shaikh’s] where Hazmi resided. Omar al Bayoumi -- who reported (at
least nominally) to Salmi's uncle at the Saudi Civil Aviation ministry -- found
this accommodation for Salmi…
911 Commission
Report:
After Mihdhar left
[but while Hazmi was still at Shaikh’s house in mid-2001], other students
moved into the house [of Shaikh]. One of these, Yazeed al Salmi,
stands out. In July 2000, Salmi purchased $4,000 in traveler's checks at a bank
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On September 5, Hazmi deposited $1,900 of the
traveler's checks into his bank account, after withdrawing the
same amount in cash.
Washington Post:
Yazeed Al-Salmi…
shared a car insurance policy with Alhazmi...
911 Commission
Report:
After 9/11,
Salmi reportedly confided to Mohdar Abdullah that he had previously known
terrorist pilot Hani Hanjour.
911 Commission Report
Notes:
For Salmi's
possible link to Hanjour, see FBI report of investigation, interview of
Abdullah, July 23, 2002. We made efforts with the assistance of the FBI to
interview Salmi, but without success. The FBI interviewed Salmi on its own
in June 2004 but failed to ask about his reported childhood ties to Hanjour.
FBI report of investigation interview of Yazeed al Salmi, June 14, 2004.
911 Commission
Report Notes:
Prior to
September 11, both he and Yazeed al Salmi suddenly became intent on proceeding
with their planned marriages. One witness quotes Salmi as commenting
after the 9/11 attacks,"I knew they were going to do something, that is why I
got married."
Sam’s Star Mart (Texaco Station) Business Owner
& Manager
911 Commission
Report Notes:
The owner of the
gas station, Osama Mustafa, and the manager of the station, Iyad
Kreiwesh, have both been the subject of FBI counterterrorism investigations.
Congressional
Joint Inquiry into 911:
The business owner
[Mustafa], a Palestinian by birth and a U.S. citizen, owns a number of
businesses in the San Diego area, including the business where al-Hazmi worked
for several weeks. A number of the hijackers’ associates, including [classified]
and [classified], also worked at this business [Texaco station]. FBI records
show that both al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi spent time socializing at the
business.
Before September
11, the business owner was in contact with an individual who told the FBI after
September 11 that he was al-Hazmi’s best friend and that the individual had
contact with an FBI informant [Shaikh] who also had contacts with the hijackers.
The FBI also
learned that the business owner had been associating with other persons with
possible ties to the hijackers, including Osama Bassnan, and it received
reports that the business owner cheered upon learning of the September 11
attacks.
The FBI conducted
several investigations of the business owner prior to September 11. The first
was opened in August 1991 upon receipt of reports from the San Diego Police
Department that, during a traffic stop, he had stated that the United
States needed another Pan Am 103 attack and that he could be the one to carry it
out. The business owner also said that all Americans should be killed
for what they did to Iraqis. During the investigation, the FBI developed
information that the business owner was associated with members of the
Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a known terrorist
organization, in San Diego and Chicago. In 1994, San Diego police also
received an anonymous call stating that the business owner was a PFLP member.
The FBI received information in 1994 that he had threatened to kill a former
Israeli intelligence officer who resided in San Diego. The business owner
informed the Israeli that he was a member of the Palestine Liberation
Organization and that the orders to kill him had come from the PLO. The FBI
closed its investigation of the business owner, but reopened it in 1997 when
it received information tying him to a possible terrorist plot based in North
Carolina. In February 2001, a stockbroker called the FBI to say that the
business owner had closed his account, explaining that he was sending the money
to freedom fighters in Afghanistan. During its post-September 11
investigation, the FBI discovered that the business owner was associating
with Osama Bassnan and [classified], two other possible hijacker associates
in San Diego.
Congressional
Joint Inquiry into 911:
[In 2000, al-Hazmi
briefly worked at a San Diego business. The manager of the business, told the
FBI that he hired al-Hazmi after receiving a call from “mutual friends” at the
Saranac Street Mosque. In January 2000, before al-Hazmi’s employment at the
business, the FBI Los Angeles field office initiated a counterterrorism
investigation of the business manager after a person whom the FBI was
surveilling entered the business manager’s car in a mosque parking lot. That
person was [ ], the brother of a known Bin Ladin operative [ ]. The business
manager was under FBI investigation when he hired al-Hazmi]. [The FBI agent
handling the business manager’s investigation interviewed him by phone. The
business manager told the agent that he did not want to meet in person because
it would be a strain to travel to Los Angeles. The business manager informed the
agent that he had lived in San Diego for two and a half years and did not want
to give his home address. The business manager said that he worked at the local
business. The agent concluded that the business
manager did not
pose a threat to national security, and the investigation was closed in December
2000].
Newsweek August 4,
2003, U.S. Edition
In January 2000,
FBI agents tailing a suspected Qaeda operative in San Diego thought they'd
gotten a break. Their target was spotted chatting with the manager of
Sam's Star Mart, a local Texaco station. The agents later called the
manager, hoping he would tell them about the conversation, and maybe point them
toward other suspicious characters. But the man wanted nothing to do with them.
"It would be a strain" to come in for an interview, he told them, and refused to
give the agents his home address. Faced with a reluctant witness, the agents
called it a day and dropped the matter. Looking back, maybe that wasn't the best
call. Had the G-men hung in just a little longer, they might have run across one
of the manager's recent hires at the Star Mart: Nawaf Alhazmi
911 Commission
Report Notes:
Moreover, as of
August 2001, Iyad Kreiwesh and other employees at the Texaco station where
Hazmi had worked suddenly were anticipating attention from law enforcement
authorities in the near future. Finally, according to an uncorroborated witness
account, early on the morning of September 10, Abdullah, Osama Awadallah,
Omar Bakarbashat, and others behaved suspiciously at the gas station.
According to the witness, after the group met, Awadallah said "it is finally
going to happen" as the others celebrated by giving each other high fives.
Mohdar Abdullah

The San Diego
Union-Tribune:
Abdallah told
investigators that another man, Omar Al-Bayoumi... introduced him to the three men who later became hijackers.
The Los Angeles
Times:
In 2001, several
friends of Abdullah and the hijackers told The Times that Omar Albayoumi,
another Saudi, drove the two hijackers from Los Angeles to San Diego around
mid-January 2000.
The San Diego
Union-Tribune:
In fact, Abdullah
did drive future hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar to San Diego after
their arrival in January 2000...
The San Diego
Union-Tribune:
[Abdallah]
regularly dined and prayed with three San Diego-linked hijackers and helped them
obtain Social Security cards, driver's licenses, flight school information and
rides from Los Angeles International Airport, according to court records… It is
the first public record to detail Abdallah's relationships with hijackers Nawaf
Alhazmi, Khalid al-Midhar… Abdallah "had provided substantial assistance to the
hijackers as they acclimated themselves in the United States in planning the
Sept. 11th attacks," the document said.
The [court]
document [according to court records made public on May 7, 2002] also mentions
for the first time a spiral notebook seized from Abdallah's car a week after the
terrorist attacks. The notebook contains references to "hijacking," "mass
killings" and "burning flesh falling from the sky," the document said...
"While being
processed at the FBI office, defendant made several spontaneous statements, not
in response to any questioning, referencing the hatred in his heart for the
United States government, and that the United States brought 'this' (Sept.
11) on themselves," the document said…
The document said
FBI agents who interviewed Abdallah believed he was lying to them, in
part because he agreed to take the lie-detector test and then failed to show up.
Abdallah was told in advance that he would be asked "if he had any
participation or knowledge of any terrorist attacks or future attacks," the
document said.
"The defendant
continuously made body movements, or gestures that gave the interviewing agents
the impression that he knew more than he was telling, and that he was concealing
information.
SD Tribune May 8,
2002:
Abdallah… went to
the United Airlines ticket counter with them [hijackers Midhar and Hazmi] once
to try to exchange the return portion of their Bangkok and Malaysia [Malaysia,
the location of the infamous meeting which was monitored by the CIA in Jan 2000]
flight, among other things, the document said.
The Washington
Post December 29, 2001:
Mohdar Abdallah…
was an assistant manager at the Texaco station where Alhazmi briefly worked
911 Commission
Report Notes:
Hazmi… may have
telephoned his former San Diego companion, Mohdar Abdullah, in late
August [2001]. Several bits of evidence indicate that others in Abdullah's
circle may have received word that something big would soon happen. As noted
earlier, Abdullah's behavior reportedly changed noticeably.
Omar Bakarbashat
Copley News
Service May 26, 2004:
Abdullah, 26, and
Bakarbashat, 31, both college students, were arrested immediately after the
attacks and taken to New York to testify before a federal grand jury. They were
held under the material witness statute. They eventually were returned to San
Diego and charged with immigration crimes. By the time they pleaded guilty, they
already had served their six-month sentences.
Bakarbashat
admitted that he created phony immigration documents and a Social Security card
on his computer. He said his money was gone and he needed to find a job…
Bakarbashat gave
up his fight and was deported to Yemen after two years and two months in
custody. Hamud said Bakarbashat spent "a couple days in a Yemeni jail" and was
"subjected to interrogation by Yemeni authorities" until his parents were able
to secure his release. He now lives in Saudi Arabia, [his attorney
Randall] Hamud said.
The San Francisco
Chronicle September 20, 2001:
Authorities
believe that Bakarbashat may have had firsthand knowledge that a
terrorist plot was brewing after spending time with at least two of the
hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
"I think he
knew what was going to happen," a federal source said on the condition of
anonymity. "He probably didn't know when. All the people who are being arrested
are potential conspirators and potential witnesses. It's at a preliminary stage.
They'll decide later whether he is going to be a witness or a defendant."…
Hani Hanjour,
Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi were identified as three of the men who took
over American Flight 77 and flew it into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. It is unclear
whether Bakarbashat knew the men before they moved to California.
Bakarbashat may
have roomed with two of the men and given them money, the source said.
Bakarbashat was traced through financial records, the official said, and he
helped the men hone their English skills and taught them how to use a computer.
Copley News
Service September 20, 2001:
A man suspected of
financially helping three San Diego-based terrorists was identified
Wednesday as Omer Bakarbashat…
"He lived with
(the hijackers), helped them learn English and pointed them in the right
direction," said a law enforcement officer…
Sources said
Bakarbashat has financial ties to the hijackers and could face other charges
eventually…
The federal
sources declined to give details about the financial status of Bakarbashat, who
on the surface would seem to have little chance of bankrolling terrorists. The
sources suggested he had connections to wealth, but would not elaborate…
911 Commission
Report Notes:
Bakarbashat
apparently had downloaded stridently anti-American Web pages to his computer's
hard drive…
Osama Awadallah
New York Law Journal
November 14, 2003:
A search of the
car Al-Hazmi abandoned at Dulles Airport in Virginia produced a piece of paper
with the notation, "Osama 589-5316." Federal agents tracked this number to a San
Diego address at which the defendant, Osama Awadallah, had lived approximately
eighteen months earlier…
Copley News
Service September 26, 2001:
Detainees
Bakarbashat, Awadallah and Al-Salmi lived at the Southridge Apartments on
Saranac Street in La Mesa at various times over last few years, with various
roommates.
New York Law
Journal November 14, 2003:
The search of
Awadallah's home produced several computer-generated photographs of Osama bin
Laden; the searches of his cars produced two videotapes on Bosnia…
911 Commission
Report:
Moreover, as of
August 2001, Iyad Kreiwesh and other employees at the Texaco station where
Hazmi had worked suddenly were anticipating attention from law enforcement
authorities in the near future. Finally, according to an uncorroborated witness
account, early on the morning of September 10, Abdullah, Osama Awadallah,
Omar Bakarbashat, and others behaved suspiciously at the gas station.
According to the witness, after the group met, Awadallah said "it is finally
going to happen" as the others celebrated by giving each other high fives.
Osama Bassnan
Newsweek December
2, 2002, U.S. Edition:
Basnan also
befriended the two hijackers, Almihdhar and Alhazmi. After the terrorist
attacks, Basnan, who was known as a vocal Qaeda sympathizer, "celebrated the
heroes of September 11" and talked about "what a wonderful, glorious day it had
been," according to a law-enforcement official.
Congressional
Joint Inquiry into 911:
Bassnan was a
close associate of al-Bayoumi,…
Bassnan also had
close ties to a number of other persons connected to the hijackers…
Bassnan lived in
the apartment complex in San Diego across the street from al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar…
The FBI… had been
made aware of him on several occasions. In May 1992, the State Department
provided the FBI with a box of documents recovered from an abandoned car. The
documents were in Arabic, and one, a newsletter to supporters of the Eritrean
Islamic Jihad (EIJ) Movement, provided updates on the EIJ’s council and was
marked “confidential.” The box contained letters addressed to Bassnan
that discussed plans to import used cars to the United States. The FBI opened a
counterterrorism inquiry on the EIJ, but, having failed to develop information
that would predicate further investigation, closed the investigation in December
1992. In 1993, the FBI received reports that Bassnan had hosted a party for
the “Blind Sheikh” [implicated in the 1993 WTC bombing] in Washington, D.C. in
1992. However, the FBI did not open an investigation. The Intelligence
Community had information connecting Bin Ladin to the EIJ as of 1996. In
addition, FBI documents note that a high-level member of the EIJ was on Bin
Ladin’s Shura Council. A May 2000 FBI document indicates that FBI Headquarters
personnel were not handling EIJ matters due to resource constraints. After
September 11, the FBI developed information clearly indicating that Bassnan
is an extremist and a Bin Ladin supporter…
The FBI also
learned that the business owner [Osama Mustafa] had been associating with other
persons with possible ties to the hijackers, including Osama Bassnan
Knight Ridder
Tribune Sept. 7, 2004:
Citing CIA
analyses, Graham said the two Saudis, Omar al Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, were
Saudi agents.
Newsweek December
2, 2002, U.S. Edition:
About two months
after al-Bayoumi began aiding Alhazmi and Almihdhar, NEWSWEEK has learned, al-Bayoumi's
wife began receiving regular stipends, often monthly and usually around $2,000,
totaling tens of thousands of dollars. The money came in the form of cashier's
checks, purchased from Washington's Riggs Bank by Princess Haifa bint Faisal,
the daughter of the late King Faisal and wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi envoy
who is a prominent Washington figure and personal friend of the Bush family. The
checks were sent to a woman named Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, who in turn signed
over many of them to al-Bayoumi's wife (and her friend), Manal Ahmed Bagader…
Dwei-kat's
husband, Osama Basnan, had first pleaded to the Saudi Embassy for help in 1998,
saying that he needed money to treat his wife's thyroid condition. At the time,
Prince Bandar wrote Basnan a $15,000 check. The monthly payments to his
wife, Majeda, began in January 1999 and ended only last summer...
After al-Bayoumi
left San Diego in July 2001, the cashier's checks purchased by Princess Haifa
continued to flow to Majeda Dweikat, who in turn signed many of them over to her
husband, Osama [Basnan]…
Wife Dweikat
appears to have been at least a minor scamster. She was convicted of marriage
fraud to obtain immigration papers and pleaded guilty--along with al-Bayoumi's
wife, Manal--to shoplifting in April 2001. The checks from Princess Haifa
stopped when Basnan was arrested for visa fraud last August…
Osama Basnan
showed up in Houston last April [2001] when Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah came to
town with a vast entourage en route to President George W. Bush's ranch.
According to informed sources, Basnan met with a high Saudi prince who
has responsibilities for intelligence matters [Prince Turki al-Faisal is
head of Saudi Intelligence] and is known to bring
suitcases full of cash into the United States--a practice not unheard-of among
the Saudi elite. A Houston police report obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that
Basnan complained he had been robbed of his Saudi passport and $400. It is dated
April 25, the same week the crown prince was in town.
United Press
International September 5, 2001:
The disastrous
head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal... has a
dangerous soft spot for the Taliban and is seen by American and British
intelligence as too close to the notorious Osama bin-Laden for comfort, let
his anti-Western biases show in the way he ran the investigations into the
bombing campaign against Westerners in the kingdom. The prince sought to present
the bombings as a Mafia-style war between corrupt British and other Western
merchants of illicit alcohol, despite considerable evidence that fundamentalists
were involved, some of them with alleged connections to Prince Turki's own
organization. Wiser councils have now prevailed, thanks to discreet American
pressure. Prince Turki has been sacked by King Fahd, and replaced Prince
Nawaf bin-Abdul Aziz.
BBC Worldwide
Monitoring, September 4, 2001, Tuesday:
Text of report by
London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat on 1 September
Jedda - Custodian
of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd Bin-Abd-al-Aziz has issued a royal decree
appointing Prince Nawwaf Bin-Abd-al-Aziz as head of the Saudi intelligence
service with the rank of minister and relieving Prince Turki al-Faysal of
the post at his own request.
The royal decree
said that based on the presentation made by Crown Prince Abdallah Bin-Abd-al-Aziz,
deputy prime minister and commander of the National Guard, Prince Turki al-Faysal
has been relieved of his post at his own request, and Prince Nawwaf Bin-Abd-al-Aziz
has been appointed in his place.
Prince Nawwaf Bin-Abd-al-Aziz
is the third Saudi intelligence chief since the service was set up in the
mid-sixties. The late Kamal Adham was the first head of intelligence, then
Prince Turki al-Faysal took charge of the service in 1977. It is worth
noting that Prince Nawwaf has in the past assumed the finance and national
economy portfolios and also headed the Royal Court…
As for Prince
Turki al-Faysal, he was born in 1947 and was appointed as head of the
intelligence service on 6 September 1977 with the rank of minister.
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