POSSIBLE SAUDI GOVERNMENT CONNECTIONS TO THE 9/11 PLOT OR PLOTTERS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06580007
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: September 9, 2020
• Case Number: F-2013-01930
• Publication Date: June 23, 2003

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SECI____Q444-MitSTCTITS11-71SITIVE
June 23, 2003
MEMORANDUM
To: Commissioners
From: Philip Zelikow
Subj: Possible Saudi Government Connections to the 9/11 Plot or Plotters
We have received no evidence so far that the Saudi government was aware of or
complicit in the 9/11 attacks before they occurred. We have received evidence, however,
that particular Saudi officials or agents of the Saudi government may have assisted the
hijackers. The briefing on June 26 will introduce you to some of this evidence so that
you can form a preliminary impression of the issues involved.
Saudi Arabia and Sunni Extremism
This briefing will not be on the general topic of the Kingdom's relationships with Muslim
terrorist groups or Saudi cooperation (or lack of it) in the war against terrorism. That
important subject, like the analogous issues for Pakistan and Sudan, is a subject for Team
3 (International Counterterrorism Policy) and Team 4 (Terrorist Finance).
This briefing is focused on the specific topic of whether officials or agents of the Saudi
government were involved in the 9/11 attacks. That turns on particular investigative
leads arising from the activities and contacts of the hijackers in the United States. Before
turning to those leads, a bit of general context is nonetheless useful.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long devoted great energy and resources to the
worldwide propagation of a particular practice of Islam, usually called Wahhabism.
Wahhabism is a reform movement that arose in the le century as a reaction to
traditional and mystical forms of Islam. It is a doctrine of puritanical, conservative
fundamentalism, urging believers to return to the original text of the Quran and
governance of society under Sharia � Muslim law. For decades the Saudi government
and Saudi religious leaders � the ulama � have used government subsidies and charitable
foundations to make their version of Sunni doctrine dominant throughout the Muslim
world. The fundamentalist appeal of the Iranian revolution pushed the Saudis to work
even harder and spend more money to attract (he worldwide Muslim community to their
Sunni version of fundamentalism. Many in the Kingdom think their country's mission in
the world is to remain a magnetic pole of attraction for Muslims everywhere, defining the
true practice of Islam while safeguarding Islam's Holy Places.
To do this work in countries or overseas communities where fundamentalist appeal is
strong but there is much disagreement with pa licular aspects of Wahhabism, the Saudis
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allied themselves with a wide spectrurn of-Sunni fundarnentalist groups and strands of
belief, including the Salafi zealots who hope for a restoration of the Caliphate (lost in
1922 with the secularization of Turkey) or who have various political agendas. The
Saudi government and ulama exert their influence by founding and supporting mosques
and religious schools that they can steer and manage.
These resulting relationships are difficult to follow, partly because the relationships are
only incidentally related to formal institutions. Networks are organized around personal
relationships and sustained through patronage.
Omar al-Bayoumi and Fahad al-Thumairy
Hazmi and Mihdar arrived in Los Angeles on January 15,2000. They were veterans of
the jihad struggle and had recently attended an Al Qaida meeting in Malaysia.
We do not yet know where Hazmi and Mihdar stayed from January 15 to 26, probably in
Los Angeles. One FBI agent who investigated the case mentioned that Fahad al-
Thumairy, a diplomat at the Saudi consulate, was known as someone who gets
apartments for people in LA and is also the imam at the (Saudi-sponsored) King Fand
mosque in Culver City. This agent speculated that Thumairy might have helped Hazmi
and Mihdar find a place to stay in LA.' We do not know if there is any evidence to
sUpport this theory. In 2002 the Los Angeles Field Office of the FBI opened a Full Field
Investigation of Thumairy. We do not yet know the results of that investigation, except
that Thumairy was refused entry to the United States when he recently attempted to
return to Los Angeles.
On January 26, Omar al-Bayoumi drove up from San Diego to Los Angeles with a
companion, a Muslim convert. He met there with Thumairy, whom Bayoumi had known
for some time. Bayoumi told his companion it was about a visa matter. He and the
companion then drove to a halal restaurant, which had turned into a butcher shop. The
shopkeepers directed them to another restaurant nearby where Bayoumi and his
companion happened to meet Hazmi and Mihdar. The companion told the FBI he
thought this was a chance encounter.
This apparently fortuitous meeting led to Bayourni helping Hazmi and Mihdar move to
San Diego, where they would live for most of that year.
I Joint Inquiry interview with John Matthews. 15 Aunist 2002.
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Then 43 years old, Omar al-Bayoumi had been carried for decades on the employment
books of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority. He was then being paid by a contractor for
that agency, a company named Dallah-Avco. He did no apparent work for this company,
however. His salary payments were irregular and in varying amounts. While finding
easy schools to attend that would allow him to maintain his student visa, Bayoumi had
devoted himself for his last seven years in San Diego to establishing and managing
mosques. Within the large Muslim community in San Diego Bayoumi was known for his
religious work and was regarded, at least by some, as some kind of Saudi spy.
Bayoumi had some suspicious associates. His paychecks from Saudi Arabia were
approved by a Civil Aviation Authority employee. That employee's son is an apparent
member of Al Qaida and possible `second-wave' hijacker. (The son is now reportedly in
detention in Saudi Arabia.) One of Bayoumi's closest friends in San Diego, Osama
Bassnan, was a vocal supporter of Usama Bin-Laden and has other connections to
extremist circles. Bassnan is believed to be a former employee of the Saudi
government's educational mission in Washington. He and his wife received money from
the Saudi Ambassador and his wife (Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa), nominally to
offset medical costs for Bassnan's wife. Bassnan himself may have met Hazmi and
Mihdar, but there is little evidence of direct ties. Bayoumi was also a friend of an imam
in Norway linked to senior Al Qaida figures.
In other words, there is some evidence to suggest that Bayoumi was an undercover agent
of the Saudi government, funneling Saudi money into the San Diego Muslim community
and perhaps reporting back on what was happening there. He was perhaps being run by a
professional intelligence officer posted in the United States (Thumairy?) or was simply
acting on behalf of patrons in the Kingdom itself.
In this light, two questions about Bayoumi's associations With Hazmi and Mihdar stand
Out:
1. Was his encounter in Los Angeles with the two men fortuitous or planned?
Bayoumi's companion on the January 26 trip to Los Angeles is a key witness for the
'chance encounter' theory, but a weak one since he did not speak Arabic and did not
understand the substance of much of what was going on.
2. Was his assistance in San Diego to 1-lazmi and Mihdar customary or disturbingly
significant?
Bayoumi may have put them up at his own home for several days.
Bayoumi did help them find their first apartment, actively helping them with the
lease, with the deposit, and in opening a bank account.
The FBI feels Bayoumi gave them no particular financial support, just a convenience
loan for a few minutes until they could repay him from their cash. This assumes that
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the $9900 in cash that Hazmi and Mihdar used to open their account is money they
brought with them when they arrived in the U.S. from Bangkok (and an amount under
the required declaration limit). A more suspicious theory is that Bayoumi was the
source of the $9900, although there is no proof for this.
Bayoumi asked a friend, Mohdar Abdullah, to help Hazmi and Mihdar while they
were in San Diego. Abdullah told the FBI that Mihdar acknowledged being a
jihadist, saying he was part of the Islamic Army of Aden. And Abdullah said he took
Hazmi and Mihdar to the King Fand mosque (i'n Culver City, where Thumairy was
the imam).
Evidence from detainees apparently indicates that Hazmi and Mihdar were told (unlike
later plotters) that they should seek out help from the local Muslim community, without
revealing their true purpose for coming to America. If Bayoumi was a Saudi government
agent of some kind and even if he did give extraordinary assistance to Hazmi and Mihdar,
it is still possible that he helped them without real knowledge about their background or
purposes.
But the evidence we have so far also leaves open the possibility that Bayoumi assisted
Hazmi and Mihdar, perhaps knowing that they were members of Al Qaida, as part of a
clandestine extremist support network. Further questions would then arise about the
extent of collusion within the Saudi government.
Hazmi and Mihdar left California at the end of 2000 for Arizona, where they would begin
their operational preparations for the 9/11 attack.
Bayoumi left the United States in August 2001 and took up residence (and attending
college) in Great Britain. At U.S. request, he was picked up by New Scotland Yard
shortly after the 9/II attacks. Lacking any charges that could hold him (he could only be
accused with visa fraud), the British let him go to Saudi Arabia. Neither he nor Thumairy
have been questioned in detail or by American authorities. In May 2003 senior FBI
officials told Commission staff that they would be raising the Bayourni issue in an
upcoming high-level FBI visit to the Kingdom.
Other Threads
We are interested in a pair of Saudi naval officers who were posted to San Diego while
Hazmi and Mihdar were living there. The FBI believed Hazmi talked on the phone with
them. Given Hazmi's ties to the attacks on American ships in Aden and the significance
of San Diego as a naval base, this is interesting. It is also interesting because it ties into
lingering debates among those who have studied the plot who are puzzled about why
Hazmi and Mihdar were sent to California in January 2000, long before the rest of the
plotters begin arriving. In that context, we are also checking information on a couple of
other Saudi military officers stationed in the U.S. who might have contacted one of the
plotters.
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We are also pursuing several other leads, such as:
^ Ties between a Saudi diplomat and half-brother of ULM to the Hamburg cell,
both through the charitable organization he heads (the World Arab Muslim
Youth Association) and his close links to a company named Transcom
International, owned by a person who is the subject of FBI counterterrorism
investigations.
� A Saudi flight student captured in Pakistan and now detained as an Al Qaida
suspect, whose flight certificate was found in a Saudi embassy envelope.
� Possible links between the Hamburg cell and at least one Saudi diplomat in
Berlin who has been recalled back home.
There are also a few cases we are investigating where individuals clearly linked to Al
Qaida have relationships with officials in the Saudi government or senior members of the
Saudi ulama and one other variable is present: an alleged connection to the 9/11 plot or
plotters.
As mentioned earlier, beyond these particular leads there is a broader issue of Saudi
Arabia's involvement with terrorist groups and its stance in the war on terror. The
Commission should address that more general issue too, both in discussing the runup to
the attacks and in assessing the war on terror today. But the June 26 briefing has a
narrower focus.
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