t1a b43 fbi source- saudi- news clips fdr- entire contents- withdrawal notice and media reports- 1st...

8/14/2019 T1A B43 FBI Source- Saudi- News Clips Fdr- Entire Contents- Withdrawal Notice and Media Reports- 1st Pgs for Ref

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W I T H D R A W A L N O T I C ERG: 148Box: 00015 Folder: 0043 Document: 1Series: Team 1A FilesCopies: 1 Pages: 6

ACCESS RESTRICTEDThe item identified below has been withdrawn from this file:

Folder Title: [FBI Source]/Saudi News ClipsDocument Date:Document Type: PaperSpecial Media:From: Lesemann; JacobsonTo:

Subject: workplan for addressing this issue

In the review of this file this item was removed because access to it isrestricted. Restrictions on records in the National Archives are stated ingeneral and specific record group restriction statements which are availablefor examination.

NND: 341Withdrawn: 08-14-2008RETRIEVAL*: 341 00015 0043 1System DocID: 3797


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t r u t h o u t - NEW SWE EK: FBI Informant Lived With the Hijackers Page 1 of 2

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Gp..Tp_O_rjginaj.The Informant Who Lived With the HijackersBy Michael IsikoffNEWSWEEK

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Week of September 16th. IssueNEWSWEEK has learned that one of the bureau's informantshad a close relationship with two of the hijackers.

At first, FBI director Bob Mueller insisted there was nothing the bureau could havedone to penetrate the 9-11 plot. That a ccount has been modified over time--and nowma y change a ga in. NEWSWEEK has learned that one of the bureau's informants hada close relationship with two of the hijackers: he was their roommate.

The connection, just discovered by congressional investigators, has stunned sometop counterterrorism officia ls and raised new concerns about the informa tion-sharingamong U.S. aw-enforcement and intelligence agencies.The two hijackers, KhalidAlmihdhar a nd Na waf Alhazm i, were hardly unknown to the intelligence community.The CIA was first a lerted to them in Janua ry 2000, when the two Sa udi nationalsshowed up at a Qa eda "summit" in Kuala Lum pur, Malaysia. FBI officia ls have argu edinternally for months that if the CIA had more quickly pa ssed along everything it knewabout the two men, the bureau could ha ve hunted them do wn more ag gressively.But both ag encies can share in the blame. Upon leaving Malaysia, Almihdhar andAlhazmi w ent to Sa n Diego, whe re they took flig ht-school lessons. In September 2000,the two m oved into the home of a Muslim ma n who had befriended them at the localIslamic Center. The landlord regularly pra yed with them and even helped one open abank a ccount. He was a lso, sources tell NEWSWE EK, a "tested" undercover "asset"who ha d been wo rking closely with the FBI office in San Diego on terrorism ca sesrelated to Hamas. A senior law-enforcement officia l told NEWSWEEK the informantnever provided the bureau with the names of his two houseguests from Saudi Arabia .Nor does the FBI have a ny reason to believe the informant wa s concealing theiridentities. (He could not be reached for comment.) But the FBI concedes that a SanDiego case agent app ears to have been a t least a wa re that Saudi visitors were rentingrooms in the informa nt's house. (O n one occasion, a source says, the case a gentcalled up the informant a nd wa s told he couldn't talk because "Khalid"-a reference toAlmihdhar-was in the room.) I. C. Smith, a forme r top FBI counterintellig ence officia l,says the case agent should have been keeping closer tabs on who his informant wasfraternizing with-if only to seek out the houseguests as possible informants. "Theyshould ha ve been a sking, 'Who a re these g uys? What a re they doing here?' Thisstrikes me a s a lack of investigative curiosity." About six weeks a fter moving into thehouse, Almihdhar left town, expla ining to the landlord he was heading back to SaudiArabia to see his daughter. Alhazmi moved out at the end of 2000.In the meantime, the CIA was gathering more information about just howpotentially da ngerous both men were. A few months after the O ctober 2000 bombingof the USS Cole in Yemen, CIA ana lysts discovered -in their Mala ysia file that one of

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Page 1

1 of 1 DOCUMENTCopyright 2002 The New York Times CompanyThe New York Times

October 6, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - FinalSECTION: Section 1; Page 24 ; Column 6; National DeskLENGTH: 767 wordsHEADLINE: THREATS A ND RESPONSES: TH E INQUIRY;Congress Seeks F.B.I. Data On Informe r; F.B.I. R esistsBYLINE: By JAMES RISENDATELINE: WASHINGTON, Oct. 5BODY:The F ederal Bure au of Investigation had a confiden tial inform er who rented rooms in California to two of the Sept. 11hijackers, but the bureau is resisting a request from the Congressional committee investigating the attacks to interview theinformer and his F.B.I, handler, government officials said.

The joint Sept. 11 Congressional committee plans to hold a closed hearing on Wednesday focusing on the F.B.I.'shandling of its San Diego informer, who was the landlord of the hijackers Khalid al -Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi a yearbefore the attacks.

Several officials said the F.B.I, had rebuffed requests to make the informer available to the committee and would notauthorize th e agent who was his contact to testify.The F.B.I.'s resistance has led Congressional officials to become more aggressive in trying to find out whether theinformer provided clues abou t the hijackers that the bureau ignored or failed to act on before Sept. 11.An F.B.I, official said the bureau ha d provided the committee with all the agent's reports on the informer's activities.The official said the F.B.I, was unwilling to allow the informer to testify on principle, fearing it could damage efforts torecruit sources from Arab-American communit ies. The official said the F.B.I, had not learned the identity of Mr. Midharor Mr. Alhazmi from the informer, who was known as a "passive source," meaning he was not assigned to obtain specific

intelligence but routinely passed on informa tion.The official said the F.B.I, did not have any information indicating that the informer knew anything about the plot orha d passed on any details that should have caused his F.B.I, contact to focus more closely on Mr. Midhar or Mr. Alhazmi.But Congressional investigators say the F.B.I.'s efforts to block their inquiry makes them skeptical of the bur eau 'sassertions about the informer. They also say the Justice Department has joined the F.B.I, in fighting the Congressionalrequests for informa tion related to the matter, escalating tensions.The fight over access to the informer is the latest bitter dispute between th e committee and the Bush administrationand the intelligence and law enforcem ent agencies that are the subject of the committee's inv estigation.Antagonism between the Central Intelligence Agency and the committee became public a week ago after the director

of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, wrote a letter to the committee's leaders, protesting the treatment of a seniorC.I.A. officer who had testified about the agency's record on fighting terrorism. Mr. Tenet's letter was in response to adisclosure that the comm ittee's staff had written briefing papers predicting to committee members that Cofer Black, whowas until recently the chief of the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center, would "dissemble" in his testimony.

Separately, documents made public in federal court in Alexandria, Va., late last month showed that the JusticeDepartment sought unsuccessfully to prevent F.B.I, agents, and the burea u's director, Ro bert S. Mu eller III, from testifyingpublicly before th e joint inquiry.


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Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Most Recent Two Years (I)Terms: abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant (Edit Search)rSelect for FOCUS or Delivery

The Washington Post, October 11, 2002Copyright 2002 The Washington Post

washingtonpost.comThe Washington Post

October 11, 2002, Friday, Final EditionSECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A14LENGTH: 590 wordsHEADLINE: 9/11 Panel Discusses Informant; FBI Handling of Man Who Lived WithHijackers at IssueBYLINE: Susan Schmidt, Washington Post Staff WriterBODY:

A congressional panel investigating intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11attacksmet in closed session yesterday to discuss the FBI's handling of information from a San Diegoinformant who lived for a time with two of the hijackers.FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and CIA Director George J. Tenet appeared before the jointHouse-Senate intelligence panel behind closed doors. On Wednesday, th e panel questionedan FBI agent who received information from Abdussattar Shaikh, a San Diego man whorented a room in his house in 2000 to Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, two of thesuicide hijackers. Shaikh, a retired educator, has said publicly he met the men when theyresponded to a room-for-rent notice he posted at the Islamic Center in San Diego. He said inin terviews last year that Alhazmi moved into his home in Lemon Grove, Calif., a working-class suburb of San Diego, in August 2000. Almihdhar, whom th e U.S. government has linkedto planners of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, moved in later that month, hesaid. Both men left at the end of the year.Shaikh said he believed the men were seeking an education in this country and that he sawno signs of radical beliefs.At the time, according to government sources, Shaikh was providing information informallyto the FBI. Shaikh, who was recently identified by name as an informer in a San Diegonewspaper, has publicly objected to that characterization. He did not return a call forcomment yesterday.Government officials familiar with the matter said it did not appear that Shaikh had providedsubstant ive information about his housemates to his FBI handler. Neither Almihdhar norAlhazmi turned up in the FBI's San Diego files, the officials said, adding that the joint panelhas been given access to all the informant reports relating to Shaikh.

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C6S News Transcripts October 11, 2002 FridayCopyright 2002 Burrelle's Information Services

CBS News TranscriptsSHOW: CBS Morning News (6:30 AM ET) - CBS

October 11, 2002 FridayTYPE: NewscastLENGTH: 330 wordsHEADLINE: Confrontation between Congress and the FBI over key information about 9/11ANCHORS: JON FRANKELREPORTERS: JIM STEWARTBODY:JO N FRANKEL, anchor:A tense confrontation is brewing between C ongress and the FBI over the B ureau's handling ofa witness who may have had key information prior to the September llthattacks. JimStewart reports.JIM STEWART reporting:A cong ression al com mittee investigating the September the llthhijackings met behindclosed doors to hash out what appears to be an increasingly ugly confrontation with the FBI.At issue is the testimony of an FBI informant, who apparently played landlord to two of the9/11 hijackers and never informed his case agent of the renters until after the attacks.The two hijackers, Naw af A lhaz m i and Khalid AI-Midhar , were the only members of the groupto enter the US through th e West Coast. For several months, they lived in this San Diegoresidence, where their landlord was this man, identified as Abdussattar Shaikh, aprominent San Diego Muslim leader. Shaikh has denied he was an informant, although theFBI has confirmed, without identifying him by name, that the man the hijackers rented fromwas an informational asset to the Bureau. Now Congress wants him to testify, apparently insecret, closed session, about what he knew and what he told his FBI handlers.Congressional sources called his story 'highly specific, factual and significant' and that itopens another chapter in the story of the 9/11 plot. The FBI said it is drawing a line in thesand over th e issue. This is about subjecting people who would provide information to thegovernment to undue scrutiny and protecting their identification,' a spokesman said.Both AI-Midhar and Alhazm i began flight training shortly after arriving in California. Theinformant has reportedly explained that he never attached any significance to his youngtenants until after the 9/11 attack when he recognized their pictures. That's when hecalledhis FBIcase agent and said, 'Hey, I know these guys. They were my roommates . ' JimStewart, CBS News, Washington.

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CNN.com - Sources: Hijackers' ex-landlord was FBI informant - September 11 , 2002 Page 1 of 2

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trial issues

Nawaf Alhazmi

Special Report | Timeline | Faces of September 11 | Fighting TerrorSources: Hijackers' ex-landlord was FBIinformantSeptember 11, 2002 Posted: 4:33 AM EOT (0833 GMT)

From Dana Bash, Kelli Arena and David EnsorC NNWASHINGTON ( C N N ) -- A formerlandlord of two of the September 11hijackers was an FBI informant at thetime, knowledgeable sources confirm toCN N .The two hijackers, Khalid Almidhar andNawaf Alhazmi, lived in San Diego in thefall of 2000 and w ere taken in by aMuslim man after he met them at a localIslamic center. The landlord ha d been aninformant for the FBI, supplying

information about the Islamic terroristgroups Hamas and Hezbollah.The revelation, first reported byNewsw eek, focuses renewed attention onpossible mistakes made by U.S. lawenforcement and intelligence prior to September 11. Newsweek reported that theFBI in form ant lived in close quarters with the two future hijackers.

"The FBI concedes that a San Diego case agent appears to have been at leastaware that Saudi visitors were renting room s in the inform ant's house, "Newsweek reported.Some members of the congressional committee investigating the intelligencefailures and the September 11 attacks knew about the relationship between thelandlord and the FBI, and the point will probably com e up w hen the panel holdspublic hearings, expected later this mo nth.U.S. intelligence officials said that in January of2000, when Almidhar an d Alhazmi attended ameeting of kno wn terrorists in Kuala Lum pur ,Malaysia, that fact was communicated by the CIAto the FBI.Yet it was not until August 23 , 2001,that the CIA w arned the FBI and other lawenforcement agencies to watch for the two men,and that they m ight try to enter th e United States.

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Search - 1 7 Results - abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant Page 1 of 2

Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Most Recent Tw o Years Terms: abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant (Edit Search)^Select for FOCUS or DeliveryD

The Bulletin's Frontrunner October 11, 2002 FridayCopyright 2002 Bul letin Broa dfaxing Ne twork, Inc.

The Bulletin's FrontrunnerOctober 11, 2002 Friday

SECTION: Terrorism NewsLENGTH: 327 wordsHEADLINE: FBI, Congress At Odds Over Informant Who Knew Two 9/11 Hijackers.BODY:CBS (10/10, story 7, Rather) reports, "In the investigation of intell igence failures before9/11," there is "a tense standoff between the FBI and Congress over a witnes s." CBS(Stewart) adds, "A cong ress ional com m ittee invest igating the September llthhijackings metbehind closed doors today to hash out w hat appears to be an increasingly ugly confrontat ionwith the FBI At issue is the test imony of an FBI informant w ho apparently played landlord totwo of the 9/11 hijackers and never informed his case agent of the renters until after theattacks. The two hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid Almiihdar, were the only members ofthe group to enter the US through the We st Coast. For seve ral months they l ived in this SanDiego residence w here their land lord was this m an, identi fied as Abdussattar Shaikh, aprominent San Diego Musl im leader. Shaikh has denied he was an informant, although theFBI has confirmed without identi fying him by name, that the man the hijackers rented fromw as an ' informational asset ' to the Bureau. Now Congress wa nts him to testify, apparently ina secret, closed ses sion about w hat he knew and w hat he told his FBI handlers."The Washington Post (10/11, Schmidt) reports that "government off icials famil iar with thematter said it did not appear that Shaikh had provided substantive information about hishousemates to his FBI handler. Neither Almihdhar no r Alhazmi turned up in the FBI's SanDiego files, th e off icials sa id, adding that the joint panel has been given access to all theinformant reports relating to Shaikh. The FBI, which is seeking to find sources and buildrelationships in Ara b com m unities, has resisted a request from Congres s to bring Sh aikhbefore the intell igence panel to testify." And "it was not clear yesterday what information thecommittee was seeking from Mueller and Tenet. But i t postponed until next week a publ icsession with the two off icials that was sche duled for yes terday."LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2002

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Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Most Recent Tw o Years Terms: abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant (Edit Search)p"Select for FOCUS or DeliveryD

The San Diego Union-Tribune, November 27, 2002Copyright 2002 The San Diego Union-Tribune

The San Diego Union-TribuneNovember 27, 2002, Wednesday

SECTION: NEWS;Pg. A-lLENGTH: 950 wordsHEADLINE: Local FBI chief defends off ice, decries search for 9/11 blameBYLINE: Kelly Thornton; STAFF WRITERBODY:Critics have said San Diego's FBI may have bungled a chance to prevent 9/11. Now they saythe local office failed to vigorously pursue the terrorists' funding sources.Bill Gore has remained silent.Yesterday, th e local FBI chief defended his agents and dished out some crit ic ism of his ownabout the congre ssional com mittee looking into the attacks."It bothers me when they accuse the FBI of not being aggressive enough," Gore said. "Ibelieve th e facts of the investigation indicate we were as aggressive as we should have beenand followed all logical leads to their conclusion. If this is ever declassif ied, their investigationwil l reveal that."Gore was referring to a draf t report from th e committee, which, among other things, foundthat S an Diego- l inked hi jackers Naw af Alhazm i and Khalid al -Midhar may have receivedmoney indirect ly from a Saudi princess, through tw o Saudi m en living in San Diego.Gore's comments were made dur ing a quest ion-and-answer meeting with th e Union-Tribuneeditorial board, attended by editors and reporters from th e newsroom. The board regularlyinvites people in the news to discuss current events.Al though he declined to discuss th e details, Gore said the FBI has thoroughly and doggedlypursued the money trail from the start of the Sept. 11 investigation, and agents areconfident they know how the S an Diego-l inked hi jackers were funded, e ven if they lackenough evidence to bring charges.Leading up to Sept. 11 and after, Gore said, the bureau has done the best it could withlimited staffing levels and under legal constraints that prevented th e sharing of informationbetween the FBI and CIA.Gore said he is disheartened by attitudes of some comm ittee mem bers who he sees aslooking fo r scapegoats."W e don't necessari ly have to find somebody in the government to blame for Sept. 11," saidGore, who recently spent about four hours testifying before the committee. "I was

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Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Most Recent Tw o Years Terms: abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant (Edit Search)*~Select for FOCUS or Delivery

Copley News Service September 18, 2002 Wednesday.Copyright 2002 Copley News Service

Copley News ServiceSeptember 18, 2002 Wednesday

SECTION: WASHINGTON WIRELENGTH: 659 wordsHEADLINE: Investigators taking hard look at failure to find San Diego-based terroristsBYLINE: Toby Eckert Copley News ServiceDATELINE: WASHINGTONBODY:Congressional investigators plan to shine a spotlight on how two of the Sept. 11 hijackerswho lived openly in San Diego escaped detection despite being identified in 1999 as "possibleassoc iates" of al-Qaeda, the terrorist network that launched the attacks.But one top member of a joint Senate-House committee probing pre-Sept. 11 intelligencefailures appeared uncertain about when the matter would be aired publicly."Again, this goes to the issue of can we get the individuals that we need as witnesses and theinformation that we need declassified to have a public hearing precisely on that issue," saidSenate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla. "We are not there yet."One member of the panel, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said intelligence information that shouldhave alerted authorities to Khalid al-Midhar and N a w a f Alhazmi was "bungled" and they were"inexplicably" kept off a State Department watch list until just three weeks before theattacks.The FBI's Los Angeles field office did not receive a request to search for the two men until theday of the attacks, Eleanor Hill, the staff director of the congressional investigation saidduring the first open hearing on the probe."We ' re going to go into that particular case in much more detail when we present ourtestimony or statement on the hijackers," she said. "We will... tell you what we've heardfrom people who were handling that information at the time and why it slipped by them. ButI think you may hear everything from they had too many things to do, it wasn't consideredthat significant, they were overwhelmed and it was simply a mistake."Appear ing before the committee, spouses of two victims of the attacks on the Pentagon andWor ld Trade Center complained bitterly about the failure of intelligence agencies to trackdown al-Midhar and Alhazmi, who helped commandeer the plane that slammed into thePentagon. The two men lived in the San Diego area for all or part of 2000."Two of the hijackers... were known to the CIA before they entered the country, were livingas roommates with an FBI informant/' said Stephen Push, whose wife, Lisa Raines, died in

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Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Most Recent Tw o Years Terms: abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant (Edit Search)^Select for FOCUS or DeliveryD

Copley News Service September 9, 2002 MondayCopyright 2002 Copley News ServiceCopley News Service

September 9, 2002 MondaySECTION: WASHINGTON WIRELENGTH: 543 wordsHEADLINE: San Diego Muslim leader denies he served as an FBI informantBYLINE: Kelly Thornton and Sandi Dolbee Copley News ServiceDATELINE: SAN DIEGOBODY:A prominent San Diego County Muslim leader who unwittingly rented a room to two hijackersin 2000 was a trusted FBI informant who worked with agents before Sept. 11 on terrorismcases, according to law enforcement sources.However, the leader, Abdussattar Shaikh of Lemon Grove, last night repeatedly denied hewas an FBI informant and said he was shocked by the suggestion. He said he has many FBIfriends - agents he met through community committees that he serves on - but he was notfeeding them information on fellow Muslims."It's not me, no, no, absolutely," Shaikh said last night. "We talked about many things, butnothing like this man is a questionable character or anything like that."Asked why a federal official might say he was an informant, Shaikh replied: "I don't know. Ithink I'm going to ask them (the FBI)."It's unclear how the revelation will reflect on the San Diego FBI office, if it's true that Shaikhwas acting as an informant while the hijackers lived with him before their deadly attack.The FBI declined to comment Sunday. Sources said the FBI does not believe Shaikh wasdeceiving them.Shaikh, a longtime Lemon Grove resident who has acknowledged that hijackers NawafAlhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar lived with him a year before the hijackings, has said repeatedlythat he had no inkling of their intentions and thought they were just two students from SaudiArabia.The head of the FBI in San Diego, Bill Gore, who was not commenting publicly on any aspectof the investigation, has repeatedly taken the unusual step of confirming to reporters thatShaikh, who serves on many community boards, is not a suspect. Gore has not done thesame for anyone else.The 68-year-old retired businessman and educator met Alhazmi and al-Midhar at the IslamicCenter of San Diego, the county's largest mosque. They moved into his east San DiegoCounty home in September 2000. Al-Midhar stayed about six weeks and Alhazmi left in

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NBC Sandiego.com - San DiegoRemembers - Report: LocalHijackers Lived With FBI In... Page 1 of 3

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Report: Local Hijackers Lived With FBIInformantSource: Informant Never Gave FBI Houseguests'NamesPOSTED: 4:17 p.m. PDTSeptembers, 2002UPDATED: 2:55 p.m. PDTSeptember 9, 2002SAN DIEGO -- Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who lived in San Diego in2000 rented a room from a man who reportedly worked as an undercoverFBI informant.

Newsweek Report OnHijackers

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Newsweekmagazinereports thatKhalidAlmihdharand NawafAlhazmilived with a"tested"undercover"asset" whohad beenworking closely with the FBI office in San Diego.

The magazine does not name the informant.

Alhazmi and al-Midhar lived in a house in Lemon Grove for several monthsin 2000. The owner of the home was Abdusattar Shaikh, 68, a leader ofthe local Muslim community.Shaikh has acknowledgedthat the two hijackers stayed at his home, buthe has said he did not know they were involved in the terror strikes untiltheir names were read on a radio report a few days later. Hesaid that hemet Alhazmi and al-Midhar at the Islamic Center of San Diego, a mosquein Clairemont.

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C B S News I Hijackers Lived With FB I Informant I September 9, 2002 10:44:35 Page I o f 2

Home| Iraq: After Saddam| U.S.| World| Po!itics| SciTech| HeaIthWatch| Entertainment| Opinion| FREE i-Videc

*IrOi wh.comSeptember 9, 2002 10:44:35

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* Section Front-mail This Story JUs, Printable VersionHijackers Lived With FBI InformantSept. 9, 2002

OThe Pentagon after the attack (AP)

(CBS) Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers wholived in San Diego in 2000 rented a roomfrom a man w ho reportedly worked as anundercover FBI informant, highlighting thelack of cooperation by the nation's lawenforcement and intelligence agencies.Newsweek magazine reports that KhalidAlmihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi lived with a"tested" undercover "asset" who had beenworking closely with the FBI office in SanDiego.The magazine does not name theinformant.The connection was discovered bycongressional investigators, reportsNewsweek, and raises m ore questionsabout information-sharing am onggovernment intelligence agencies.

Nawaf Alhazmi and KhalidAlmihdhar (CBS/AP) A senior law -enforcement official told themagazine that the informant neverprovided the Bureau with the names of histwo houseguests from Saudi Arabia but his FBI contact never asked,either.

The CIA was keeping an eye on the men after the two had attended an alQaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000.Alhazmi and Almihdhar m oved into the house in Septembe r of 2000.Almihdhar left six weeks later and Alhazmi left at the end of the year.While there, the FBI informant prayed with them and even helped o ne open abank account. Alhazmi and Almihdhar took lessons at a flight scho ol whileliving in San Diego.The two men were aboard A me rican Airlines Flight 77 , which crashed into thePentagon on Sept. 11 .There is no evidence the informant concealed the identity of the two men. Infact, after their names were reported in the news media following the attacks,the informant contacted his FBI case ag ent to say the two men had be en hisroommates.A bigger questions, said on e cou nter-intelligence e xpert, is why the caseagent, who knew that two Saudi men were staying w ith the informant, didn'tshow more curiosity about them . If nothing else, he should have consideredthem as possible inform ants themselves.

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Chart the sequence of events onSept. 11 and look back on thechallenging days that followed.RO-A.TEEJSTORIES&LMKB

StorySept. 11 ID Seller Flees U.S.DStory |Suspected al Qaeda OperativeDetainedpStory |The FBI'sHijacker ListHStory |Feds: Hijackers' Helper HatedU.S.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/09/attack/main521223.shtml 5/15/03


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Search -1 7 Results - abdussattar w /2 shaikh & informant Page 1 of 3

Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Mo st Recent Tw o Years Terms: abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant (Edit Se arch)-^Select for FOCUS or DeliveryD

U.S. News & World Report December 9, 2002Copyright 2002 U.S. News & Wo rld Report

U.S. News & Wor ld ReportDecember 9, 2002

SECTION: NATION & WORLD; Vol . 133 , No. 22; Pg. 32LENGTH: 1037 wordsHEADLINE: The road to RiyadhBYLINE: By Gloria Borger; Edward T. Pou nd; Linda Robinson; David E. Kaplan; ChitraRagavan; Randy Do tingaDATELINE: San DiegoHIGHLIGHT:A stil lborn FBI inquiry and a money trail f rom the Saudi Embassy to two of the 9/11hi jackers;BODY:On October 9, members of the spec ial co ngre ssional com m ittee invest igat ing the 9/11attacks met privately with a key FBI witness. The next day, panel members were to meet inopen session with CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Muel ler. After the FBIagent f inished testifying, the open m eet ings with Tenet and Muel ler were summar i lycanceled. Se veral me mbe rs were "appalled" at what inform ed sources descr ibed as the"explosive" test imony of Special Agent Steven Butler, who recently retired from the FBI afterhis final posting in the bureau's San Diego field office.Gove rnme nt of f ic ia ls told U.S. News that Butler disclosed that he had been monitor ing a flowof Saudi Arab ian money that wound up in the hands of two of the 9/11 hijackers. The twomen had rented a room from a man Butler had used as a confidential informant, thesources say. According to officials familiar with his account, But ler said that he had alertedhis super iors about the money f lows but the warning went nowhere. "But ler is claiming . . .that people [in the FBI] didn't follow up," says a congre ssional sourc e. Adds another : "Hesaw a pattern, a trail, and he told his supervisors, but it ended there."Roommates . In a con versat ion outside his home in the gated Rancho Penasquitos com m uni tyin S an Diego, But ler told U.S. News, "It 's ve ry sen sitive stuff." Wear ing a Buffalo Bil ls cap,Butler said, "I'd love to talk to you guys," but added that he couldn't without permission fromthe Just ice Department.But ler 's test imo ny com es af ter d isc losure s that FBI execut ives fai led to take act ion inresponse to m em orandum s by agency lawyers and agents in Minneapol is and Phoenix aboutsuspicious activit ies involving young Muslim men enrol led in flight schools. One of the men,Zacar ias Moussaoui, the so-cal led 20th hi jacker, is await ing trial on charges stem ming f romthe at tacks.In his c losed-door appearance on Capitol Hill, Butler described his deal ings with a leader in



15/23


Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Most Recent Tw o Years (I)Terms: abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant (Edit Search)^Select for FOCUS or DeliveryD

Agence France Presse Novem ber 30, 2002 SaturdayCopyright 2002 A genc e France Presse

Agence France PresseNovember 30, 2002 Saturday

SECTION: Domest ic, non-Washington, Ge neral New sLENGTH: 360 wordsHEADLINE: Ex-FBI agent says his wa rnings about Saudis we re ignored: reportDATELINE: WASHINGTON, Nov 29BODY:A retired FBI agent has informed a congres sional com m ittee probing the September 11attacks that his superior had ignored his warnings about a f low of Saudi money into thehands of suspected hi jackers, US New s and Wo rld Report ma gazine reported Friday.Steven Butler, who worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's San Diego field office,told the committee the money went to two of the September 11 hijackers -- KhalidAlmihdhar and Naw af A lhazmi , the m agazine reported, quoting unnam ed go vernm entofficials.In his testimony, Butler described his dealings with a leader in San Diego's Mu sl imcommuni ty, a 68-year-old m an named Abdussattar Shaikh, w ho served as an FBIinformant, according to US News. In 2000, Shaikh rented a room in his house in the SanDiego suburb of Lemon Grove to Almihdhar and Alhazmi, who later helped hi jack AmericanAirl ines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon.According to officials familiar with his account, Butler said that he had alerted his superiorsabout the money f low but the warning went nowhere, the report said.The FBI is current ly invest igat ing how thousands of dol lars of chari table donations from SaudiPrincess Haifa AI-Faisal, w ife of the Sa udi am bass ador to the United States, ende d up in thehands of Almihdhar and Alhazmi.The princess has denied any knowledge of these transfers.The indirect ly went to Saudi nat ionals Osama Basnan and O mar al-Bayoumi, w ho lived in theUnited States and helped Almihdhar and Alhazmi pay their rent.According to US New s, FBI and Treasury Department invest igators bel ieve that as much as100 mill ion dollars has f low ed f rom Saudi Arabia to terrorist organizat ions in recent years."We're talking about major-league businessmen who have ties to the royal family," the reportquotes a senior Treasury off icial as saying."Over the years, they've put funds into a lot of dif ferent mechanisms -- business chari ties,moneymaking ventures -- and routed them through offshore havens," the official said.



16/23

Saudi Perceptions of the United States since 9-11F. Gregory Cause, III

University of [email protected]

prepared for the conference on"Western and Non-Western Perceptions of America in the Aftermath of 9-11"

CERI-Sciences Po, ParisSeptember 30-October 1,2002

There is no bilateral relationship that was more affected by the attacks ofSeptember 11, 2001, on New York and Washington than the Saudi-Americanrelationship. On the American side, the reason is obvious: 15 of the 19hijackers of thefour planes which crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field incentral Pennsylvania were from Saudi Arabia. 'Usama bin Ladin, the leader of thegroup behind the attacks, also is from Saudi Arabia. As Americans learned more aboutthe hijackers, bin Ladin and the more general s a l a f i movement, popular anger againstSaudi Arabia grew. According to a poll by Zogby International, in January 200156% ofAmericans polled viewed Saudi Arabia favorably, 28%unfavorably. In December 2001,those numbers had basically reversed, with only 24% viewing Saudi Arabia favorablyand 58%unfavorably. 1 Much of the American political and media elite, which hadgenerally accepted the US-Saudi relationship - an exchange of security for oil, tosimplify - began to question the value for the United States of a close relationship withRiyadh. While the Bush Administration has asserted since 9-11 that the relationshipwith Saudi Arabia remains solid, there is no question that the unprecedented publicfocus on Saudi Arabia (even greater than during the 1973-74 oil embargo, I wouldargue) has shaken the foundations of the bilateral relationship.A similar process took place in Saudi Arabian public opinion after the 9-11attacks. Popular disaffection with the United States was already substantial before theattacks. American policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on Iraqi sanctions was

generally unpopular. Bin Ladin and other Saudi dissidents had successfully raised theissue of the American military presence in the Kingdom. Reacting to the intense mediascrutiny on Saudi Arabia in the United States that followed the attacks, the Saudigovernment took a number of steps to distance itself from the United States. Thesemoves, in effect, opened the door to more open expression of anti-Americanism inSaudi Arabia than is usually permitted. The Saudi government, perhaps taken aback bythe vigor of those sentiments, began in the spring of 2002 to send signals that there arelimits to the anti-Americanism that it will tolerate at home. While this was happening,

'Poll cited in Dr. James J.Zogby, "New Poll Shows Damage Done," December 24, 2001. Accessed via"GulfWire" e-newsletter, www.arabialink.com.


17/23

9-11 Hijackers: A Saudi Money Trail? Page 1 of 5

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The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar (center) attends a memorial service at thePentagon on March 11, 2001

9-11 Hijackers: A Saudi MoneyTrail?The Feds probe a possible new Saudi link to Al Qaeda

By Michael IsikoffNEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

N o v . 22 The FBI is investigating whether theSaudi Arabian governmentusing th e bankaccount of the wife of a senior Saudi diplomatsent tens of thousands of dollars to two Saudistudents in the United States who providedassistance to two of the September 11 hijackers,according to law-enforcement sources.

Newswe Starr:DCheat? Terror VSaudisAttack? Living VForces FinemaHis BasReaders Underci TheEd iFranks IraqihoRO W r e 3,000bmass gi

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http://www.msnbc.com/news/838867.asp?cpl=l 5/15/03


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Page 1

3 of 9 DOCUMENTSCopyright 2002 The New York Times C ompanyThe New York Times

November 23, 2002, S aturday, Late Edition - FinalSECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 6; Foreign DeskLENGTH: 1212 wordsHEADLINE: THREATS AND RESPONSES: TRACKING TERRORISM;9/11 REPORT SAYS SAUDI ARABIA LINKS WENT UNEXAM INEDBYLINE: By DAVID JOHNSTON an d JAMES RISENDATELINE: WASHINGTON, Nov. 22BODY:A draft report by the joint Congressional committee looking into the Sept. 11 attacks ha s concluded that the F.B.I, an dthe C.I.A, in their investigations, did not aggressively pu rsue leads that migh t have linked the terrorists to Saudi Arabia,senior government officials said today.

The report charged among other things that the authorities had failed to investigate the possibility that two of thehijackers, Saudis named Kh alid al-Midhar and Naw aq Alhazmi, received Saudi money from two Saudi men they metwith in California in the year before th e attacks.

The committee's preliminary findings, which also accuse the Saudi government of a lack of cooperation withAmerican inve stigators, have caused a bitter behind-the-scenes dispute between the panel's staff an d officials at the F.B.I,an d the C.I.A. At each agency, officials have disagreed with the draft findings, saying investigators vigorously pursued allavailable information related to Saudi Arabia.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, but little is known about their backgrounds and how they wererecruited for the attacks. Most of the Saudis were part of a group that investigators refer to as the "muscle." These weremen recruited late in the planning for the operation, not as pilots, but as an unskilled security force for the hijackingoperation. Their job was to keep passengers at bay as the planes were commandeered and flown to their intended targets.In a rebuttal report sent to the comm ittee in recent d ays, the F.B.I, has tried to disprove several specific allegations byth e committee. One of them was about Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi, who lived in San Diego a year before the attacks.While in California, the two met with Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, each of whom was receiving financialsupport from the Saudi government. The men were receiving stipends, although officials said it was not exactly clear wha t

kind. The committee staff concluded in its draft findings that investigators should hav e followed up on the meetings of thefour men to determine whether there might have been a Saudi link to the hijacking plot.

Th e F.B.I, is still investigating how much financial support, if any, was provided by Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan tothe two m en who later turned out to be hijackers. The bureau is also looking into whether senior Saudi officials in theUnited States may have played some role in distributing funds to Mr. Bayoum i and M r. Bassnan.Today, the F.B.I, said in a statement that it had "aggressively pursued investigative leads regarding terrorist supportand activity." It added that Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan had both been charged with visa fraud after the attacks.But by that time, Mr. Bayoumi was already in Britain, where he was temporarily detained and then released because

visa fraud was not an extraditable offense. The F.B.I, statement did not say where the two men were now or clarify thestatus of the cases ag ainst them .Although the disagreement has not been publicly disclosed until now, the debate over possible Saudi connectionsraises a very sensitive political issue for the Bush administration. Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world


19/23

Saudi envoy, Sept. 11 figures linked Page 1 o f 4

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May 14 NBCs Lisa Myers ha s details of aNB C News investigation, trying to answer thequestion: Do Saudi officials have ties to a l-Qaida?

By L isa MyersNB C NEWSW A S H I N G T O N , May14 A Saudi d iplomat w asasked to leave Germany last month afterauth orities qu estioned h is ties to a n al-Qa idaoperative. Th e business card of the diplomat,Mohammad Fakih i , was found in the apartmentof Mounir El Motassadeq, convicted in Germanyof h elping plan th e Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and afriend of h ijacker Moh ammed Atta. A U.S .official tells NBC th e Saudi is "a pretty badguy," citing evidence h e gave money to Islamicmilitants and may h ave met with al-Qaidamem bers w h o carried out the 9/11 attacks.

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20/23

= TH E ATLANTIC MONTHLY:

THEFALL OFTHEH O U S E O F S A U DAmericans have long considered Saudi Arabia the one constant in the

Arab Middle Easta source of cheap oil, political stability, and lucrative businessrelationships. But the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctionalroyal family that has been unding militant Islamic movements abroad in anattempt to protect itself from them at home.A former CIA operative

argues, in an article drawn from his new book, SleepingWith the Devil,that today's Saudi Arabia can't last much longerand th e socialand economic fallout of its demise could be calamitous

B Y R O B E R T B A E RIllustrations by John Ritter

In the decades after World War II the UnitedStates and the rest of the industrializedworld developed a deep and irrevocabledependence on oil from Saudi Arabia, theworld's largest and most important producer.But by the mid-1980swith the Iran-Iraqwa r raging, and the-OPEC oil embargo a recentand traumaticmemorythe supply, which ha duntil that embargo been taken for granted, sud-denly seemed at risk. Disaster planners in and out ofgovernment began to ask uncomfortable questions. Whatpoints of the Saudi oil infrastructure were most vulnerableto terrorist attack? And by what means? What sorts of dis-ruption to the flow of oil, short-term and long-term, couldbe expected? These were critical concerns. Underlyingthem all was the fear that a major attack on the Saudi sys-tem could cause the global economy to collapse.

The Saudi system seemedand still seemsfrighten-ingly vulnerable to attack. Although Saudi Arabia ha s morethan eighty active oil and natural-gas fields, and more thana thousand working wells, half its proven oil reserves ar econtained in only eight fieldsincluding Ghawar, theworld's largest onshore oil field, and Safaniya, the world'slargest offshore oil field. Various confidential scenarioshave suggested that if terrorists were simultaneously to hitonly a few se nsitive points "downstream" in the oil systemfrom these eight fieldspoints that control more than10,000 miles of pipe, both onshore an d offshore, in whichoil moves from wells to refineries and from refineries to

ports, within the kingdom and w i t h o u t t h e ycould effectively put the Saudis out of the oil

b u s i n e s s f o r about tw o years. And i t j u s twould not be that hard to do.

The most vulnerable point and the mostspectacular target in the Saadi oil system isthe Abqaiq complexthe world's largest oil-

processing facility, which sits about twenty-four miles inland from the northern end of theGulf of Bahrain. All petroleum originating in the

south is pumped to Abqaiq for processing. For the first twomonths after a moderate to severe attack on Abqaiq, pro-duction there would slow from an average of 6.8 millionbarrels a day to one million barrels, a loss equivalent to onethird ofAmerica's daily consumption of crude oil. For sevenmonths following the attack, daily production would re-main as much as four million barrels below normala re -duction roughly equal to what all of the OPEC partnerswere able to effect during their 1973 embargo.

Oil is pumped from Abqaiq to loading terminals at RasTanura and Ju'aymah, both on Saudi Arabia's east coast.Ra s Tanura moves only slightly more oil than Ju'aymahdoes (4.5 million barrels per day as opposed to 4.3 millionbarrels), but it offers a greater variety of targets and moreavenues of attack. Nearly all of Ras Tanura's export oil ishandled by an offshore facility known as The Sea Island,an d the facility's Platform No. 4 handles half of that. A com-m a n d o attack on Platform 4 by surface boat or even by aKilo-class submarineavailable in the global arms bazaar

53


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Da-Vida W e Trust w ysiw yg://15/http://ww w.nytimes.com/2003/05/28/opinion/28DOW D.htr

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In-a-Gadda Da-Vida WeTrustBy MAUREENDOWDB y rolling over Iraq, Dick Ch eney and Donald Ru msfeld hoped to deep-six thesixties.The president was dow n with that. He never grooved on the vibe of the Age ofAquarius anyway.Conservatives were eager to purge the decades' demons, from tie-dye to moralrelativism, from Hanoi Jane to wilting patriotism, from McGovern to blamingAmerica first, from Lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds to the Clintonesquewhatever-gets-you-through-the-night ethos.In their preferred calendar, m ore Ging richian than G regorian, Am erican culturefast-forwards from Elvis's blue suede shoes to John Travolta's wh ite polyester suit.Whatever else ha s gone awry in the Mideast so far, the administration may havesucceeded in exorcising American queasiness about using force, and any vestigialimage of the military as "baby killers."As Robin Toner w rote in The Times yesterday, trust in the military is brimming, upto 79 percent from 58 percent in 1975, according to Gallup.Th e tactical efficacy an d moral delicacy of American forces in Afghanistan an d Iraqsolidified a trend: the children of Vietnam-scarred boomers trust the government ,and especially the military, fa r more than did their parents, whose generationalmantra was "Don't trust anyone over 30."

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As M s. Toner noted, a Harvard poll found that 75 percent of college kids trusted the military "to do the rieither "all of the time" or "most of the time." Two-thirds of the students supported the Iraqi w ar, with ha vbeating doves 2 to 1.M r. Bush runs a "trust us , we're 100 percent right" regime. So we've got a you ng generation that wa nts t(faith. And an adm inistration that w ants to be taken on faith.The beginning of a beautiful friendsh ip? Maybe. Un less the W hite House p oliticizes 9/11 so much it squthat belief.Karl Ro ve's re-election strategy is designed to tug 9/11 heartstrings, and his ad s will be heroic images ofchasing down the bad guys.

3 5/28/03 9:30 AM


22/23

Classified: Censoring th e Report About 9-11? Page 1 of 4

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Secrets: The CIAWeb siteacknowledgesdocuments thatBush aides won't

ECTORATEOF INTELUOENCEaFifty Yearn of Sorvkr* to the Nation

Classified: Censoring th e ReportAbout 9-11?Bush officials are refusing to permit the release of mattersalready in the public domainincluding the existence ofintelligence documents referred to on the CIA Web site.B y Michael IsikoffN E W S W E E K

J u n e 2 i s s u e W hy is t he Bush administrat ionblocking the release of an 800-pagecongressional report about 9-11? Th e bipartisanreport d eals with law -enforceme nt andintelligence failures that preceded th e attacks.For months, congressional leaders andadministration officials h ave bat t led overdeclassifying th e docum ent, preventing a publicrelease once sla ted for this week. NEW SW EEK

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M a i l :: INBOX: in teres t ing torn fr iedman article Page 1 of 1

6.15MB/476.84MB (1.29%)Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 11:23:38 -0400From: Michael Jacobson| 9/11 Personal Privacy I

To: "" #Subject: interesting torn friedman article

1unnamed text/html 5.31 KB {HJFriedman: Saudi Rulers Too Dysfunctional, Divided to Undertake ReformBy Thomas FriedmanNew York Times News Service

In the wake of the recent terrorist bombings in Riyadh, Saudi officials seem to have -- pardon the expression -- gottenreligion. They say they now understand that suicide terrorism in the name of Islam is as much a threat to them as it is to theopen societies of the West. This time, they insist, they're going to crack down on their extremists. I hope so, but I fear wehave a deeper problem with Saudi Arabia. I fear it is the Soviet Union. I fear it is unreformable.I fear that the ruling brothers of Saudi Arabia are like the Soviet Politburo. I fear the 6,000 Saudi princes are like theCommunist Party Central Committee. I fear that Riyadh is Red Square. I fear the al-Sauds used Islamism to unite 40fractious tribes in Arabia the way Lenin used communism to unite 100 fractious nationalities across Russia. And I fear thatOsama bin Laden is just the evil version of Andrei Sakharov -- the dissident Soviet scientist who exposed the system fromwithin. Sakharov wasexiled to Gorky, Bin Laden was exiled to Kabul. And both systems meet their end where? InAfghanistan.Even if this parallel is off, and the Saudi system could be reformed without collapsing, I fear that the Saudi ruling familyhas become too dysfunctional, divided and insecure to undertake this task. Surely one test is whether Saudi officials andspiritual leaders can condemn Islamic suicide terrorism, not just when it is against them, but when it is against people ofother faiths - no matter what thecontext. Saudi Arabia's neighbors -- Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar andOman -- are experimentingwith elections, a freer press, women's rights and free trade with America. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, has been drifting underan ailing king, trying to buy a different perception of itself with better advertising rather than with deeper reform.Frankly, I have a soft spot for the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, who is a man of decency and moderation.Bu t he's too nice for his own good. He needs to break heads at home, force some sustained reforms on his religiousestablishment, revive his own peace initiative and begin to empower his women - because women's empowerment is thebest antidote to extremism.The problem with Saudi Arabia is not that it has too little democracy. It's that it has too much. The ruling family is soinsecure, it feels it has to consult every faction, tribe and senior cleric before making any decision. This makes Saudi Arabiaa very strange autocracy: it'sa country where one man makesno decisions.If this continues,we must protect ourselves -- by telling the Saudis, and ourselves, the truth.In private, Bush aides have been fuming: The United States gave the Saudis intelligence warnings before the recentattacks, bu t they took no steps to deter them. Publicly, though, the Bush team bites its tongue. We never talk straight toSaudi Arabia, because we are addicted to its oil. Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.

If we were telling the Saudis the truth, we would tell them that their antimodernand antipluralist brand of Islam -- known asWahhabism -- combined with their oil wealth has become a destabilizing force in the world. By financing mosques andschools that foster the least tolerant version of Islam, they are breeding the very extremists who are trying to burn down theirhouse and ours.But we also need to tell ourselves the truth. We constantly complain about the blank checks the Saudis write to buy offtheir extremists. But who writes the blank checks to the Saudis? We do -- with our gluttonous energy habits, renewedaddiction to big cars, and our president who has made "conservation" a dirty word.In the wake of the Iraq war, the EPA announced that the average fuel economy of America's cars and trucks fell to itslowest level in 22 years, with the 2002 model year. That is a travesty. No wonder foreigners think we sent our U.S. ArmyHumvees to control Iraq, just so we could drive more GM Hummers over here. When our president insists that we can haveit all-bigcars, bigoil, lower taxes, with nosacrificesor conservation - why shouldn't the world believe that all we are aboutis protecting our right to binge?And so the circle is complete: President Bush won't tell Americans the truth, so we won't tell Saudis the truth, so theywon't tell their extremists the truth, so they can go on pumping intolerance and we can go on guzzling gas. Someday, ourkids will condemn us for all of this.MS N 8 helps ELIMINATE E-MAIL VIRUSES. Get 2 months FREE*.

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