Two 9/11 attackers were CIA agents, reveals Guantanamo court document

Some of the hijackers who committed the World Trade Centre bombing on September 11, 2011, were CIA agents.

The landmark report detailing the unthinkable information published by Rt.com, (https://www.rt.com/news/574490-cia-dirty-deeds-nine-eleven/) comes through a Guantanamo Military Commission court filing. The commission, assigned with unearthing the potential Saudi government involvement in the 9/11 attacks, led the investigators to the CIA’s glaring involvement in at least recruiting two hijackers. This account was conducted by the Commission’s lead investigator, DEA veteran Don Canestraro, at the request of a defendant’s lawyers. The document was initially released via a Guantanamo Bay court docket but was entirely censored, reworded and edited. Independent researchers, however, had access to the report.

The world has been investigating the potential involvement of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks since they occurred, following the American-led allied forces’ invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to the investigation, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, two of the hijackers, were being closely watched by the CIA and may have been recruited by a CIA operative before crashing their aircraft into the World Trade Centre buildings. They were allowed a six-month entrance to the US at Los Angeles International Airport without incident despite being regularly designated by the CIA and NSA as possible Al Qaeda militants.

The CIA had sufficient knowledge about the pair’s activities.

The two Saudis were present at an Al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur only days before their arrival, where crucial aspects of the 9/11 attacks were probably discussed and decided upon. The Malaysian officials provided footage of the meeting, and the evidence was enough to stop Hazmi and Midhar from entering the US, or at the very least alert the FBI to their presence. While the CIA restricted FBI agents from discussing this intelligence with their supervisors, the two Saudis were freely permitted to enter the country for six months at Los Angeles International Airport.

Had they been disallowed from entering the US, the plan would have been thwarted. However, it has emerged that the CIA not only prevented the FBI from discussing the two people but also assisted them at the airport.

As soon as Hamzi and Midhar landed in the US, they met Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national living in California, who assisted them in finding a place to live in San Diego, and later connected them to Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam at a nearby mosque.

After 9/11, an FBI investigation into possible Saudi complicity in the attacks made Bayoumi a target. Bayoumi claimed he met Hazmi and Midhar by chance. But the report provides considerably more insight into Bayoumi’s interactions with Hazmi and Midhar, as well as the CIA’s intense interest in them, their activities throughout their stay in the US, and their failure to inform the FBI of their presence until late August 2001.

The evidence strongly implies that the CIA hindered official investigations to hide its infiltration of Al Qaeda based on an examination of secret documents maintained by the FBI and Pentagon, as well as interviews with members of both agencies. Four different, anonymous FBI officers who worked in the 9/11 attack investigations expressed that opinion to Canestraro.

The report covers charges levelled by a Bureau agent referred to in his report as ‘CS-23,’ who had “extensive knowledge of counterterrorism and counterintelligence matters.” CS-23 recounted how the CIA repeatedly lied and stonewalled the FBI in its investigations into Bayoumi. For example, while Agency officials claimed to possess no files on him when asked by the investigators, CS-23 knew for a fact that the CIA maintained several operational files on Bayoumi, amounting to an extensive paper trail.

The CIA has long been accused of complicity in the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks, and this recent revelation appears to lend further credence to these suspicions. It raises serious questions about the CIA’s actions and inactions in the lead-up to the attacks, as well as about its relationship with Saudi Arabia, one of its closest allies in the region.