9/11 Families United Statement on Newly-Released Government Report Confirming Saudi Involvement in Planning 9/11 Attacks

Washington, D.C. – 9/11 Families United, which serves thousands of families and survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said tonight that the release of the 2016 FBI report summarizing the Bureau’s long secret investigation of Saudi government involvement in supporting the 9/11 hijackers puts to bed any doubts about Saudi complicity in the attacks.  The report, which has been posted here, represents the first step by the Biden Administration, in the wake of the President’s recent Executive Order, towards declassifying and releasing government documents related to the attacks that have been kept secret for years by the U.S. government. 

“Twenty years ago today they murdered our loved ones and inflicted immeasurable pain and suffering on our lives,” said Terry Strada of 9/11 Families United, whose husband, Tom, was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. “Now the Saudis’ secrets are exposed and it is well past time for the Kingdom to own up to its officials’ roles in murdering thousands on American soil.”

Even with the unfortunate number of redactions, the report contains a host of bombshell new revelations, implicating numerous Saudi government officials, in a coordinated effort to mobilize an essential support network for the first arriving 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar.  The range of contacts at critical moments among these Saudi government officials, al-Qaeda and the hijackers is stunning.  

The 9/11 Commission found that Hazmi and Mihdhar were “ill-prepared” for their daunting mission, and that al Qaeda would not have sent them to the U.S. “without arranging to receive assistance from one or more individuals informed in advance of their arrival” (9/11 Commission Report at p. 215).  This report and other evidence confirms that it was a group of Saudi government officials affiliated with the Kingdom’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs, the cradle of Wahhabi extremism within the Saudi government, who came immediately to their aid as they commenced their terrorist preparations.

For additional background please also see: 9/11 Families United Statement Slams Latest Saudi Effort to Deceive the American People Ahead of 20th Anniversary of 9/11

About 9/11 Families United: 

9/11 Families United is an organization consisting of family members of those murdered in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as many of those who survived, were injured in or sickened from the attacks, a community that numbers well over 10,000.  More information is at www.911familiesunited.org. 

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