FBI accidentally names Saudi embassy official linked to 9/11 terrorists

In court filings unsealed last week, the FBI inadvertently revealed the identity of an official at the Saudi embassy in Washington who was accused of providing support to two of the 9/11 hijackers.

According to Yahoo News, a senior official with the law enforcement agency filed a court declaration in relation to a lawsuit brought by the families of victims, accusing the Saudi government of playing a role in the deadly attacks.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. The 2001 attacks masterminded by al-Qaeda’s Saudi-born leader Osama bin Laden killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The declaration in which Saudi official Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah was identified was filed to support moves by Attorney General William Barr and acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell to bar the disclosure of the Saudi official’s name and all related documents, saying that they were state secrets.

Al-Jarrah was a mid-level employee at the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC, in 1999 and 2000. According to the report, his duties apparently included “overseeing the activities of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers within the United States.” The report said former embassy employees said he reported to the Saudi ambassador in the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

Jarrah is believed to have served in Morocco as recently as last year.

A former official familiar with the FBI probe, who under an agreement remained anonymous, told Yahoo that agents had “strong evidence” that Jarrah was involved in meetings and communications with Fahad al Thumairy and Omar al Bayoumi in which assistance to 9/11 attackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi was discussed. The two were among the group of terrorists who crashed a plane into the Pentagon, killing 125 people.

Al Thumairy was an official at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles who allegedly helped two of the hijackers find housing and transportation after they arrived in Southern California. Al Thumairy was later denied entry into the United States in May 2003 after the State Department alleged that he might be involved in terrorist activity.

Al Bayoumi was strongly suspected of being a Saudi spy and was alleged to have helped the hijackers.

But a declaration filed this month by Jill Sanborn, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, did not redact the Saudi official’s name in all instances, and at one stage refers to an October 2012 FBI “update” that said the bureau uncovered “evidence” that Thumairy and Bayoumi had been “tasked” by an individual to assist the hijackers, but the name of that person was originally redacted.

Sanborn’s declaration, when talking about a request by lawyers for the 9/11 victims’ families to depose that individual, stated that it involves “any and all records referring to or relating to Jarrah.”

A spokesperson for the families involved in the lawsuit told Yahoo News that the revelation of Jarrah’s name marked a major breakthrough, although it remained unclear how strong the evidence was.

“This shows there is a complete government cover-up of the Saudi involvement,” said Brett Eagleson, whose father was killed in the attacks. “It demonstrates there was a hierarchy of command that’s coming from the Saudi Embassy to the Ministry of Islamic Affairs [in Los Angeles] to the hijackers.”

The US government’s 9/11 Commission’s final report said it found no evidence that the Saudi government or officials funded al-Qaeda. However, it said the terror group found “fertile fundraising ground in Saudi Arabia, where extreme religious views are common and charitable giving was… subject to very limited oversight.”

Saudi Arabia’s rulers, who fought a bloody al-Qaeda insurgency in the years after 9/11, have long denied funding extremists, saying they have been “wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity” in the attacks.

Agencies contributed to this report.