Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Saudi Arabia has warned the Obama administration and members of congress that it will sell up to  $750 billion in US assets throughout the Saudi kingdom if they are connected in any way to the 9/11 terrorism attacks.  A new proposed bill would allow 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia as being responsible for their injuries or death to loved ones.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases, “arising from a terrorist attack that kills Americans on American soil.” The bill states that immunity will be stripped from states in cases where they are legally held to have knowingly allow terrorist attacks to be conducted within the U.S. This is an expansion of the existing “Terrorism exception to the jurisdictional immunity of a foreign state” which applies only to designated state sponsors of terrorism (of which Saudi Arabia is not one.)

The legislation is pending in the senate and is backed by Senator’s Charles Schumer and John Cornyn. The legislation has also been endorsed by Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Obama will be traveling to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to meet with the King Salman and other Saudi officials.

The Obama administration insists the bill puts American corporations and citizens at legal risk from countries that may retaliate with their own legislation, and has taken steps to deter the bill from progressing, angering lawmakers and the families of 9/11 victims. The administration recently sent top officials from the State Department and Pentagon to warn the Senate Armed Services Committee that if the bill goes through it could bring economic risks to the US.

Center for Security Policy Fellow Kevin Freeman raised questions the ability of Saudis to pull off such a major dump of U.S. treasury holdings, but noted that if they should do so successfully it would have a seriously deleterious affect on the world economy.

A “60 Minutes” report last weekend claims that the 28 pages missing from the 9/11 report implicate Saudi government employees and operatives as having a much larger role than previously known in the 2001 attacks. Attempts to further investigate Saudi involvement in 9/11 have been conducted in the past, but Federal Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) in Washington and San Diego, and local law enforcement say efforts have led back to the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, and further investigation was stymied.

Some Law enforcement officials believes that the missing pages indicate that the Saudis assisted at least two of the 9/11 hijackers who were living in San Diego. Phone calls were intercepted from San Diego and the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. Then there was the report that Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar placed $130,000 into the account of the two hijackers residing in San Diego. When the JTTF wanted to question Bandar the US government intervened and gave him immunity.

In 2002, spiritual advisor to the 9/11 hijackers Anwar al-Awlaki was detained at JFK airport for passport fraud, but turned over to “Saudi representatives.” There was no mention of his catch and release in the 9/11 report. Awlaki first met the two hijackers in San Diego.

Americans have never come to grips with the role played by Saudi Arabia in the events of the 9/11 attacks. 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, and financed by Saudi born terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Saudi Arabia was bank rolling the Taliban movement in Afghanistan since late 1996 and was also a major supporter of Palestinian terror group Hamas. In addition, Saudi Arabia sets up schools and charities throughout the Islamic world that practice an anti-western and anti-American sentiment and several of which have served as conduits for terrorism finance.

The current effort to strip immunity over terror ties and to reveal the extent of Saudi ties to 9/11 comes at a time when the Saudi-U.S. relationship is already strained, following the Iran nuclear deal, supported by the Obama Administration but viewed by the Saudis as support for their regional adversary, a fact sure to exacerbate an already tense situation.

 

 

Please Share: