Originally published 2021-09-14.
On the evening of 11 September 2021, exactly twenty years after the attacks, the FBI made public a 16-page memo from its long-running inquiry into whether people tied to the Saudi government helped two of the 9/11 hijackers after they reached California. The document, dated April 2016 and still heavily blacked out, was the first file released under an executive order that President Joe Biden had signed a week earlier. It describes contacts between the hijackers and two men with links to Saudi officialdom, but it does not prove that the Saudi state directed or knew about the plot.
Why the memo was released
Families of people killed on 9/11 have spent years suing Saudi Arabia in US federal court, arguing that parts of the kingdom's government gave material support to the attackers. Their lawyers repeatedly asked the Justice Department to open its files, and three administrations in a row declined, citing state secrets and national security.
In the summer of 2021 the pressure became very public. Many relatives said they did not want Biden to attend the twentieth-anniversary ceremonies unless he kept a campaign promise to release more material. On 3 September 2021 he signed Executive Order 14040, which told the Justice Department and other agencies to review their 9/11 investigation records and declassify what they could over the following six months. The memo that came out on the anniversary was the first product of that review; more documents followed in later batches.
What the FBI document describes
The memo summarises interviews that FBI agents carried out in 2009 and 2015 with a confidential source who had worked with Saudi diplomats in Los Angeles. In the released text this person appears only as "PII", the bureau's shorthand for personally identifiable information that has been withheld. The source gave the agents detailed accounts of his job at the consulate and of his dealings with senior consular staff.
By the source's own account, his work involved helping Saudi students who were studying in America, translating, handling paperwork and handing out religious literature. That description matters because the memo's real subject is not the source himself but the people he knew.
Omar al-Bayoumi
The central figure is Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national living in Southern California who was a student at the time and whom the FBI suspected of working for Saudi intelligence. Early in 2000 two future hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, arrived in Los Angeles speaking little English. Al-Bayoumi met them, helped them move to San Diego, found them an apartment and helped with the lease. According to the AFP summary of the memo, the FBI wrote that "Bayoumi's assistance to Hamzi and Midhar included translation, travel, lodging and financing." The source also told agents that al-Bayoumi enjoyed "very high status" at the consulate.
Al-Bayoumi always said the first meeting, in a restaurant, was a coincidence and that he was simply helping fellow Muslims who were new to the country. Saudi Arabia says he was never its agent.
Fahad al-Thumairy
The second name is Fahad al-Thumairy, an accredited official at the Saudi consulate who also served as imam at the King Fahd mosque in Culver City, near Los Angeles. Earlier investigations had already noted his possible links to the two hijackers. The memo adds phone records connected to the source that show contact with people who helped the pair, and it ties both al-Bayoumi and al-Thumairy to Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born preacher who later became a senior al-Qaeda figure and was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
What the memo does not prove
Coverage at the time often ran headlines suggesting that a "Saudi embassy official helped the attackers". That goes further than the document. A few points help to read it fairly:
- It is an investigative summary, not a verdict. It records what a source said and what agents inferred from it. Some of that may be accurate, some may not; the redactions make it hard to test.
- The person interviewed was a source, not a suspect named as a helper. Online posts in 2021 confidently put a name to the "PII" source and described him as an al-Qaeda facilitator. The released memo does not identify him, and those claims should be treated as unconfirmed. A separate, earlier FBI report from 2012 had pointed to another consular figure, Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, whose name became public only because it was left unredacted in a 2020 court filing.
- It does not show a direct government order. Even the families' supporters acknowledged that the memo stops short of linking the Saudi government as an institution to the plot.
The 9/11 Commission's final report in 2004 found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution, or senior Saudi officials individually, funded al-Qaeda, and said it had seen no credible evidence that al-Bayoumi believed in violent extremism or knowingly helped extremists. The newer FBI material does not overturn those conclusions on its own, but it raises fresh questions about lower-level officials that the commission did not fully answer.
How the families and Saudi Arabia responded
For the families, the release felt like partial vindication. Jim Kreindler, one of the lead lawyers in the lawsuit, said the memo backed up the families' core claim that Saudi officials helped the hijackers, and described it as the end of two decades in which the kingdom counted on Washington to keep its role hidden. Other relatives said they welcomed the step but wanted the remaining documents, without the black bars.
Saudi Arabia has consistently denied any involvement in the attacks. Before the memo appeared, its embassy in Washington said it supported full declassification because it believed the records would confirm that the kingdom had no part in 9/11, and it has rejected claims that any of its officials knowingly assisted the hijackers.
Osama bin Laden, his family and the Saudi state
Part of the reason the question keeps coming back is the identity of the attackers. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi citizens, and al-Qaeda's founder, Osama bin Laden, came from one of the kingdom's wealthiest families, whose construction business had close ties to the royal court.
Yet bin Laden had turned bitterly against that same monarchy. He condemned the Saudi rulers for letting US troops be based in the country during and after the 1991 Gulf War, and he called for their overthrow. In 1994 the family publicly disowned him, and the government revoked his passport and stripped him of his citizenship. Al-Qaeda has carried out attacks inside Saudi Arabia itself, including a wave of bombings in Riyadh in 2003.
A persistent story claims that bin Laden relatives were flown out of America while ordinary flights were grounded. The record is more ordinary. About thirteen family members did leave on a chartered flight on 19 September 2001, but only after national airspace had reopened on 13 September. The 9/11 Commission found no evidence of political intervention and judged that the FBI had properly screened the Saudi nationals who left on charter flights. Several relatives said publicly that they had had no contact with Osama for many years.
How to read leaks and declassified files
Stories built on secret documents tend to travel faster than the documents themselves. A few habits make them easier to judge:
- Look for who is speaking. A memo that says "the source stated" is reporting an allegation, not a finding.
- Notice what is blacked out. Redactions often hide names and dates that would change the meaning.
- Compare with earlier official reviews, such as the 9/11 Commission report, and with later releases from the same series.
- Be wary of headlines that name an individual the document itself does not name.
The 2021 memo is a genuine and important piece of evidence about how two hijackers found help in California. It strengthens the case that some people with consular connections assisted them. Whether that help was knowing, and whether anyone higher up approved it, remains disputed and is still being argued in court.
Sources: AFP via Malay Mail, 12 September 2021; Wikipedia: Omar al-Bayoumi; Wikipedia: Bin Laden family; original news tip via Daily Mail.
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