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t r u t h o u t - NEWSWEEK: FBI Informant Lived With the Hijackers Page 1 of 2

t r u t h o u t * issues
t Print This Story 0=3...E-maj.l!his..Sto.ry

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The Informant Who Lived With the Hijackers

I By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK

Week of September 16th. Issue

NEWSWEEK has learned that one of the bureau's informants

had a close relationship with two of the hijackers.
1
At first, FBI director Bob Mueller insisted there was nothing the bureau could have
done to penetrate the 9-11 plot. That account has been modified over time--and now
may change again. NEWSWEEK has learned that one of the bureau's informants had
a close relationship with two of the hijackers: he was their roommate.

dsmut*
The connection, just discovered by congressional investigators, has stunned some
top counterterrorism officials and raised new concerns about the information-sharing
among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. The two hijackers, Khalid
Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, were hardly unknown to the intelligence community.
The CIA was first alerted to them in January 2000, when the two Saudi nationals

e
showed up at a Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. FBI officials have argued
internally for months that if the CIA had more quickly passed along everything it knew
about the two men, the bureau could have hunted them down more aggressively.

But both agencies can share in the blame. Upon leaving Malaysia, Almihdhar and
Alhazmi went to San Diego, where they took flight-school lessons. In September 2000,
the two moved into the home of a Muslim man who had befriended them at the local
Islamic Center. The landlord regularly prayed with them and even helped one open a
bank account. He was also, sources tell NEWSWEEK, a "tested" undercover "asset"
who had been working closely with the FBI office in San Diego on terrorism cases
related to Hamas. A senior law-enforcement official told NEWSWEEK the informant
never provided the bureau with the names of his two houseguests from Saudi Arabia.
Nor does the FBI have any reason to believe the informant was concealing their
letters
identities. (He could not be reached for comment.) But the FBI concedes that a San
Diego case agent appears to have been at least aware that Saudi visitors were renting
rooms in the informant's house. (On one occasion, a source says, the case agent

c
called up the informant and was told he couldn't talk because "Khalid"-a reference to
Almihdhar-was in the room.) I. C. Smith, a former top FBI counterintelligence official,
says the case agent should have been keeping closer tabs on who his informant was
fraternizing with-if only to seek out the houseguests as possible informants. "They
should have been asking, 'Who are these guys? What are they doing here?' This
strikes me as a lack of investigative curiosity." About six weeks after moving into the
house, Almihdhar left town, explaining to the landlord he was heading back to Saudi
Arabia to see his daughter. Alhazmi moved out at the end of 2000.

In the meantime, the CIA was gathering more information about just how
potentially dangerous both men were. A few months after the October 2000 bombing
of the USS Cole in Yemen, CIA analysts discovered -in their Malaysia file that one of

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/09.13A.newk.infrmt.htm 5/15/03
 Page 1

1 of 1 DOCUMENT

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

The New York Times

October 6, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 1; Page 24; Column 6; National Desk

LENGTH: 767 words

HEADLINE: THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE INQUIRY;

Congress Seeks F.B.I. Data On Informer; F.B.I. Resists

BYLINE: By JAMES RISEN

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Oct. 5

BODY:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a confidential informer who rented rooms in California to two of the Sept. 11
hijackers, but the bureau is resisting a request from the Congressional committee investigating the attacks to interview the
informer and his F.B.I, handler, government officials said.
The joint Sept. 11 Congressional committee plans to hold a closed hearing on Wednesday focusing on the F.B.I.'s
handling of its San Diego informer, who was the landlord of the hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi a year
before the attacks.
Several officials said the F.B.I, had rebuffed requests to make the informer available to the committee and would not
authorize the agent who was his contact to testify.
The F.B.I.'s resistance has led Congressional officials to become more aggressive in trying to find out whether the
informer provided clues about the hijackers that the bureau ignored or failed to act on before Sept. 11.
An F.B.I, official said the bureau had provided the committee with all the agent's reports on the informer's activities.
The official said the F.B.I, was unwilling to allow the informer to testify on principle, fearing it could damage efforts to
recruit sources from Arab-American communities. The official said the F.B.I, had not learned the identity of Mr. Midhar
or Mr. Alhazmi from the informer, who was known as a "passive source," meaning he was not assigned to obtain specific
intelligence but routinely passed on information.
The official said the F.B.I, did not have any information indicating that the informer knew anything about the plot or
had passed on any details that should have caused his F.B.I, contact to focus more closely on Mr. Midhar or Mr. Alhazmi.
But Congressional investigators say the F.B.I.'s efforts to block their inquiry makes them skeptical of the bureau's
assertions about the informer. They also say the Justice Department has joined the F.B.I, in fighting the Congressional
requests for information related to the matter, escalating tensions.
The fight over access to the informer is the latest bitter dispute between the committee and the Bush administration
and the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that are the subject of the committee's investigation.
Antagonism between the Central Intelligence Agency and the committee became public a week ago after the director
of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, wrote a letter to the committee's leaders, protesting the treatment of a senior
C.I.A. officer who had testified about the agency's record on fighting terrorism. Mr. Tenet's letter was in response to a
disclosure that the committee's staff had written briefing papers predicting to committee members that Cofer Black, who
was until recently the chief of the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center, would "dissemble" in his testimony.
Separately, documents made public in federal court in Alexandria, Va., late last month showed that the Justice
Department sought unsuccessfully to prevent F.B.I, agents, and the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, from testifying
publicly before the joint inquiry.
Search - 17 Results - abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant Page 1 of 2

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The Washington Post, October 11, 2002

Copyright 2002 The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com
The Washington Post

October 11, 2002, Friday, Final Edition

SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A14

LENGTH: 590 words

HEADLINE: 9/11 Panel Discusses Informant; FBI Handling of Man Who Lived With
Hijackers at Issue

BYLINE: Susan Schmidt, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:

A congressional panel investigating intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks

met in closed session yesterday to discuss the FBI's handling of information from a San Diego
informant who lived for a time with two of the hijackers.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and CIA Director George J. Tenet appeared before the joint
House-Senate intelligence panel behind closed doors. On Wednesday, the panel questioned
an FBI agent who received information from Abdussattar Shaikh, a San Diego man who
rented a room in his house in 2000 to Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, two of the
suicide hijackers. Shaikh, a retired educator, has said publicly he met the men when they
responded to a room-for-rent notice he posted at the Islamic Center in San Diego. He said in
interviews last year that Alhazmi moved into his home in Lemon Grove, Calif., a working-
class suburb of San Diego, in August 2000. Almihdhar, whom the U.S. government has linked
to planners of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, moved in later that month, he
said. Both men left at the end of the year.

Shaikh said he believed the men were seeking an education in this country and that he saw
no signs of radical beliefs.

At the time, according to government sources, Shaikh was providing information informally
to the FBI. Shaikh, who was recently identified by name as an informer in a San Diego
newspaper, has publicly objected to that characterization. He did not return a call for
comment yesterday.

Government officials familiar with the matter said it did not appear that Shaikh had provided
substantive information about his housemates to his FBI handler. Neither Almihdhar nor
Alhazmi turned up in the FBI's San Diego files, the officials said, adding that the joint panel
has been given access to all the informant reports relating to Shaikh.

http://www.lexis.com/researcri/retrieve?_rn=ec0127cfD1162aOa529014de48e44c31&docnu... 5/15/2003
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n
C6S News Transcripts October 11, 2002 Friday

Copyright 2002 Burrelle's Information Services

CBS News Transcripts

SHOW: CBS Morning News (6:30 AM ET) - CBS

October 11, 2002 Friday

TYPE: Newscast

LENGTH: 330 words

HEADLINE: Confrontation between Congress and the FBI over key information about 9/11

ANCHORS: JON FRANKEL

REPORTERS: JIM STEWART

BODY:
JON FRANKEL, anchor:

A tense confrontation is brewing between Congress and the FBI over the Bureau's handling of
a witness who may have had key information prior to the September llth attacks. Jim
Stewart reports.

JIM STEWART reporting:

A congressional committee investigating the September the llth hijackings met behind
closed doors to hash out what appears to be an increasingly ugly confrontation with the FBI.
At issue is the testimony of an FBI informant, who apparently played landlord to two of the
9/11 hijackers and never informed his case agent of the renters until after the attacks.

The two hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid AI-Midhar, were the only members of the group
to enter the US through the West Coast. For several months, they lived in this San Diego
residence, where their landlord was this man, identified as Abdussattar Shaikh, a
prominent San Diego Muslim leader. Shaikh has denied he was an informant, although the
FBI has confirmed, without identifying him by name, that the man the hijackers rented from
was an informational asset to the Bureau. Now Congress wants him to testify, apparently in
secret, closed session, about what he knew and what he told his FBI handlers.

Congressional sources called his story 'highly specific, factual and significant' and that it
opens another chapter in the story of the 9/11 plot. The FBI said it is drawing a line in the
sand over the issue. This is about subjecting people who would provide information to the
government to undue scrutiny and protecting their identification,' a spokesman said.

Both AI-Midhar and Alhazmi began flight training shortly after arriving in California. The
informant has reportedly explained that he never attached any significance to his young
tenants until after the 9/11 attack when he recognized their pictures. That's when he called
his FBI case agent and said, 'Hey, I know these guys. They were my roommates.' Jim
Stewart, CBS News, Washington.

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=ec0127cf01162aOa529014de48e44c31&docnu... 5/15/2003
CNN.com - Sources: Hijackers' ex-landlord was FBI informant - September 11, 2002 Page 1 of 2

.com U.S.
SEARCH i Mortgage
MAIN PAGE » Special Report | Timeline | Faces of September 11 | Fighting Terror Exclusive
WORLD Who's on
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WEATHER Sources: Hijackers' ex-landlord was FBI Subscribe
BUSINESS
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informant
POLITICS
LAW September 11, 2002 Posted: 4:33 AM EOT (0833 GMT)
SCI-TECH
SPACE From Dana Bash, Kelli Arena and David Ensor
HEALTH CNN
ENTERTAINMENT
TRAVEL WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former
EDUCATION
IN-DEPTH
landlord of two of the September 11
hijackers was an FBI informant at the
time, knowledgeable sources confirm to
LOU DOBBS f
CNN.
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real-fitti
The two hijackers, Khalid Almidhar and
chsr|Jrt|
VIDEO Nawaf Alhazmi, lived in San Diego in the
LOCAL fall of 2000 and were taken in by a
CNN NEWSWATCH Muslim man after he met them at a local
E-MAIL SERVICES Islamic center. The landlord had been an trailing
CNNtoGO Nawaf Alhazmi
informant for the FBI, supplying
ABOUT US/HELP
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CNN TV SAVE THIS <§IS3 EMAIL THIS groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
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The revelation, first reported by
CNN Headline News
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possible mistakes made by U.S. law t€cHnic|
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enforcement and intelligence prior to September 11. Newsweek reported that the T§lf[^$ri&
EDITIONS FBI informant lived in close quarters with the two future hijackers.
CNN.com Asia Tifiwaa
CNN.com Europe
CNNenEspanol.com
"The FBI concedes that a San Diego case agent appears to have been at least
CNNArabic.com aware that Saudi visitors were renting rooms in the informant's house,"
set your edition Newsweek reported.
] Languages
JTime, Inc. Some members of the congressional committee investigating the intelligence
failures and the September 11 attacks knew about the relationship between the
landlord and the FBI, and the point will probably come up when the panel holds
trial issues
public hearings, expected later this month.

U.S. intelligence officials said that in January of

2000, when Almidhar and Alhazmi attended a
meeting of known terrorists in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, that fact was communicated by the CIA
to the FBI. Yet it was not until August 23, 2001,
that the CIA warned the FBI and other law
enforcement agencies to watch for the two men,
and that they might try to enter the United States.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/! l/ar91 l.hijackers.landlord/ 5/15/03

Search -17 Results - abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant Page 1 of 2

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D
The Bulletin's Frontrunner October 11, 2002 Friday

Copyright 2002 Bulletin Broadfaxing Network, Inc.

The Bulletin's Frontrunner

October 11, 2002 Friday

SECTION: Terrorism News

LENGTH: 327 words

HEADLINE: FBI, Congress At Odds Over Informant Who Knew Two 9/11 Hijackers.

BODY:
CBS (10/10, story 7, Rather) reports, "In the investigation of intelligence failures before
9/11," there is "a tense standoff between the FBI and Congress over a witness." CBS
(Stewart) adds, "A congressional committee investigating the September llth hijackings met
behind closed doors today to hash out what appears to be an increasingly ugly confrontation
with the FBI At issue is the testimony of an FBI informant who apparently played landlord to
two of the 9/11 hijackers and never informed his case agent of the renters until after the
attacks. The two hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid Almiihdar, were the only members of
the group to enter the US through the West Coast. For several months they lived in this San
Diego residence where their landlord was this man, identified as Abdussattar Shaikh, a
prominent San Diego Muslim leader. Shaikh has denied he was an informant, although the
FBI has confirmed without identifying him by name, that the man the hijackers rented from
was an 'informational asset' to the Bureau. Now Congress wants him to testify, apparently in
a secret, closed session about what he knew and what he told his FBI handlers."

The Washington Post (10/11, Schmidt) reports that "government officials familiar with the
matter said it did not appear that Shaikh had provided substantive information about his
housemates to his FBI handler. Neither Almihdhar nor Alhazmi turned up in the FBI's San
Diego files, the officials said, adding that the joint panel has been given access to all the
informant reports relating to Shaikh. The FBI, which is seeking to find sources and build
relationships in Arab communities, has resisted a request from Congress to bring Shaikh
before the intelligence panel to testify." And "it was not clear yesterday what information the
committee was seeking from Mueller and Tenet. But it postponed until next week a public
session with the two officials that was scheduled for yesterday."

LOAD-DATE: October 11, 2002

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View: Full
Date/Time: Thursday, May 15, 2003 - 3:53 PM EOT

About LexisNexis | Terms and Conditions

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The San Diego Union-Tribune, November 27, 2002

Copyright 2002 The San Diego Union-Tribune

The San Diego Union-Tribune

November 27, 2002, Wednesday

SECTION: NEWS;Pg. A-l

LENGTH: 950 words

HEADLINE: Local FBI chief defends office, decries search for 9/11 blame

BYLINE: Kelly Thornton; STAFF WRITER

BODY:
Critics have said San Diego's FBI may have bungled a chance to prevent 9/11. Now they say
the local office failed to vigorously pursue the terrorists' funding sources.

Bill Gore has remained silent.

Yesterday, the local FBI chief defended his agents and dished out some criticism of his own
about the congressional committee looking into the attacks.

"It bothers me when they accuse the FBI of not being aggressive enough," Gore said. "I
believe the facts of the investigation indicate we were as aggressive as we should have been
and followed all logical leads to their conclusion. If this is ever declassified, their investigation
will reveal that."

Gore was referring to a draft report from the committee, which, among other things, found
that San Diego-linked hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar may have received
money indirectly from a Saudi princess, through two Saudi men living in San Diego.

Gore's comments were made during a question-and-answer meeting with the Union-Tribune
editorial board, attended by editors and reporters from the newsroom. The board regularly
invites people in the news to discuss current events.

Although he declined to discuss the details, Gore said the FBI has thoroughly and doggedly
pursued the money trail from the start of the Sept. 11 investigation, and agents are
confident they know how the San Diego-linked hijackers were funded, even if they lack
enough evidence to bring charges.

Leading up to Sept. 11 and after, Gore said, the bureau has done the best it could with
limited staffing levels and under legal constraints that prevented the sharing of information
between the FBI and CIA.

Gore said he is disheartened by attitudes of some committee members who he sees as

looking for scapegoats.

"We don't necessarily have to find somebody in the government to blame for Sept. 11," said
Gore, who recently spent about four hours testifying before the committee. "I was

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=ec0127cfD1162aOa529014de48e44c31&docnu... 5/15/2003
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Copley News Service September 18, 2002 Wednesday.

Copyright 2002 Copley News Service

Copley News Service

September 18, 2002 Wednesday

SECTION: WASHINGTON WIRE

LENGTH: 659 words

HEADLINE: Investigators taking hard look at failure to find San Diego-based terrorists

BYLINE: Toby Eckert Copley News Service

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
Congressional investigators plan to shine a spotlight on how two of the Sept. 11 hijackers
who lived openly in San Diego escaped detection despite being identified in 1999 as "possible
associates" of al-Qaeda, the terrorist network that launched the attacks.

But one top member of a joint Senate-House committee probing pre-Sept. 11 intelligence
failures appeared uncertain about when the matter would be aired publicly.

"Again, this goes to the issue of can we get the individuals that we need as witnesses and the
information that we need declassified to have a public hearing precisely on that issue," said
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla. "We are not there yet."

One member of the panel, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said intelligence information that should
have alerted authorities to Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi was "bungled" and they were
"inexplicably" kept off a State Department watch list until just three weeks before the
attacks.

The FBI's Los Angeles field office did not receive a request to search for the two men until the
day of the attacks, Eleanor Hill, the staff director of the congressional investigation said
during the first open hearing on the probe.

"We're going to go into that particular case in much more detail when we present our
testimony or statement on the hijackers," she said. "We will... tell you what we've heard
from people who were handling that information at the time and why it slipped by them. But
I think you may hear everything from they had too many things to do, it wasn't considered
that significant, they were overwhelmed and it was simply a mistake."

Appearing before the committee, spouses of two victims of the attacks on the Pentagon and
World Trade Center complained bitterly about the failure of intelligence agencies to track
down al-Midhar and Alhazmi, who helped commandeer the plane that slammed into the
Pentagon. The two men lived in the San Diego area for all or part of 2000.

"Two of the hijackers... were known to the CIA before they entered the country, were living
as roommates with an FBI informant/' said Stephen Push, whose wife, Lisa Raines, died in

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=ec0127cf01162aOa529014de48e44c31&docnu... 5/15/2003
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Copley News Service September 9, 2002 Monday

Copyright 2002 Copley News Service

Copley News Service

September 9, 2002 Monday

SECTION: WASHINGTON WIRE

LENGTH: 543 words

HEADLINE: San Diego Muslim leader denies he served as an FBI informant

BYLINE: Kelly Thornton and Sandi Dolbee Copley News Service

DATELINE: SAN DIEGO

BODY:
A prominent San Diego County Muslim leader who unwittingly rented a room to two hijackers
in 2000 was a trusted FBI informant who worked with agents before Sept. 11 on terrorism
cases, according to law enforcement sources.

However, the leader, Abdussattar Shaikh of Lemon Grove, last night repeatedly denied he
was an FBI informant and said he was shocked by the suggestion. He said he has many FBI
friends - agents he met through community committees that he serves on - but he was not
feeding them information on fellow Muslims.

"It's not me, no, no, absolutely," Shaikh said last night. "We talked about many things, but
nothing like this man is a questionable character or anything like that."

Asked why a federal official might say he was an informant, Shaikh replied: "I don't know. I
think I'm going to ask them (the FBI)."

It's unclear how the revelation will reflect on the San Diego FBI office, if it's true that Shaikh
was acting as an informant while the hijackers lived with him before their deadly attack.
The FBI declined to comment Sunday. Sources said the FBI does not believe Shaikh was
deceiving them.

Shaikh, a longtime Lemon Grove resident who has acknowledged that hijackers Nawaf
Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar lived with him a year before the hijackings, has said repeatedly
that he had no inkling of their intentions and thought they were just two students from Saudi
Arabia.

The head of the FBI in San Diego, Bill Gore, who was not commenting publicly on any aspect
of the investigation, has repeatedly taken the unusual step of confirming to reporters that
Shaikh, who serves on many community boards, is not a suspect. Gore has not done the
same for anyone else.

The 68-year-old retired businessman and educator met Alhazmi and al-Midhar at the Islamic
Center of San Diego, the county's largest mosque. They moved into his east San Diego
County home in September 2000. Al-Midhar stayed about six weeks and Alhazmi left in

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=ec0127cf01162aOa529014de48e44c31&docnu... 5/15/2003
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SAN DIEGO -- Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who lived in San Diego in NBC 7/39 Ski Report
2000 rented a room from a man who reportedly worked as an undercover Tu Conexion Con La Comunidad
FBI informant. San Diego Art + Sol
San Diego Events
Newsweek
magazine
reports that partner
Khalid
Almihdhar WAL-MART
ALWSfS LOW P8SOE&
and Nawaf
Alhazmi
lived with a
"tested" CLICK HERE.
undercover Newsweek Report On
"asset" who Hijackers
had been <\3> NBC 7m FwdRoom
working closely with the FBI office in San Diego.

The magazine does not name the informant.

Alhazmi and al-Midhar lived in a house in Lemon Grove for several months
in 2000. The owner of the home was Abdusattar Shaikh, 68, a leader of
the local Muslim community.

Shaikh has acknowledged that the two hijackers stayed at his home, but
he has said he did not know they were involved in the terror strikes until
their names were read on a radio report a few days later. He said that he
met Alhazmi and al-Midhar at the Islamic Center of San Diego, a mosque
in Clairemont.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/911anniversary/1655487/detail.html 5/15/03
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Weather Whether it's paranoia or a simple fact of
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Archives
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A look at the year that was.
Life for the estimated 80,000 to
100,000 Muslims in San Diego County The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,
has changed dramatically since 2001, continue to reverberate
authorities discovered that hijackers across America and the globe.
Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid al-Midhar and
Hani Hanjour lived among them, This week, the Union-Tribune
attended their mosques, dined in their will present a series of stories on
the events and their lingering
homes, prayed beside them. effects.

"They are afraid to be in big MONDAY:

congregations because they fear Big The presidency and government
Brother is watching them," said TUESDAY:
Mohamad Nasser, president of the San Diversity and distrust
WEDNESDAY:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/terror/20020910-9999_lnlOmuslims.html 5/15/03
CBS News I Hijackers Lived With FBI Informant I September 9, 2002 10:44:35 Page I o f 2

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September 9, 2002 10:44:35 II

WAR ON TERROR * Section Front

-mail This Story JUs, Printable Version
• Iraq: After Saddam
Hijackers Lived With FBI Informant • World

Sept. 9, 2002
(CBS) Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who
lived in San Diego in 2000 rented a room
from a man who reportedly worked as an
undercover FBI informant, highlighting the
lack of cooperation by the nation's law Law enforcement and investigative
enforcement and intelligence agencies. agencies worldwide work together to
catch those behind the deadliest
Newsweek magazine reports that Khalid terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi lived with a
O "tested" undercover "asset" who had been
The Pentagon after the attack (AP) working closely with the FBI office in San
Diego. The Day That
The magazine does not name the
Changed America
informant.

The connection was discovered by America looks back at its darkest

congressional investigators, reports morning and ahead to a changed
Newsweek, and raises more questions world.
about information-sharing among
government intelligence agencies.
Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid
Almihdhar (CBS/AP) A senior law-enforcement official told the
magazine that the informant never
Sept. 11 And
provided the Bureau with the names of his Since
two houseguests from Saudi Arabia — but his FBI contact never asked,
either.

The CIA was keeping an eye on the men after the two had attended an al Chart the sequence of events on
Sept. 11 and look back on the
Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000. challenging days that followed.
Alhazmi and Almihdhar moved into the house in September of 2000.
Almihdhar left six weeks later and Alhazmi left at the end of the year. RO-A.TEEJ STORIES & LiMKB

Story
While there, the FBI informant prayed with them and even helped one open a
Sept. 11 ID Seller Flees U.S.
bank account. Alhazmi and Almihdhar took lessons at a flight school while
living in San Diego. D Story |
Suspected al Qaeda Operative
The two men were aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Detained
Pentagon on Sept. 11. pl Story |
The FBI's Hijacker List
There is no evidence the informant concealed the identity of the two men. In
fact, after their names were reported in the news media following the attacks, HI Story |
the informant contacted his FBI case agent to say the two men had been his Feds: Hijackers' Helper Hated
roommates. U.S.

A bigger questions, said one counter-intelligence expert, is why the case

agent, who knew that two Saudi men were staying with the informant, didn't
show more curiosity about them. If nothing else, he should have considered
them as possible informants themselves.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/09/attack/main521223.shtml 5/15/03
Search -17 Results - abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant Page 1 of 3

Source: News & Business > News > News Group File, Most Recent Two Years ©
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D
U.S. News & World Report December 9, 2002

Copyright 2002 U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report

December 9, 2002

SECTION: NATION & WORLD; Vol. 133 , No. 22; Pg. 32

LENGTH: 1037 words

HEADLINE: The road to Riyadh

BYLINE: By Gloria Borger; Edward T. Pound; Linda Robinson; David E. Kaplan; Chitra
Ragavan; Randy Dotinga

DATELINE: San Diego

HIGHLIGHT:
A stillborn FBI inquiry and a money trail from the Saudi Embassy to two of the 9/11
hijackers;

BODY:
On October 9, members of the special congressional committee investigating the 9/11
attacks met privately with a key FBI witness. The next day, panel members were to meet in
open session with CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller. After the FBI
agent finished testifying, the open meetings with Tenet and Mueller were summarily
canceled. Several members were "appalled" at what informed sources described as the
"explosive" testimony of Special Agent Steven Butler, who recently retired from the FBI after
his final posting in the bureau's San Diego field office.

Government officials told U.S. News that Butler disclosed that he had been monitoring a flow
of Saudi Arabian money that wound up in the hands of two of the 9/11 hijackers. The two
men had rented a room from a man Butler had used as a confidential informant, the
sources say. According to officials familiar with his account, Butler said that he had alerted
his superiors about the money flows but the warning went nowhere. "Butler is claiming . . .
that people [in the FBI] didn't follow up," says a congressional source. Adds another: "He
saw a pattern, a trail, and he told his supervisors, but it ended there."

Roommates. In a conversation outside his home in the gated Rancho Penasquitos community
in San Diego, Butler told U.S. News, "It's very sensitive stuff." Wearing a Buffalo Bills cap,
Butler said, "I'd love to talk to you guys," but added that he couldn't without permission from
the Justice Department.

Butler's testimony comes after disclosures that FBI executives failed to take action in
response to memorandums by agency lawyers and agents in Minneapolis and Phoenix about
suspicious activities involving young Muslim men enrolled in flight schools. One of the men,
Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, is awaiting trial on charges stemming from
the attacks.

In his closed-door appearance on Capitol Hill, Butler described his dealings with a leader in

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=ec0127cfD1162aOa529014de48e44c31&docnu... 5/15/2003
Search -17 Results - abdussattar w/2 shaikh & informant Page 1 of 2

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D
Agence France Presse November 30, 2002 Saturday

Copyright 2002 Agence France Presse

Agence France Presse

November 30, 2002 Saturday

SECTION: Domestic, non-Washington, General News

LENGTH: 360 words

HEADLINE: Ex-FBI agent says his warnings about Saudis were ignored: report

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Nov 29

BODY:
A retired FBI agent has informed a congressional committee probing the September 11
attacks that his superior had ignored his warnings about a flow of Saudi money into the
hands of suspected hijackers, US News and World Report magazine reported Friday.

Steven Butler, who worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's San Diego field office,
told the committee the money went to two of the September 11 hijackers -- Khalid
Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, the magazine reported, quoting unnamed government
officials.

In his testimony, Butler described his dealings with a leader in San Diego's Muslim
community, a 68-year-old man named Abdussattar Shaikh, who served as an FBI
informant, according to US News. In 2000, Shaikh rented a room in his house in the San
Diego suburb of Lemon Grove to Almihdhar and Alhazmi, who later helped hijack American
Airlines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon.

According to officials familiar with his account, Butler said that he had alerted his superiors
about the money flow but the warning went nowhere, the report said.

The FBI is currently investigating how thousands of dollars of charitable donations from Saudi
Princess Haifa AI-Faisal, wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, ended up in the
hands of Almihdhar and Alhazmi.

The princess has denied any knowledge of these transfers.

The indirectly went to Saudi nationals Osama Basnan and Omar al-Bayoumi, who lived in the
United States and helped Almihdhar and Alhazmi pay their rent.

According to US News, FBI and Treasury Department investigators believe that as much as
100 million dollars has flowed from Saudi Arabia to terrorist organizations in recent years.

"We're talking about major-league businessmen who have ties to the royal family," the report
quotes a senior Treasury official as saying.

"Over the years, they've put funds into a lot of different mechanisms -- business charities,
moneymaking ventures -- and routed them through offshore havens," the official said.

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=ec0127cfD1162aOa529014de48e44c31&docnu... 5/15/2003
 Saudi Perceptions of the United States since 9-11

F. Gregory Cause, III

University of Vermont
gregory.gause@uvm.edu

prepared for the conference on

"Western and Non-Western Perceptions of America in the Aftermath of 9-11"
CERI-Sciences Po, Paris
September 30-October 1,2002

There is no bilateral relationship that was more affected by the attacks of

September 11, 2001, on New York and Washington than the Saudi-American
relationship. On the American side, the reason is obvious: 15 of the 19 hijackers of the
four planes which crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in
central Pennsylvania were from Saudi Arabia. 'Usama bin Ladin, the leader of the
group behind the attacks, also is from Saudi Arabia. As Americans learned more about
the hijackers, bin Ladin and the more general salafi movement, popular anger against
Saudi Arabia grew. According to a poll by Zogby International, in January 2001 56% of
Americans polled viewed Saudi Arabia favorably, 28% unfavorably. In December 2001,
those numbers had basically reversed, with only 24% viewing Saudi Arabia favorably
and 58% unfavorably.1 Much of the American political and media elite, which had
generally accepted the US-Saudi relationship - an exchange of security for oil, to
simplify - began to question the value for the United States of a close relationship with
Riyadh. While the Bush Administration has asserted since 9-11 that the relationship
with Saudi Arabia remains solid, there is no question that the unprecedented public
focus on Saudi Arabia (even greater than during the 1973-74 oil embargo, I would
argue) has shaken the foundations of the bilateral relationship.

A similar process took place in Saudi Arabian public opinion after the 9-11
attacks. Popular disaffection with the United States was already substantial before the
attacks. American policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on Iraqi sanctions was
generally unpopular. Bin Ladin and other Saudi dissidents had successfully raised the
issue of the American military presence in the Kingdom. Reacting to the intense media
scrutiny on Saudi Arabia in the United States that followed the attacks, the Saudi
government took a number of steps to distance itself from the United States. These
moves, in effect, opened the door to more open expression of anti-Americanism in
Saudi Arabia than is usually permitted. The Saudi government, perhaps taken aback by
the vigor of those sentiments, began in the spring of 2002 to send signals that there are
limits to the anti-Americanism that it will tolerate at home. While this was happening,

'Poll cited in Dr. James J. Zogby, "New Poll Shows Damage Done," December 24, 2001. Accessed via
"GulfWire" e-newsletter, www.arabialink.com.
9-11 Hijackers: A Saudi Money Trail? Page 1 of 5

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9-11 Hijackers: A Saudi Money

Trail?
The Feds probe a possible new Saudi link to Al Qaeda
By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Nov. 22 — The FBI is investigating whether the

Saudi Arabian government—using the bank
account of the wife of a senior Saudi diplomat—
sent tens of thousands of dollars to two Saudi
students in the United States who provided
assistance to two of the September 11 hijackers,
according to law-enforcement sources.

E-MAILTHIS • COMPLETE STORY

http://www.msnbc.com/news/838867.asp?cpl=l 5/15/03
 Page 1

3 of 9 DOCUMENTS

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

The New York Times

November 23, 2002, Saturday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 6; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 1212 words

HEADLINE: THREATS AND RESPONSES: TRACKING TERRORISM;

9/11 REPORT SAYS SAUDI ARABIA LINKS WENT UNEXAMINED

BYLINE: By DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Nov. 22

BODY:
A draft report by the joint Congressional committee looking into the Sept. 11 attacks has concluded that the F.B.I, and
the C.I.A, in their investigations, did not aggressively pursue leads that might have linked the terrorists to Saudi Arabia,
senior government officials said today.
The report charged among other things that the authorities had failed to investigate the possibility that two of the
hijackers, Saudis named Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi, received Saudi money from two Saudi men they met
with in California in the year before the attacks.
The committee's preliminary findings, which also accuse the Saudi government of a lack of cooperation with
American investigators, have caused a bitter behind-the-scenes dispute between the panel's staff and officials at the F.B.I,
and the C.I.A. At each agency, officials have disagreed with the draft findings, saying investigators vigorously pursued all
available information related to Saudi Arabia.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, but little is known about their backgrounds and how they were
recruited for the attacks. Most of the Saudis were part of a group that investigators refer to as the "muscle." These were
men recruited late in the planning for the operation, not as pilots, but as an unskilled security force for the hijacking
operation. Their job was to keep passengers at bay as the planes were commandeered and flown to their intended targets.
In a rebuttal report sent to the committee in recent days, the F.B.I, has tried to disprove several specific allegations by
the committee. One of them was about Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi, who lived in San Diego a year before the attacks.
While in California, the two met with Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, each of whom was receiving financial
support from the Saudi government. The men were receiving stipends, although officials said it was not exactly clear what
kind. The committee staff concluded in its draft findings that investigators should have followed up on the meetings of the
four men to determine whether there might have been a Saudi link to the hijacking plot.
The F.B.I, is still investigating how much financial support, if any, was provided by Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan to
the two men who later turned out to be hijackers. The bureau is also looking into whether senior Saudi officials in the
United States may have played some role in distributing funds to Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan.
Today, the F.B.I, said in a statement that it had "aggressively pursued investigative leads regarding terrorist support
and activity." It added that Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan had both been charged with visa fraud after the attacks.
But by that time, Mr. Bayoumi was already in Britain, where he was temporarily detained and then released because
visa fraud was not an extraditable offense. The F.B.I, statement did not say where the two men were now or clarify the
status of the cases against them.
Although the disagreement has not been publicly disclosed until now, the debate over possible Saudi connections
raises a very sensitive political issue for the Bush administration. Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world
Saudi envoy, Sept. 11 figures linked Page 1 of4

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• Saudi e
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• AI-Qaid
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• New Nil
of Mounir El Motassadeq, convicted in Germany scams

of helping plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a TV News

friend of hijacker Mohammed Atta. A U.S. • Today:

part?

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the joys

guy," citing evidence he gave money to Islamic • Dateline

• Today:
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members who carried out the 9/11 attacks. MSNBC':

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 = THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY:

THE FALL OF THE

HOUSE OF SAUD
Americans have long considered Saudi Arabia the one constant in the
Arab Middle East—a source of cheap oil, political stability, and lucrative business
relationships. But the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctional
royal family that has beenfunding militant Islamic movements abroad in an
attempt to protect itself from them at home. A former CIA operative
argues, in an article drawn from his new book, Sleeping With the Devil,
that today's Saudi Arabia can't last much longer—and the social
and economic fallout of its demise could be calamitous
BY ROBERT BAER
Illustrations by John Ritter

n the decades after World War II the United ports, within the kingdom and without—they

I States and the rest of the industrialized

world developed a deep and irrevocable
dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia, the
could effectively put the Saudis out of the oil
business for about two years. And it just
would not be that hard to do.
world's largest and most important producer. The most vulnerable point and the most
But by the mid-1980s—with the Iran-Iraq spectacular target in the Saadi oil system is
war raging, and the-OPEC oil embargo a recent the Abqaiq complex—the world's largest oil-
and traumatic memory—the supply, which had processing facility, which sits about twenty-
until that embargo been taken for granted, sud- four miles inland from the northern end of the
denly seemed at risk. Disaster planners in and out of Gulf of Bahrain. All petroleum originating in the
government began to ask uncomfortable questions. What south is pumped to Abqaiq for processing. For the first two
points of the Saudi oil infrastructure were most vulnerable months after a moderate to severe attack on Abqaiq, pro-
to terrorist attack? And by what means? What sorts of dis- duction there would slow from an average of 6.8 million
ruption to the flow of oil, short-term and long-term, could barrels a day to one million barrels, a loss equivalent to one
be expected? These were critical concerns. Underlying third of America's daily consumption of crude oil. For seven
them all was the fear that a major attack on the Saudi sys- months following the attack, daily production would re-
tem could cause the global economy to collapse. main as much as four million barrels below normal—a re-
The Saudi system seemed—and still seems—frighten- duction roughly equal to what all of the OPEC partners
ingly vulnerable to attack. Although Saudi Arabia has more were able to effect during their 1973 embargo.
than eighty active oil and natural-gas fields, and more than Oil is pumped from Abqaiq to loading terminals at Ras
a thousand working wells, half its proven oil reserves are Tanura and Ju'aymah, both on Saudi Arabia's east coast.
contained in only eight fields—including Ghawar, the Ras Tanura moves only slightly more oil than Ju'aymah
world's largest onshore oil field, and Safaniya, the world's does (4.5 million barrels per day as opposed to 4.3 million
largest offshore oil field. Various confidential scenarios barrels), but it offers a greater variety of targets and more
have suggested that if terrorists were simultaneously to hit avenues of attack. Nearly all of Ras Tanura's export oil is
only a few sensitive points "downstream" in the oil system handled by an offshore facility known as The Sea Island,
from these eight fields—points that control more than and the facility's Platform No. 4 handles half of that. A com-
10,000 miles of pipe, both onshore and offshore, in which mando attack on Platform 4 by surface boat or even by a
oil moves from wells to refineries and from refineries to Kilo-class submarine—available in the global arms bazaar—

53
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B y rolling over Iraq, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld hoped to deep-six the
sixties.
ilpy Most E-Mailed Ai
ARTIOJ TOOiS SPONSOSII

The president was down with that. He never grooved on the vibe of the Age of
Aquarius anyway.
Columnist
Conservatives were eager to purge the decades' demons, from tie-dye to moral Page:
Maureen
relativism, from Hanoi Jane to wilting patriotism, from McGovern to blaming Dowd
America first, from Lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds to the Clintonesque
whatever-gets-you-through-the-night ethos. Forum:
Discuss This
Column
In their preferred calendar, more Gingrichian than Gregorian, American culture
E-mail:
fast-forwards from Elvis's blue suede shoes to John Travolta's white polyester suit. liberties® nvtimes.ex

Whatever else has gone awry in the Mideast so far, the administration may have
succeeded in exorcising American queasiness about using force, and any vestigial
image of the military as "baby killers." TIMES NEWS TRACKE
Topics
Cheney. Dick
As Robin Toner wrote in The Times yesterday, trust in the military is brimming, up
Rumsfeld. Donald H
to 79 percent from 58 percent in 1975, according to Gallup.
Military Personnel
United States
The tactical efficacy and moral delicacy of American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq Armament and
solidified a trend: the children of Vietnam-scarred boomers trust the government, Defense
and especially the military, far more than did their parents, whose generational Create Your Own I
mantra was "Don't trust anyone over 30." Alerts

As Ms. Toner noted, a Harvard poll found that 75 percent of college kids trusted the military "to do the ri
either "all of the time" or "most of the time." Two-thirds of the students supported the Iraqi war, with hav
beating doves 2 to 1.

Mr. Bush runs a "trust us, we're 100 percent right" regime. So we've got a young generation that wants t(
faith. And an administration that wants to be taken on faith.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship? Maybe. Unless the White House politicizes 9/11 so much it squ£
that belief.

Karl Rove's re-election strategy is designed to tug 9/11 heartstrings, and his ads will be heroic images of
chasing down the bad guys.

1 of 3 5/28/03 9:30 AM
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Bush officials are refusing to permit the release of matters
already in the public domain—including the existence of
intelligence documents referred to on the CIA Web site.
By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK
U? *"• :v|
June 2 issue — Why is the Bush administration ^.J

blocking the release of an 800-page

congressional report about 9-11? The bipartisan
report deals with law-enforcement and
intelligence failures that preceded the attacks.
For months, congressional leaders and
Newswe
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• Classifii
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Mail :: INBOX: interesting torn friedman article Page 1 of 1

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Subject: interesting torn friedman article

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Friedman: Saudi Rulers Too Dysfunctional, Divided to Undertake Reform

By Thomas Friedman
New York Times News Service

In the wake of the recent terrorist bombings in Riyadh, Saudi officials seem to have -- pardon the expression -- gotten
religion. They say they now understand that suicide terrorism in the name of Islam is as much a threat to them as it is to the
open societies of the West. This time, they insist, they're going to crack down on their extremists. I hope so, but I fear we
have a deeper problem with Saudi Arabia. I fear it is the Soviet Union. I fear it is unreformable.
I fear that the ruling brothers of Saudi Arabia are like the Soviet Politburo. I fear the 6,000 Saudi princes are like the
Communist Party Central Committee. I fear that Riyadh is Red Square. I fear the al-Sauds used Islamism to unite 40
fractious tribes in Arabia the way Lenin used communism to unite 100 fractious nationalities across Russia. And I fear that
Osama bin Laden is just the evil version of Andrei Sakharov -- the dissident Soviet scientist who exposed the system from
within. Sakharov was exiled to Gorky, Bin Laden was exiled to Kabul. And both systems meet their end where? In
Afghanistan.
Even if this parallel is off, and the Saudi system could be reformed without collapsing, I fear that the Saudi ruling family
has become too dysfunctional, divided and insecure to undertake this task. Surely one test is whether Saudi officials and
spiritual leaders can condemn Islamic suicide terrorism, not just when it is against them, but when it is against people of
other faiths - no matter what the context. Saudi Arabia's neighbors -- Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman -- are experimenting
with elections, a freer press, women's rights and free trade with America. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, has been drifting under
an ailing king, trying to buy a different perception of itself with better advertising rather than with deeper reform.
Frankly, I have a soft spot for the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, who is a man of decency and moderation.
But he's too nice for his own good. He needs to break heads at home, force some sustained reforms on his religious
establishment, revive his own peace initiative and begin to empower his women -• because women's empowerment is the
best antidote to extremism.
The problem with Saudi Arabia is not that it has too little democracy. It's that it has too much. The ruling family is so
insecure, it feels it has to consult every faction, tribe and senior cleric before making any decision. This makes Saudi Arabia
a very strange autocracy: it's a country where one man makes no decisions.
If this continues, we must protect ourselves -- by telling the Saudis, and ourselves, the truth.
In private, Bush aides have been fuming: The United States gave the Saudis intelligence warnings before the recent
attacks, but they took no steps to deter them. Publicly, though, the Bush team bites its tongue. We never talk straight to
Saudi Arabia, because we are addicted to its oil. Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.
If we were telling the Saudis the truth, we would tell them that their antimodern and antipluralist brand of Islam -- known as
Wahhabism -- combined with their oil wealth has become a destabilizing force in the world. By financing mosques and
schools that foster the least tolerant version of Islam, they are breeding the very extremists who are trying to burn down their
house and ours.
But we also need to tell ourselves the truth. We constantly complain about the blank checks the Saudis write to buy off
their extremists. But who writes the blank checks to the Saudis? We do -- with our gluttonous energy habits, renewed
addiction to big cars, and our president who has made "conservation" a dirty word.
In the wake of the Iraq war, the EPA announced that the average fuel economy of America's cars and trucks fell to its
lowest level in 22 years, with the 2002 model year. That is a travesty. No wonder foreigners think we sent our U.S. Army
Humvees to control Iraq, just so we could drive more GM Hummers over here. When our president insists that we can have
it all - big cars, big oil, lower taxes, with no sacrifices or conservation - why shouldn't the world believe that all we are about
is protecting our right to binge?
And so the circle is complete: President Bush won't tell Americans the truth, so we won't tell Saudis the truth, so they
won't tell their extremists the truth, so they can go on pumping intolerance and we can go on guzzling gas. Someday, our
kids will condemn us for all of this.

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