The U.S. administration was "protecting a foreign government," said Graham

Additional Reporting By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff

WASHINGTON, July 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A Congressional report suggested that Saudi Arabia might have played a role in the September 11 hijack attacks in the United States, a leading U.S. magazine said on Monday, July 21.

The-delayed 900-page report contains "potentially explosive new evidence suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi-government agent," sources told NewsWeek.

Al-Bayoumi, said the report, held a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles In January 2000 —and then went directly to a restaurant where he met future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, whom he took back with him to San Diego, it said.

"Al-Bayoumi later arranged for the men to get an apartment next to his and fronted them their first two months rent."

The report criticized that the Federal Bureau of Investigations never kept tabs on Al-Bayoumi despite receiving prior information he was a secret Saudi agent.

But furious bureau officials say the report misstates the evidence and that the bureau checked out Al-Bayoumi—now back in Saudi Arabia—and concluded he had not given the hijackers “material support.”

As for Almihdhar and Alhazmi, “there was nothing there that gave us any suspicion about these guys,” said one FBI official to Newsweek.

Gamal Khashashqi, a former editor-in-chief of Saudi paper Al-Watan, also argued the Newsweek report is "false".

"Such reports are rather an attempt to destroy relations between the two countries and demonize the kingdom by some far-right parties in the United States," Khashashqi told IslamOnline.net.

He said that Saudi Arabia is expected to press for verifying the alleged report, as Riyadh is "a key state in the region and that ties with Washington "would be still strong."

Newsweek had earlier claimed in another report that money was sent, via the bank account of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to two college students in southern California who closely aided two of the September 11 airplane hijackers.

'Crucial'

Also, the American magazine quoted the congressional report as saying that the Pentagon was slammed for resisting military strikes against Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan prior to 9-11, and the CIA for failing to pass along crucial information about Almihdhar and Alhazmi at a terrorists’ summit in Malaysia.

"A few months after al-Bayoumi took them to San Diego, Almihdhar and Alhazmi moved into the house of a local professor who was a longtime FBI “asset.” And had earlier contact with another hijacker, Hani Hanjour."

But even though the informant was in regular touch with his FBI handler, the bureau never pieced together that he was living with terrorists, said the report.

It added the bureau also failed to pursue other leads, including a local imam who dealt with several key 9-11 figures.

"The report, one congressional investigator said, “is a scathing indictment of the FBI as an agency that doesn’t have a clue about terrorism.”

'Protection'

The report is sure to reignite questions about whether some Saudi officials were secretly monitoring the hijackers—or even facilitating their conduct, said Newsweek.

Questions about the Saudi role arose repeatedly during last year’s joint House-Senate intelligence-committees inquiry, but the Bush administration has refused to declassify many key passages of the committees’ findings.

The Bush administration refused to declassify several key passages from the 900-page report, including a 28-page section that outlines the role played by Riyadh, removed from the final version, Newsweek claims.

Senator Bob Graham, a Democratic candidate for the 2004 presidential elections who supervised the inquiry maintains that the U.S. administration was "protecting a foreign government," according to Newsweek.

An attorney for victims of the attacks who are suing a group of suspected financiers of Al-Qaeda, Jean-Charles Brisard, said the report shows that "at each stage in the preparation of the attacks" Saudi Arabia operated as an effective financial and logistical "patron" to the terrorists.

Brisard said the Saudi government had thus been an essential "cog" in the attacks' successfully being perpetrated.

He added that certain parts of the report mention "help provided by Saudi  diplomats working in Washington to assist in several suicide (hijackers)' arrival and stay in the United States."

Last week, Senator Richard Shelby told CNN that declassified information in the report would "shed some light, maybe not all the light" on the attacks.

"... I can tell you this, there are a lot of high people in Saudi Arabia, over the years, that have aided and abetted Osama bin Laden and his group," Shelby said, alleging the Saudis had done so via charities as well as directly.

Saudi officials has vehemently denied any connection between the royal family and suspected September 11 hijackers, with Saudi foreign minister said he hoped "accusations in the United States about the responsibility of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 tragedy will cease,"

Relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S have strained, as Washington ordered diplomats of all U.S. embassy and consular personnel to leave the kingdom after the devastating triple bombings in Riyadh in May 2003 – in which eight Americans were killed.

The kingdom faced a barrage of criticisms from the United States that it did too little to prevent after Washington had sent a presidential envoy to warn the kingdom of an imminent attack.