FBI says majority of hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia
Wanted list may affect ties with Riyadh
Audrey Gillan in Washington Friday October 26, 2001 The Guardian
Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked the four airplanes involved in the September 11 terror attacks hailed from Saudi Arabia, United States officials said yesterday. The disclosure is likely to further complicate what are already delicate relations between the desert kingdom and Washington.
After weeks of investigation in the US and in Saudi Arabia, FBI agents are sure that the majority of the men were from Saudia Arabia. They also claim that some of the recruiting, planning and financing of the attacks occured in the country.
The true identities and nationalities of the hijackers remains unclear. Some may have stolen the identities of law-abiding Saudi citizens.
Saudia Arabia pointed out that it had expelled Osama bin Laden in 1994 and removed his passport.
The kingdom's officials have insisted that al-Qaida did not have a network and Bin Laden had "no support" there. "There were 400 people aboard the four planes and we find it strange that the focus is on Arabs and Saudis in particular," the Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef, has said.
Some intelligence officials believe that the high number of Saudis involved in the attacks could have been part of a determined effort to poison Saudi-US relations, which are sometimes fraught. Saudia Arabia, the world's largest oil supplier, has long frustrated Washington with its ambivalence to military matters, regional diplomacy and intelligence-sharing.
One senior American official who deals with Saudia Arabia told the New York Times: "There have been and still are two pillars of the relationship: oil and security. Oil runs the world and the Saudis are the linchpin of oil production."
Saudi officials were upset that the Bush administration did not include them with the allies told in advance of the groups linked to terrorism whose assets were frozen by the US treasury.
Asked at one news conference whether Saudi Arabia had found and frozen the bank accounts of groups linked to terrorism, Prince Nayef said that the local authorities and banks "have not established any accounts linked to al-Qaida, Bin Laden or any quarter associated with terrorism".
He added that the US had yet to prove any illegal financial activity. "We are not acquitting anyone," he said. "But we hope that the competent US authorities will provide us with any conclusive facts that they may have."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the US strongly disagreed with suggestions that ties between the two states are frayed.
He said: "The president called the crown prince to thank the kingdom for its support in the international war against terrorism. The president noted that he is very pleased with the kingdom's contributions to the efforts, and he said that press articles citing differences between the United States and Saudi Arabia are simply incorrect."
It is not just the Saudis who are unhappy at US list of suspects.
Dhahi Khalfan, head of police in Dubai, told the London-based Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat that the US should allow Arab investigators to join the hunt for the terrorists.
One of the 19 suspected hijackers has been identified as UAE national Marwan Al-Shehhi, who, the US says, may have piloted a plane that struck the World Trade Centre.
"We don't know if he piloted the plane or was among its victims," he said.
The Emirates central bank governor, Sultan bin Nasser al-Suweidi, was quoted in Asharq Al-Awsat as saying that there were errors in the list of individuals and companies with suspected links to terrorism whose US assets had been frozen. He did not elaborate.