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A Saudi Money Trail?
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 terror runners students in the United States who provided assistance to two of the September 11 hijackers.
A smoking gun seems almost redundant at this point...
THE BUREAU, THEY SAY, has uncovered financial records showing a steady stream of payments to the family of one of the runners students, Omar Al Bayoumi. The money moved into the family’s bank account beginning in early 2000, just a few months after hijackers Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi arrived in Los Angeles from an Al Qaeda planning summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Within days of the terrorists’ arrival in the United State, Al Bayoumi befriended the two men who would eventually hijack American Flight 77, throwing them a welcoming party in San Diego and guaranteeing their lease on an apartment next door to his own. Al Bayoumi also paid $1,500 to cover the first two months of rent for Al Midhar and Alhazmi, although officials said it is possible that the hijackers later repaid the money.
Gotta have that contact on the ground to slip into the target area...
Sources familiar with the evidence say the payments — amounting to about $3,500 a month—came from an account at Washington’s Riggs Bank in the name of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and the daughter of the late Saudi King Faisal.
Prince Bandar is the voice is sweet reason, who just lo-o-o-o-ves the U.S. of A. I wasn't aware that the Soddies were in the habit of in-breeding marrying close relatives, but that fits in with the way they process logic. Guess it's why they get along with the Pashtuns and the Yemenis so well...
After Al Bayoumi left the country in July 2001—two months before the September 11 terror attacks—payments for roughly the same amount began flowing every month to Osama Basnan, a close associate of Al Bayoumi’s who also befriended the hijackers. A federal law-enforcement source told NEWSWEEK that Basnan—who was recently convicted of visa fraud and is awaiting deportation—was a known “Al Qaeda sympathizer” who “celebrated the heroes of September 11” at a party after the attacks and openly talked about “what a wonderful, glorious day it had been.”
"Welcome back to Soddy Arabia, Mr Basnan. And may I compliment you on how fraudulent your visa is?"
Administration officials stressed repeatedly in interviews that they do not know the purpose of the payments from Princess Haifa’s account. It is also uncertain whether the money was given to the hijackers by Al Bayoumi or Basman. White House sources also raised a number of other cautionary notes, saying that it was not uncommon for wealthy Saudis to provide financial assistance to struggling Saudi families in the United States. “The facts are unclear, and there’s no need to rush to judgement,” said one administration official.
"Allow me to poo-poo this story. The witnesses are all dead, the tracks are all covered, so it's obviously a complete falsehood..."
But other sources describe the financial records as “explosive” and say the information has spurred an intense, behind-the-scenes battle between congressional leaders and the Bush administration over whether evidence highly embarrassing to the Saudi government should be publicly disclosed—especially at a time that the White House is aggressively seeking Saudi support for a possible war against Iraq. “This is a matter of the foreign-policy interests of the United States,” said another administration official, who cited the need to prevent a rift in the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
He means an overt rift. If all of us stuck with open-source information can see the pattern, you know damned well that the guys reading intel every day have even stronger opinions than we do...
A spokesperson for Princess Haifa said “she will cooperate fully with the United States.” The princess hasn’t been asked about the payments by any representatives of the U.S. government, and she wasn’t aware of the allegations until today, her spokesperson said.
"That's right. I just walked back into my apartment and eleven guys jumped out of the closet, waving a NEWSWEEK story and hollering 'Surprise!'"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-11-23
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=8014