25 years after the attack on the twin towers in New York, the black holes of the investigation resurface: from the contacts in San Diego to the ignored alarms between the CIA and FBI about the al-Qaeda hijackers.
When Nawaf al-Hazmi And Khalid al-Mihdhar they land in Los Angeles on January 15, 2000, they are already militants of al-Qaeda. They just attended an important organization meeting in Malaysia, don’t speak English, and don’t know the United States. Yet they immediately manage to find a home, open a bank account and integrate into the San Diego community. Who helped them? And did those people know who they were dealing with? It is one of the most controversial gray areas of the 9/11 investigation. The authorities reconstructed the international structure of the conspiracy, identifying in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed its main organizer and in Osama bin Laden the leader who had approved it. It was more difficult to prove whether the nineteen hijackers had an organized network on American soil.
The first name at the center of suspicion is Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi citizen residing in San Diego. In February 2000 he met al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar at a restaurant in Culver City. He claims to have approached them after recognizing their Arab accent. He later invites them to move to San Diego, helps them find an apartment, advances part of the rent and throws a welcome party. The sequence appears surprising. Al-Bayoumi received money from a company linked to the Saudi government and frequented diplomatic and religious circles. Despite the suspicions, theFBI he did not find sufficient evidence that he knew the two men belonged to al-Qaeda or the plan for the attacks. There 9/11 Commission considered him an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement. A judgment that excludes demonstrated complicity, but does not resolve every question.
The Californian contacts and the veil on complicity in San Diego
A second thread leads to Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat and imam of a Los Angeles mosque. Some testimonies suggested that he had favored the reception of the two terrorists. This lead also did not produce definitive proof. Mohdar Abdullah then appears in San Diego, a young Yemeni who helped al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in their daily lives and knew their extremist ideas. According to some testimonies, after the attacks he boasted of having known that something serious was about to happen. The statements, however, were not confirmed. The hijackers used their own names, held regular visas and presented themselves as students. Could apartment owners, acquaintances and instructors help them without knowing the project? Perhaps.
The decisive point of the investigation, however, does not only concern the people who met the hijackers. It’s also about what federal agencies knew and didn’t tell each other. There CIA had discovered that al-Mihdhar held a US visa and, in March 2000, learned that al-Hazmi had entered the United States. This vital information did not reach US investigators in a timely manner.FBI responsible for operating on the national territory. They were broadcast only in August 2001, when the attacks were just weeks away. It wasn’t a single distraction. The Justice Department inspector general’s report identified systemic problems in the relationship between the CIA and FBI: incompatible procedures, poor understanding of each other’s methods, insufficient documentation, and poorly defined responsibilities.
The wall of silence between the CIA and FBI: the clues never united before the attack
Agents seconded to other facilities could see some information but were unable to enter it into their agency’s systems. A report for the FBI was prepared, but was not forwarded; investigators were then unable to establish with certainty why. Added to the bureaucratic confusion was a historical rivalry. The CIA was geared towards gathering intelligence abroad and protecting sources and operations; the FBI thought above all like a judicial police called to build cases that could be used in court. The so-called “wall”, the procedural wall between intelligence and criminal investigations, was often interpreted so rigidly as to discourage sharing. It wasn’t an outright ban, but it contributed to a culture of separation.
Even within the FBI, information remained fragmented. In July 2001, a Phoenix officer reported the presence of Islamist extremists in the flight schoolswithout the memorandum producing an adequate national investigation. The following August, the Minneapolis office made an arrest Zacarias Moussaouiunder suspicion for his behavior during training on commercial aircraft. Headquarters did not link the case to general alarms about a possible al-Qaeda attack. None of these clues, in isolation, described the 9/11 plot. United States, however, would have shown a more alarming picture: men linked to al-Qaeda present in the United States, interest in civil aviation and indications of an imminent attack. The Commission concluded that the CIA and FBI failed to “connect the dots,” but also that the system was not built to allow anyone to see all those dots together.
Fragmented archive and testimonies: the gray areas that remain open
The same divisions influenced subsequent investigations. The information was distributed among different archives, unshared reports, classified documents and often conflicting memories. FBI, CIA, NSAimmigration authorities and the Air Force had different pieces of the story. Reconstructing who knew what, and at what time, therefore became an investigation within an investigation. In some cases the agencies provided incomplete or contradictory initial reconstructions, which were subsequently corrected through testimony, internal checks and declassified documents. The fragmentation contributed to slowing down the work of investigators and fueled public distrust. This does not demonstrate a coordinated cover-up: rather, it documents an apparatus forced to examine its own mistakes while still trying to understand al-Qaeda’s structure.
Other militants and individuals suspected of having had dealings with the hijackers were also present in the United States. Zacarias Moussaoui and Mohammed al-Qahtani have been named as possible “twentieth hijackers”, although their role remains disputed. Ali al-Marri, who arrived on 10 September 2001 on the recommendation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, later admitted that he had been sent to support al-Qaeda, but his direct involvement in the attacks was not proven. Also gravitating around some hijackers were figures such as Omar al-Bayoumi, who helped al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar to settle in San Diego, Fahad al-Thumairy, imam and official of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, and Mohdar Abdullah, who frequented and assisted the two men.
Osama Bassnan, Anwar al-Awlaki and Aied al-Rababah were also examined for their contacts or practical assistance provided. For some of them, the relationships with the attackers are documented; for others there are only suspicions, contradictory testimonies and circumstances that have never been clarified. However, it has not been proven that they knew the plan in advance. The final picture remains indecipherable. The hijackers received help and frequented people close to radical circles, but investigations did not prove the existence of a large American cell aware of the plan. The authorities were unable to connect signals such as the Phoenix FBI memorandum, the arrest of Moussaoui, and the late addition of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to the surveillance lists. Adding to al-Qaeda’s secrecy were information fragmentation and inter-agency rivalries. Many clues thus remained isolated, leaving gray areas that may never be clarified.
