The episode has been retold so many times in the last three and a half years that it has become the stuff of political legend: In the frenzied days after Sept. 11, 2001, when some flights were still grounded, dozens of well-connected Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, managed to leave the US on specially chartered flights.
Now, newly released government records reveal previously undisclosed flights from Las Vegas and elsewhere and point to a more active role by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in aiding some of the Saudis in their departure.
The FBI gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the US, and several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, the documents show.
Safety worries
The Saudi families, in Los Angeles and Orlando, requested the FBI escorts because they said they were concerned for their safety in the wake of the attacks, and the FBI -- which was then beginning the biggest criminal investigation in its history -- arranged to have agents escort them to their local airports, the documents show.
But FBI officials reacted angrily, both internally and publicly, to the suggestion that any Saudis had received preferential treatment in leaving the country.
"I say baloney to any inference we red-carpeted any of this entourage," an FBI official said in a 2003 internal note. Another FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this week regarding the airport escorts that "we'd do that for anybody if they felt they were threatened -- we wouldn't characterize that as special treatment."
The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, which provided copies to The New York Times.
The material sheds new light on the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it provides details about the FBI's interaction with at least 160 Saudis who were living in or visiting the US and were allowed to leave the country. Some of the departing Saudis were related to Osama bin Laden.
The Saudis' chartered flights, arranged in the days after the attacks when many flights in the US were still grounded, have proved frequent fodder for critics of the Bush administration who accuse it of coddling the Saudis. The debate was heightened by the filmmaker Michael Moore, who scrutinized the issue in Fahrenheit 9/11, but White House officials have adamantly denied any special treatment for the Saudis, calling such charges irresponsible and politically motivated.
The Sept. 11 commission examined the Saudi flights in its final report last year, and it found that no Saudis had been allowed to leave before national airspace was reopened on Sept. 13, 2001, that there was no evidence of "political intervention" by the White House, and that the FBI had done a "satisfactory screening" of the departing Saudis to ensure they did not have information relevant to the attacks.
Hush-hush flights
The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, with major passages deleted, do not appear to contradict directly any of those central findings, but they raise some new questions about the episode.
The FBI records show, for instance, that prominent Saudi citizens left the US on several flights that had not been previously disclosed in public accounts, including a chartered flight from Providence, Rhode Island, on Sept. 14, 2001, that included at least one member of the Saudi royal family, and on three flights from Las Vegas between Sept. 19 and Sept. 24, also carrying members of the Saudi royal family.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS