Dramatic New FOIA Revelations: FBI Still Probed New 9/11 Leads in 2012

A new FBI document, obtained through an FOIA lawsuit related to the FBI’s 9/11 Review Commission cover-up, shows that, as late as October 2012, the FBI was pursuing new leads on co-conspirators in the 9/11 attacks. The heavily redacted document was obtained by lawyers for the Florida Bulldog, which also has a separate FOIA action, seeking over 80,000 pages of FBI documents on the Sarasota Saudi family with ties to three of the hijackers.

On Monday, the Bulldog published a detailed report on the FOIA document, accompanied by the document itself, by publisher Dan Christensen. According to the FBI document, new leads on Saudi support networks for the San Diego terror cell were underway in New York and in Copenhagen, Denmark, as late as October 2012. Two individuals were identified as facilitators of the two San Diego terrorists, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi: Osama “Sam” Mustafa and Mohdar Abdullah. Mustafa owned a San Diego gas station where al-Hazmi worked for a period of time, after coming to the United States directly from the Al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Mustafa was arrested in Tampa, Florida, in May 2012 for Treasury check fraud, in a case filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia. Mustafa was convicted a year later of the $17 million swindle, but he escaped while out on bond and is still a fugitive, according to the FBI document. In 2014, he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison.

The second new name identified in the FBI report, Mohdar Abdullah, was identified as a close confidant of the two Saudi intelligence “handlers” of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, Osama Basnan and Omar al-Bayoumi. They assigned Abdullah to facilitate the “day-to-day life” of the two hijackers. Abdullah was arrested on Sept. 19, 2001, as a suspected accomplice of the hijackers but was eventually deported after he pled guilty to the immigration violations. While in custody awaiting deportation, according to the 2012 FBI document, he boasted that he had worked with the San Diego hijackers on the plot. The document also suggests that Abdullah was in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical cleric who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen years later, under President Obama’s drone-kill program.

The new document is reportedly part of a larger number of FBI files set to be released under the FOIA case. The document alone shows that the claims that the 9/11 Commission completed the probe and showed that there was no Saudi Monarchy support for the terrorists, is a total lie, a lie that the FBI covered up until now. Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) and attorney Sean Carter (representing the 9/11 families) both told Dan Christensen that the existence of the document shows the magnitude of the FBI cover up, since the existence of the document was concealed right up until the FOIA release.