Saudis Vanished in Sarasota Immediately Before 9/11

[Formaldehyde]

This is the front-page story of the St. Pete Times this morning:

New evidence links Saudi Arabia to 9/11 hijackers: Graham

SARASOTA — Weeks after terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, FBI agents swarmed into a Sarasota gated community to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a wealthy young Saudi couple who apparently had ties to some of the hijackers.

The couple and their two children abandoned their home abruptly, just a week or so before Sept. 11, leaving behind cars, furniture and food on countertops.

According to one published report, the FBI discovered phone calls between the house and at least two of the hijackers and several other terrorism suspects stretching back a year.

Yet until a Fort Lauderdale website reported the news this week, no mention of the couple has ever appeared publicly — not in the Sept. 11 commission report, nor in FBI briefings to congressional investigators, former Florida Sen. Bob Graham said Friday.

Graham called on President Barack Obama to reopen the case.

"This is the most important thing about 9/11 to surface in the last seven or eight years,'' Graham told the St. Petersburg Times. "It's very important for the White House to take control of this situation. The key umbrella question is: What was the full extent of Saudi involvement prior to 9/11 and why did the U.S. administration cover this up?''

"These 19 people did not play out this plot as lone wolves,'' Graham said. "The chances that 19 people, most of whom had never been in the U.S., who did not speak English, and most of whom did not know each other, could have completed training, practiced and executed such a complicated plot defies common sense.''

In 1995, Ghazzawi and his American wife, Debra, paid $350,000 for a home in Prestancia, a lush gated community in south Sarasota.

Their daughter Anoud moved in, along with her husband, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii, and their twin babies, neighbors said.

Abdulazzi appeared to be in his 20s, Anoud even younger, said neighbor Tom DiBello, who now lives in Fort Lauderdale. Abdulazzi said he was a student. Anoud was very religious.

"He would come over for a cigarette and a drink and to get away from that praying every two hours,'' DiBello said

The couple's house was elaborately furnished, with Persian rugs, statues and over-sized furniture. The wife's family supposedly had royal connections.

"He said his wife's father was friends with the prince or king or something,'' DiBello said.

Then on Labor Day weekend 2001, Gallagher noticed "an incredible amount of trash'' piled in front of the al-Hiijjii home.

He asked one of the association directors, "What the hell is that trash doing there? There won't be any pickup until Tuesday or Wednesday.

"She said, 'They went back to Saudi Arabia and said they weren't ever coming back.' ''

Gallagher found it strange that a car was left in the driveway and that the house was not for sale.

He grew more suspicious a few days after Sept. 11 when it turned out that two of the hijackers had trained at a Venice flight school just 14 miles away. So Gallagher went on the FBI's website to report what he had seen.

Several weeks after Gallagher's tip, FBI agents arrived at Prestancia and discovered that guard gate logs of vehicle tags showed the al-Hiijjiis had received important visitors. A car owned by Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had gone through. Driver's license information indicated that Atta and fellow hijacker Ziad Jarrah were in the car.

Phone records from the al-Hiijjiis' home contained calls to Atta, hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi and other terrorist suspects.

BrowardBulldog.org attributed this information to Larry Berberich, then a consultant for the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office who also oversaw security at Prestancia, and an unnamed "counterterrorism agent'' who had worked the case.

Both entered the abandoned al-Hiijjii house. "There was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms and all the toiletries still in place . . . all their clothes hanging in the closet,'' BrowardBulldog.org reported.

The counterterrorism agent said the FBI tracked the couple's departure. They left the United States along with her father, Esam Ghazzawi, and ended up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

According to BrowardBulldog.org, the counterterrorism agent said Ghazzawi and Abdulazzi Hiijii were both on the FBI's watch list before Sept. 11.

The house stayed vacant until it was sold in 2003.

Senator Graham should have known about this incident if anybody outside the Bush administration did. He chaired the Senate intelligence committee during and after the 9/11 investigation.

Why do you think this story has been unreported until now? Could this show connections between 9/11 and Saudi royalty? Was it deliberately covered up by the Bush administration?

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Is this really even news? It's just another piece of evidence confirming what a lot of people already suspect about the Saudis.

 

[Silurian]

I would be surprised if the CIA and FBI haven't investigated this.

I can not see what a public enquiry would accomplise.

We know that nearly all the hijackers were Saudi.

The what 3000 or 4000? members of the Saudi royalty so I would be surprised if one or two of them were not involved.

The Saudi royal family was not on the best of terms with bin Laden so I can not see the leaders of the royal family getting involved. And I can not see a reason why.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That is what they have claimed since 9/11. But incidents such as this cast all that into doubt.

Where did this guy go? Back to Saudi Arabia? Why wasn't he questioned about his activities unless he disappeared off the face of the earth?

 

[Silurian]

Your OP say that the FBI investgated.

They made a good or bad job of the investigation 9 years ago.

Do you have any evidence that no investigation took place other than the FBI investigation that you posted.

Spys tend to keep their investigations secret.

 

[GoodGame]

Maybe the info was classified? Maybe because it was actually sensitive to the US's abilities to track the terrorists? I.e. they didn't want the terrorists to know they knew. Maybe the Saudi royalty had been infiltrated?

 

[Dreadnought]

Why would the Saudis be behind a plot that attacks their largest benefactors?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Your OP say that the FBI investgated.

They made a good or bad job of the investigation 9 years ago.

Do you have any evidence that no investigation took place other than the FBI investigation that you posted.

Spys tend to keep their investigations secret.

It also says that the FBI never briefed the congressional leaders who were actually responsible for the 9/11 investigation. Once again, Sen. Graham was the head of the Senate Intelligence committee and he didn't know anything about these events or any investigation.

Maybe the info was classified? Maybe because it was actually sensitive to the US's abilities to track the terrorists? I.e. they didn't want the terrorists to know they knew. Maybe the Saudi royalty had been infiltrated?

Then why wasn't the Senate committee apprised of what occurred? They were certainly informed of other classified information.

 

[Leonel]

Perhaps the family stumbled upon the plot and tried to warn the authorities but were "done away" with before they could?

 

[Formaldehyde]

By leaving the country? And why did the terrorists call and visit them?

 

[jtb1127]

Saudi Arabia has had a link to 9/11 since Osama was born.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Why would the Saudis be behind a plot that attacks their largest benefactors?

The Saudis as a whole surely not, but some members may have had a liking for the agenda of OBL and the sorts and may have supported the whole endeavor in the hopes that it wouldn't fall back on Saudi-Arabia.
Well that or Bush asked the Saudis to make the attack happen so he could invade stuff