WASHINGTON: Classified portions of a Congressional inquiry report, declassified on Friday, allege that some Sept 11, 2001 hijackers had links with Saudi intelligence officers.

The documents also claim that Saudi officials, based in the United States during that period, might have had ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

“While in the United States, some of the Sept 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government,” revealed the documents seen by Dawn.

“There is information, primary from FBI sources, that at least two of these individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers,” it added.

The declassified pages refer to the joint inquiry report that Congress completed in 2002 and noted that report “confirmed that the intelligence community also has information, which is yet to be independently verified, indicating that individuals associated with the Saudi government in the United States may have other ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups”.

The declassified documents showed that the US Federal Bureau of Intel­li­gence and the Central Intelligence Age­­ncy had “informed the joint inq­u­i­ry that, since the Sept 11 terrorist at­tacks, they are treating the Saudi issue seriously, but both still have a limited understanding of the Saudi government’s ties to terrorist elements”.

Earlier on Friday, the Obama administration declassified the so-called Saudi papers.

The FBI and US intelligence agencies had kept the information secret for 13 years, citing national security.

The secret documents were part of a 2002 congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks but were classified on the orders of former president George W. Bush.

Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, reacted angrily when a congressional panel adopted a resolution earlier this year, urging the administration to release the document. The oil-rich kingdom threatened to withdraw hundreds of billions of dollars from the US market if the pages were released.

The 9/11 commission, which prepared this report, had earlier said that “no government other than the Taliban financially supported Al Qaeda before 9/11”.

The commission, however, also said that some governments...“may have contained Al Qaeda sympathisers who tur­ned a blind eye to Al Qaeda’s fundraising activities”.

It noted that Saudi Arabia “has long been considered the primary source of Al Qaeda funding”, but acknowledged finding “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organisation”. The papers, however, leave some room of redemption for Saudi Arabia as they admit that the alleged Saudi involvement in terrorist activities could not be proved definitively.

“In their testimony, neither FBI nor CIA witnesses were able to identify definitively the extent of Saudi support for terrorist activity globally or within the United States and the extent to which this support, if it exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature,” the document said.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2016