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Officials told to 'back off' on Saudis be­fore Sep­tem­ber 11
by Greg Palast and Da­vid Pallister

FBI and mil­i­tar­y in­tel­li­gence officials in Wash­ing­ton say they were pre­vent­ed for po­lit­i­cal reasons from car­ry­ing out full investigations in­to members of the Bin Lad­en fam­i­ly in the ­US­­ be­fore the ter­ror­ist attacks of Sep­tem­ber 11.

­US­­ in­tel­li­gence agencies have come un­der crit­i­cism for their whole­sale fail­ure to pre­dict the ca­tas­tro­phe at the World Trade Cen­tre. But some are complaining that their hands were tied.

FBI documents shown on BBC Newsnight last night and obtained by the Guard­i­an show that they had ear­li­er sought to in­ves­ti­gate two of Osama bin Lad­en's relatives in Wash­ing­ton and a Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tion, the World As­sem­bly of Mus­lim Youth (WAMY), with which they were linked.

The FBI file, marked Se­cret and cod­ed 199, which means a case in­volv­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, records that Abdullah bin Lad­en, who lived in Wash­ing­ton, had o­rig­i­nal­ly had a file o­pened on him "be­cause of his re­la­tion­ship with the World As­sem­bly of Mus­lim Youth - a suspected ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion".

WAMY members de­ny they have been in­volved with ter­ror­ist activities, and WAMY has not been placed on the lat­est list of ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions whose as­sets are be­ing fro­zen.

Abdullah, who lived with his broth­er O­mar at the time in Falls Church, a town just out­side Wash­ing­ton, was the ­US­­ di­rec­tor of WAMY, whose offices were in a base­ment near­by.

But the FBI files were closed in 1996 ap­par­ent­ly be­fore an­y conclusions could be reached on ei­ther the Bin Lad­en broth­ers or the or­gan­i­sa­tion it­self. High-placed in­tel­li­gence sources in Wash­ing­ton told the Guard­i­an this week: "There were al­ways constraints on in­ves­ti­gat­ing the Saudis".

They sa­id the restrictions be­came worse af­ter the Bush ad­min­is­tra­tion took o­ver this year. The in­tel­li­gence agencies had been told to "back off" from investigations in­volv­ing oth­er members of the Bin Lad­en fam­i­ly, the Sau­di royals, and pos­si­ble Sau­di links to the ac­qui­si­tion of nu­cle­ar weapons by Pa­ki­stan.

"There were par­tic­u­lar investigations that were ef­fec­tive­ly killed."

On­ly af­ter the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks was the stance of po­lit­i­cal and com­mer­cial close­ness re­versed to­wards the oth­er members of the large Bin Lad­en clan, who have classed Osama bin Lad­en as their "black sheep".

Yes­ter­day, the head of the Sau­di-based WAMY's Lon­don of­fice, Nouredine Mi­la­di, sa­id the char­i­ty was to­tal­ly a­gainst Bin Lad­en's vi­o­lent methods. "We seek so­cial change through ed­u­ca­tion and co­op­er­a­tion, not force."

He sa­id Abdullah bin Lad­en had ceased to run WAMY's ­US­­ op­er­a­tion a year a­go.

Nei­ther Abdullah ­nor­­ O­mar bin Lad­en could be contacted in Sau­di A­ra­bi­a for com­ment.

WAMY was found­ed in 1972 in a Sau­di ef­fort to pre­vent the "corrupting" ideas of the west ern world in­flu­enc­ing young Muslims. With of­fi­cial back­ing it grew to em­brace 450 youth and stu­dent or­gan­i­sa­tions with 34 offices world­wide.

Its aim was to en­cour­age "con­cerned Muslims to take up the chal­lenge by arm­ing the youth with sound un­der­stand­ing of Is­lam, guarding them a­gainst de­struc­tive ideologies, and in­stil­ling in them lev­el-head­ed wis­dom".

In Brit­ain it has 20 as­so­ci­at­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions, man­y high­ly re­spect­a­ble.

But as long as 10 years a­go it was named as a dis­creet chan­nel for pub­lic and pri­vate Sau­di donations to hardline Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tions. One of the recipients of its lar­gesse has been the mil­i­tant Students Is­lam­ic Move­ment of In­di­a, which has lent sup­port to Pakistani-backed terrorists in Kash­mir and seeks to set up an Is­lam­ic state in In­di­a.

Since Sep­tem­ber 11 WAMY has been in­ves­ti­gat­ed in the ­US­­ a­long with a num­ber of oth­er Mus­lim charities. There have been sev­er­al grand ju­ry investigations but no findings have been made a­gainst an­y of them.

Cur­rent FBI in­ter­est in WAMY is shown in their agents' in­ter­ro­ga­tion of a ra­di­ol­o­gist from San An­to­ni­o, Tex­as, Dr ­Al­ Badr ­al­-Hazmi, who was arrested on Sep­tem­ber 12 and re­leased with­out charge two weeks ­la­t­er. He had the same sur­name as two of the plane hijackers.

He was al­so questioned a­bout his contacts with Abdullah bin Lad­en at the ­US­­ WAMY of­fice.

Mr ­Al­-Hazmi sa­id that he had made phone calls to Abdullah bin Lad­en in 1999 try­ing to ob­tain books and videotapes a­bout Is­lam­ic teachings for the Is­lam­ic Cen­tre of San An­to­ni­o.

To view the BBC tel­e­vi­sion broad­cast of the Palast in­ves­ti­ga­tion, go to http://www.GregPalast.com