Alleged Saudi role in the September 11 attacks

Since the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, allegations of Saudi government involvement in the attacks have been made, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia regularly denying such claims.

The 9/11 Commission Report, issued by the 9/11 Commission on July 22, 2004, "found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded Al Qaeda" to conspire in the attacks,^[1] or that it funded the attackers; however, according to the BBC, the report identified Saudi Arabia as the primary funding location for Al-Qaeda,^[2] and that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.^[3]

In 2012, the FBI stated that it had evidence that Saudi diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs official and radical cleric who served at the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles, and Omar al-Bayoumi (OAB), a suspected Saudi government agent, had supported the 9/11 hijackers. In 2021, the FBI stated that Omar al-Bayoumi was a Saudi intelligence agent with ties to 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar when they initially entered into the US. In 2022, the FBI stated that "there is a 50/50 chance al-Bayoumi had advanced knowledge the 9/11 attacks were to occur". Al-Bayoumi also helped the hijackers find housing in San Diego. Al-Bayoumi stated that he simply befriended the hijackers and also denied being a Saudi government agent. The Saudi government also denied that Al-Bayoumi was an agent.

The Saudi government had broad immunity from lawsuits in the US under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act until it was amended in 2016 by the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). In 2018 a federal judge ruled that a lawsuit brought forward by survivors of, and the families of victims of, the 9/11 attacks, had "a reasonable basis" under JASTA and allowed it to move forward.^[4]