Declassified Pages Link Muslim Brotherhood to 9/11 Network

Muslim Brotherhood — including Hamas — were part of the Saudi-linked Islamist network in America that assisted the 9/11 hijackers.

The recently-declassified 28 pages from the official U.S. report on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks implicates the Muslim Brotherhood — including Hamas — as being part of the Saudi-linked Islamist network in America that assisted the 9/11 hijackers and Al-Qaeda in general.

On page 7, the report discusses how a suspected Saudi intelligence officer, Omar Al-Bayoumi, may have assisted two 9/11 hijackers and had links to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. It then states:

“In addition, the FBI determined that al-Bayoumi was in contact with several individuals under investigation and with the Holy Land Foundation, which has been under investigation as a fundraising front for Hamas.”

The Holy Land Foundation was later successfully prosecuted and identified as a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s wing in the United States. It was set up to finance Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, which is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department.

(The Brotherhood more broadly is not designated as such, but over 80 members of Congress have endorsed recently-proposed legislation to change that.)

During the course of the Holy Land trial, numerous Brotherhood entities and members were identified. The Justice Department put together a long list of unidentified co-conspirators. The list specifically named Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) as Brotherhood “entities.”

On page 8, a second suspected Saudi intelligence officer, Osama Bassnan, a known supporter of Osama Bin Laden, is mentioned. Bassnan admitted to an FBI asset that he assisted the 9/11 hijackers more than Omar Al-Bayoumi did. Multiple people from the Muslim-American community warned the U.S. government that they believed Bassnan was a secret Saudi agent.

The report states that the FBI had linked Bassnan to the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Muslim Brotherhood-linked terrorist who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Abdel-Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison. His release is a top objective of the Muslim Brotherhood. When Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist and member of the Brotherhood, was president of Egypt, he demanded Abdel-Rahman’s release.

When you connect the dots, you’ll see the error of the West’s distinguishing between violent and (ostensibly) non-violent Islamist groups. They use the same international network and are often inseparable operationally, linking back to the same addresses, fronts, preachers, financiers, state sponsors, etc.

The information in the declassified pages should teach us the only workable policy is one that broadly targets the Islamist ideological movement — including its state sponsors.

ABOUT RYAN MAURO

Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio. Read more, contact or arrange a speaking engagement.