CONNECT WITH:

Florida Bulldog

New FBI records: A chilling find in a dumpster; 9/11 “person of interest” re-enters U.S.

By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers, BrowardBulldog.org 

FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Freshly released, but heavily-censored FBI documents include tantalizing new information about events connected to the Sarasota Saudis who moved suddenly out of their home, leaving behind clothing, jewelry and cars, about two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The documents were released to BrowardBulldog.org Monday amid ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation. The news organization sued in 2012 after being denied access to the Bureau’s file on a once secret investigation focusing on Abdulaziz al-Hijji, his wife, Anoud and her father  Esam Ghazzawi, an advisor to a Saudi prince.

An FBI letter accompanying the documents, the fourth batch to be released since the suit was filed, cites national security and other reasons to justify why certain information was withheld. The letter does not explain why the documents were not previously acknowledged to exist.

One FBI report, dated April 3, 2002 recounts a chilling discovery made by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office on Halloween 2001.

Deputies were called after a man with a Tunisian passport was observed disposing of items in a dumpster behind a storage facility he’d rented in Bradenton.

The man’s name is blanked out, but the report says authorities who searched the dumpster found “a self-printed manual on terrorism and Jihad, a map of the inside of an unnamed airport, a rudimentary last will and testament, a weight to fuel ratio calculation for a Cessna 172 aircraft, flight training information from the Flight Training Center in Venice and printed maps of Publix shopping centers in Tampa Bay.”

The Flight Training Center is where 9/11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Flight 93 when it crashed in Shanksville, Pa, took flying lessons.

The three paragraphs that follow are completely blanked out. The reasons cited include information “specifically authorized under criteria established by [presidential] executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.”

The documents were located via court-ordered text searches using the names of the al-Hijjis and Ghazzawi. U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch is currently reviewing more than 80,000 pages of 9/11 records.

Miami First Amendment attorney Thomas Julin represents BrowardBulldog.org.

“This release suggests that the FBI has covered up information that is vitally important to public safety,” said Julin. “It’s startling that after initially denying they had any documents they continue to find new documents as the weeks and months roll by. Each new batch suggests there are many, many more documents.”

“There needs to be a full scale explanation of what’s going on here,” said Julin.

The report of the Bradenton incident includes information about the al-Hijjis. The excisions, however, keep secret how what happened there ties back to the al-Hijjis.

The same is true about another FBI document dated Feb. 2, 2012.

On that day, FBI offices in Tampa and Charlotte received information from Washington stamped “secret” stating that a “person of interest” in the FBI’s massive 9/11 investigation had returned to the United States.

The person, whose name is redacted, was reported to be “traveling to Texas and LA for business/tourism.” The person apparently told authorities upon entering the country that he could be reached in Charlotte. He provided a phone number “associated with furniture manufacturers in North Carolina,” the report says.

Details about that were blanked out. But the report also says, “Tampa is notified that a person of interest to Tampa regarding the PENTTBOMB investigation has a valid visa for re-entry into the U.S.” PENTTBOMB is the FBI’s code name for its 9/11 investigation.

In all, the FBI released 11 pages Monday. They contain statements reiterating that the al-Hijjis had departed the U.S. in haste shortly before 9/11 and that “further investigation” had “revealed many connections” between them and persons associated with “attacks on 9/11/2001.”

Those statements flatly contradict the FBI’s public statements that agents found no connection between the al-Hijjis and the 9/11 plot.

Yet they dovetail with the account of a counterintelligence source who has said investigators in 2001 found evidence – phone records and photographs of license plates snapped at the entrance to the al-Hijji’s Sarasota area neighborhood – that showed Mohamed Atta, other hijackers and former Broward resident and current al Qaeda fugitive Adnan Shukrijumah had visited the al-Hijji’s home.

None of that information, or even the fact that an investigation in Sarasota took place was disclosed by the FBI to Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the attacks or the 9/11 Commission, according to former Florida Sen. Bob Graham. Graham co-chaired the joint inquiry.

The documents, while stamped secret, are marked as having been formally classified earlier this month in accordance with the National Security Information Security Classification. The parts of the documents that were not released are to be kept secret until 2039.

Among other things, the government asserted that classification is necessary because the censored information pertains to foreign relations or foreign activities, including confidential sources.

“This could be about information considered embarrassing to Saudi Arabia,” said Julin. Fifteen of the 19 suicide hijackers were Saudi nationals.

The April 2002 FBI report contains additional new information, though the deletions make its full meaning difficult to discern.

It says the Tampa FBI office “has determined that (blank) is an antagonist of the United States of America. (Blank) resides in Jerusalem. (Blank) allegedly has held regular and recurring meetings at his residence to denounce and criticize the United States of America and its policies. (Blank) is allegedly an international businessman with great wealth.”

In November 2001, (blank) visited the United States for the first time. He traveled to Sarasota, Florida, opened a bank account and made initial queries into the purchase of property in south central Florida. (Blank) intends to establish a Muslim compound in Central Florida. (Blank) revealed that (blank) is fearful of (blank) and fears that (blank) intends to begin offensive operations against the United States if he is able to purchase property and establish a Muslim compound in Central Florida.”

Three follow-up lines are blanked out.

Support Florida Bulldog

If you believe in the value of watchdog journalism please make your tax-deductible contribution today.

We are a 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are tax deductible.

Join Our Email List

Email
*

First Name

Last Name

Florida Bulldog delivers fact-based watchdog reporting as a public service that’s essential to a free and democratic society. We are nonprofit, independent, nonpartisan, experienced. No fake news here.


Comments

10 responses to “New FBI records: A chilling find in a dumpster; 9/11 “person of interest” re-enters U.S.”

  1. Alice Hoagland Avatar
    Alice Hoagland

    “There needs to be a full scale explanation of what’s going on here,” Yes indeed. Thomas Julin and the Broward Bulldog deserve praise for pressing this investigation of suspicious acts by terrorist-supporters among wealthy Saudis in the U.S. Why has the F.B.I. acted so inconsistently, at first avidly seeking evidence, then suppressing it? To their shame, certain elected officials in our government shield those Saudis who clothed, fed, and paid for the jihadi flight training of Ziad Jarrah, United Airlines Flt. 93 hijacker “pilot” and other thugs. Families of murdered Flt. 93 passengers and crew, and all 9/11 families, deserve the justice that, it appears, our own F.B.I. and members of our own government are fighting to keep from us.
    Alice Hoagland, mother of Mark Bingham, UA Flt. 93, 9/11/01

  2. The FBI needs to be investigated!

  3. One of the Muslim men (from Morocco) moved out of his Sarasota rental home in 2003 and left behind in his trash the calendar seen above glorifying the 9/11 attack in 2001. see http://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/video-sarasota-bradenton-cell-helps-911-terrorists-mohamed-atta-ziad-jarrah-and-marwan-al-shehhi-as-terror-manual-found-in-dumpster/

  4. Mohammed Mezroub, his photo above in Sarasota Fl was one of Abdulaziz al-Hijji pals in June of 2000 to August 2001, they had talked of going to Afghanistan and fighting for the Mujahedin against US Forces. Mohammed Mezroub was arrested numerous times by Sarasota County Sheriff’s office with multiple Battery Charges, see just one at link https://cms.sarasotaclerk.com/BenchmarkwebCAPS/CourtCase.aspx/Details/944680?digest=j7Qbq7ksYYwguSe3Ns5Icg .

  5. Marines 1775 Avatar

    Well considering the FBI was involved in and supplied the materials in the first WTC bombing in 1993, its no wonder why they would not be forthcoming in getting to the bottom of who was really behind 9/11. There are traitors in the FBI and they should be dealt with accordingly.

  6. Great work guys. Every new bit of evidence uncovered solidifies Saudi national involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

    1) The reason behind the 9/11 attacks is simple. Sept. 11, 2001 was close to the ten year anniversary of foreign troops being stationed on Saudi soil, foreign pilots and support personnel using Saudi airbases to enforce the No Fly Zone in Southern Iraq. The Saudi king okayed this arrangement with President GHW Bush, a long-time Saudi royal family friend, but not all Saudis agreed. In fact, many Saudi Muslims, and non-Saudi Muslims, were outraged, including al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, son of a very wealthy Saudi construction family, one charged with the upkeep of Mecca and Medina.

    Now, view Saudi Arabia as one huge Muslim mosque, where every foot of Saudi soil is considered sacred. And the filthy infidel boots of foreign troops are on this sacred Saudi soil? You would have to understand Muslim/Saudi culture to know how grave an insult this was. Pointing the dirty sole of one’s shoe toward a Muslim is viewed by them as insulting as someone in the U.S. would view someone shooting the finger at them. In this case, foreign booted troops on sacred Saudi soil amounted to someone shooting the finger at Allah, at Mohammed, at their religion. Thus, certain Saudis decided to defy the Saudi king and do whatever it took to get these foreign troops (and their dirty infidel boots) removed from Saudi Arabia. At least two terrorist “warning shots” were fired overseas by Saudi national Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist group, the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in a Yemeni harbor. After the first “warming shot,” bin Laden taped a message threatening even more attacks if foreign troops remained stationed on sacred Saudi soil. President Clinton didn’t heed the warning in 1998, so the U.S.S. Cole was attacked two years later in October 2000. Newly-installed President GW Bush didn’t heed the warning, so the 9/11 attacks happened on U.S. soil, in retaliation for the insult to Muslims of foreign boots being on the ground in Saudi Arabia. A couple of months after the 9/11 attacks, President GW Bush quietly withdrew all foreign troops from Saudi Arabia. Coincidence?

    2) The reason behind the cover-up is also simple, a cover-up that now spans two U.S. presidencies, one Republican, one Democratic. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 amounted to a declaration of war, just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 did. FDR responded by declaring war on Japan, launching an island-hopping campaign across the Pacific, aiming for Japan itself. GW Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, on the other hand, worked out an agreement with the Saudi king, probably brokered by close Bush family friend, Saudi Prince Bandar, to let the Saudi king quietly bring to “justice” the Saudi nationals inside Saudi Arabia responsible (Saudi royals and clerics alike?), while GW Bush would go after Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan. As part of this agreement, Prince Bandar coordinated the removal of Saudi nationals from U.S. soil in the immediate days after 9/11, secretly flying them to a staging area inside the U.S. for transport out of the country, even as a no fly restriction was in place. These Saudi nationals were neither detained nor allowed to be questioned. Also as part of this agreement between the Saudi king and GW Bush, Rumsfeld started the process of secretly transferring foreign forces off Saudi soil, a process completed several months later. Of course, this still didn’t stop Saudis upset with foreign shoes on Saudi soil, because several years later, so-called al Qaeda groups inside Saudi Arabia attacked and killed foreign workers.

    Anyway, why didn’t GW Bush order an immediate attack on Saudi Arabia following the 9/11 terrorist attacks? 1) The Saudi king was a close Bush family friend, and probably didn’t know what some of his very large Saudi royal family were financing and planning. He okayed the presence on Saudi soil of foreign boots, so who would disobey him? 2) Saudi oil, and what a huge risk invading Saudi Arabia would entail, disrupting oil supplies, skyrocketing world oil prices, retaliation by other Muslim oil-producing states. 3) An invasion of Saudi Arabia, by land and air, would have probably touched off a worldwide “holy war.” Of the world’s over 1 billion Muslims, about 85 percent of them are Sunni, and the Saudi Arabians, keepers of the sacred cities of Medina and Mecca, are Sunni. Thus, we’d have had close to 1 billion Muslims fighting us, everywhere, suicide bombers galore on religious fanatic steroids. IOW, based on what some Sunni religious fanatics did over a relatively few foreign troops being stationed on sacred Saudi soil, how would all Sunnis worldwide react to hundreds of thousands of foreign troops invading Saudi Arabia, searching for the Saudi royals, Saudi clerics and heads of Saudi charities behind the 9/11 attacks? This is also why Bush neo-cons let Osama bin Laden escape the trap at Tora Bora in Afghanistan and why they seemed to lose interest in finding and apprehending him while GW Bush was still in office (and why the kill order, not capture, was given by President Obama when bin Laden was finally tracked down to his Pakistani lair). Americans would have demanded a public trail, not a secret military one, not one offshore at Gitmo, a televised public trial. Any such trial, though, might have let the Saudi 9/11 cat out of the bag, exposing just how extensive Saudi involvement really was in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, something neither GW Bush, nor Obama now, want to happen.

    I understand, although I’m very unhappy that out of what I pay for each gallon of gas I pump into my car’s gas tank, some of that money is going into the hands of religious terrorists somewhere in the world, but especially into the hands of Saudi oil oligarchs who fund such terrorist activities (look at ISIS, another Sunni monster, if you don’t believe me).

  7. Oscar Chavoya Aceves Avatar
    Oscar Chavoya Aceves

    Uncanny isn’t it? The day of the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon, the president was at Booker Elementary School, in Sarasota, precisely Sarasota! What a coincidence! The address of the place is: 4224 Escondito Circle; Sarasota; FA 34238. Ten miles away from Booker Elementary School, at 2350 Dr Martin Luther King Way, Sarasota, FL 34234.

  8. Charlotte Greenbarg Avatar
    Charlotte Greenbarg

    This makes one literally cry for justice. Keep on it Bulldog! We’re strong enough as a people to overcome the lies and treachery.

  9. This article is bullshit on steroids. Who writes this stuff? Mossad?

  10. You can bet if the Saudi’s are involved that Bush and DICK Cheney
    are also involved.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *