9/11: 3000 Americans for Three Saudi
Princes
New details about the Troubling Omissions of
Saudi Arabia’s wealthy from 9/11 Commission
Report
Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack
What is a Saudi prince worth? The answer is one Saudi prince is worth 1000 Americans.
Evidence suggests it’s a simple mathematical equation involving a deal being struck
between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that included the deaths of three Saudi princes who
met very suspicious ends in July of 2002, within days of each other.
In a Vanity Fair article, a former C.I.A. operative was cited as the source that identified
those three princes as having been named by captured #3 man in al-Qaeda, Abu
Zubaydah during interrogation sessions. Each of these three princes were said to have
been financiers of 9/11. Many believe that the 9/11 Commission Report omitted the
princes' involvement and that a 28-page, redacted chapter in a Joint Inquiry report –
which remains classified – confirms foul play by Saudi Arabia regarding these deaths.
With that as a backdrop, what we provide in this report are more details about the deaths
of those Saudi princes, courtesy of Arabic sources, believed to have never been released
in English until now.
We include the only eyewitness account and translated reports that could help provide
more pieces to this complex puzzle.
To date, in English, we cannot find any testimonies, eyewitness accounts, details, or any
official investigation that provides any evidence which brings closure to these mysterious
deaths, aside from the typical few lines and obituary notices.
The frst was the story of Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the well-known horse
racing enthusiast and owner of Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem. Less than one year
earlier, bin Salman was allowed to fy out of the United States on 9/16/01. His cause of
death was ruled a heart attack during routine abdominal surgery on July 22, 2002.
The United States still refuses to release the names of over 140 Saudis who were
permitted to leave the country on several planes in the days after 9/11. Prince bin Salman
was one of the few who was identified as such, in a 9/11 Staff Report published about
one month after the Commission Report was released; the Staff Report focused on the
issue of terrorist travel.
The second curious death is that of Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah al-
Saud who mysteriously died on his way to bin Salman's funeral in a car accident one day
later, on July 23, 2002.
The third is Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, who mysteriously got lost in the desert and
died of thirst on July 30th, 2002.
Before we discuss the Arabic sources we examined, a crucial link is necessary between
these three deaths and Abu Zubaydah, when he was captured in March of 2002.
In 2003, TIME Magazine published an article by Johanna McGeary that focused on
Zubaydah, considered to be “the Rosetta stone of 9/11” who provided a wealth of
information about the internal dealings between al-Qaeda and Saudi Arabia. According
to McGeary, Zubaydah was a:
“...leading member of Osama bin Laden's brain trust and the operational control
of al-Qaeda's millennium bomb plots as well as the attack on the USS Cole in
October 2000.”
Subsequently, the U.S. depended largely on its allies to do some of the dirty work. Jordan
– after an al-Qaeda attack on a hotel there – was asked to help get some of Abu
Zubaydah’s henchmen as they were rounded up in a Jordanian prison. It was my cousin –
Jawad Younis – who took the case, defending Abu Zubaydah’s terrorists to save some of
the al-Qaeda operatives from facing the hangman. Abu Hushar (named in the 9/11
Commission Report on Page 175) and Abu Sammar weren’t so lucky; both got sentenced
to death by hanging.
As an aside, Jawad’s brother – Kamal Younis – helped to plant seeds of doubt about my
terrorist past to one gullible American named Eileen Fleming while his brother Jawad,
the prominent lawyer, works with other Muslim Brotherhood activists to topple the Kingdom
of Jordan and convert it to a Muslim Brotherhood state. Yet, people like Fleming give
them credibility and attempt to impugn mine.
McGeary wrote that after Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan, he was transferred to
Afghanistan. While in captivity, he was sedated with truth serum (sodium pentothal),
then the two Arab American agents told him that he was in a Saudi prison facility,
to induce fear and make him empty his memory bank.
Zubaydah’s reaction “was not fear, but utter relief.” Happy to see ‘Saudi agents’, he:
“...reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who
would, said Zubaydah, 'tell you what to do.' The man at the other end would be
Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of the late
King Fahd and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner.”
It cannot be understated that this was the same Prince bin Salman who was allowed to fy
out of the United States on 9/16/01 without being questioned or interviewed. This is a
glaring indictment of Bush administration policy relative to unfettered Saudis on
American soil in the days after 9/11/01.
Abu Zubaydah mentioned all three royal-princes as intermediaries.
Yet, an examination of Arabic sources provides more reasons to suspect foul play. Take
Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah al-Saud. There were four media reports
that gave scant information about the circumstances of his death.
The offcial statements were provided to Al-Jazeera, to Okaz, to Al-Iktisadiyeh, and
Asharq Al-Awsat, based in London. Only Asharq Al-Awsat preserved their version of the
story in its archives; all the others purged their articles, which we had to obtain from other
sources.
Okaz was a call-in by Faisal’s half-brother Abdullah, who called the paper to issue a
summary of the death.
There was only one eyewitness account, provided secondhand from Sultan’s other
brother. Prince Khalid relayed the testimony of an Ethiopian “Akhwiya” by the name of
Muhammad Hassan. “Akhwiya” is a term used only in Saudi Arabia, for what they
consider lower class, handpicked non-Saudi helpers who usually tag along and hang
around Saudi royals in hopes of gaining special favors.
Al-Jazeera’s exclusive interview by Abdullah al-Kathiri with Prince Khalid seems more
like an attempt to portray Hassan as an alibi in an oddly created section subtitled, “Eye
Witness Account” to answer the question about how the prince was the only one killed in
the alleged accident, despite having several helpers with him.
The story goes – as told by Hassan – that Prince Sultan took off at 2:00 AM en route
from Jeddah to Riyadh after he paid sums of money to the usual beggars who surrounded
his castle. While it's unusual to have beggars two hours past midnight, more troubling
were the number of conflicting reports about how many cars were trailing the prince
during his trip to attend Prince bin Salman's funeral – after the latter had died of a heart
attack a day before.
Al-Jazeera reported that “several cars” trailed the prince while Asharq Al-Awsat cited the
prince’s business manager Hamdan Khalil Hamdan as saying that “two cars” trailed
behind. Okaz reported there was only “one car” trailing the prince and then finally
produced merely one lone man – an Ethiopian named Muhammad Hassan – who was
trailing the prince.
The story continues that when prince Sultan stopped in Ta’if to lead the group in
morning prayers, one of the helpers (no name) offered to accompany the prince in his car
and was shunned away by Prince Sultan, who loved to speed. As a gesture of self-sacrifice,
the prince allegedly told him, “you are the only son of your mother”.
After the prayers were finished, which would still be pitch dark (4-5 AM), they continued
on the journey while the entourage followed the prince, who was speeding recklessly.
Then all hell broke loose 70 miles before reaching Riyadh, in an area called Alhawmiyat.
Hassan allegedly witnessed the tire explode while he was trailing directly behind prince
Sultan. The vehicle (an Audi) then rolled several times in the air, crashing to the side of a
mountain. As to the debris and how car pieces were strewn all over the place (an
unexplained piece of the puzzle that had no source), Hassan assumed it was the result of
the high rate of speed at which the prince was traveling. No reference was provided to the
shattering of the vehicle or how this piece of information came about. But for Hassan to
see a tire blowout, we must assume that he was traveling at the same high rate of speed as
well. Why would the prince refuse passengers because he was a speeding fanatic while
also expecting one of those would-be passengers – Muhammad Hassan (a name akin to
Bob Smith) – to speed in order to keep up with him?
Hassan even relayed a miraculous ending to the prince's demise, saying that after his
high-speed crash, Sultan died with his body hanging halfway out of the car while facing
Mecca, and miraculously pointing his right index finger (a typical gesture Muslims make)
to proclaim that Allah is the indivisible One God.
There was not a single firsthand account – no photos of the scene of the accident nor of
the wreckage, no statements from police, nothing.
If foul play was involved, Alhawmiyat (where the death allegedly occurred) is an excellent place
to claim an accident.
A search of Alhawmiyat in Arabic shows the notoriety of this
place for car accidents. Yet, how is it possible to find countless reports that include many
photos of vehicles crashed by lay persons, as well as by several VIP's but nothing on
prince Sultan? For example, Prince Muhammad bin Nay, while accompanying a
Malaysian diplomat, had an accident and didn’t even die. Nonetheless, several photos of
the accident scene can be found, as can hospital photos, wreckage photos, etc. An
ambassador from Bosnia even had a simple accident and a report with a photo can be
found. Yet, a Saudi prince dies on his way to the funeral of another Saudi prince who
died mysteriously one day earlier and there is nothing of the sort?
Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir's story about being lost in the desert is another
unsolved mystery. What little detail of the story we found came from only a couple of
purged media sources, which we got elsewhere. They relayed the testimony of “Brigadier
Abdul Qadir Altalha” who can be verified and does exist as someone working for the
kingdom’s authority. The prince’s death was issued in the form of a statement from
Altalha that was more about being an official warning that communicated, “beware of
wandering in the desert” than it was an announcement of the death of a royal Saudi. It
was definitely a great idea for minimum circulation and the report only existed on a
handful of sites.
We translated the report verbatim:
“An accident forced the death of three Saudis, including a Prince who died of
thirst in the desert. Saudi authorities had issued a warning urging citizens not to
hike in the desert during the hot summer days in order to preserve their lives. The
Royal Court issued a statement in Riyadh yesterday which mourned Prince Fahd
bin Turki bin Saud Al-Kabeer, aged twenty-five years, who died Monday
afternoon as a result of thirst during a trip that was carried out in the desert of
the southern province of Rumah near the Omani Centre, 90 kilometers east of
the capital. The details of the incident as relayed by Brigadier Abdul Qadir
Altalha were that three victims were on a picnic with two other colleagues in the
Rumah area. While they were returning, the car fell into a ditch, which rendered
it unusable, prompting three of them to move in an attempt to get rescued from
the desert. The three lost the road and decided to return to the car and died
beside it as a result of thirst. The other two were lucky and were able to guide a
colleague to their place by using their mobile phone.”
None of those stories add up. A man with a royal pedigree is stranded in the desert
without fancy, sparkling water and leaves his vehicle on foot to get help while his other
‘helpers’ have a cell phone and were able to use it? The two who stayed behind got
rescued while the royal prince lays dead by his car? Why are there no names of the
eyewitnesses attached to the story except prince Fahd and an official named Altalha? The
story seems like an alibi to answer how a body was found. How could the other two who
died with the prince have no names or any mention of an obituary showing they died
with a royal?
When it comes to any ‘Al Saud’ stranded somewhere, the Kingdom sends its best. The
story of Princess Lawlawa bint Mashhur is a case in point. When the Jeddah food of
2011 left an entire city stranded, a private chopper was sent at night not to rescue all or
even some of the girls who were drowning at Dar al-Hekma College, but to pick up only
one – Princess Lawlawa – while leaving the rest of the women stranded; those left behind
can be seen getting rescued a day later by courageous civilians.
Countless people died in Jeddah and were buried under the mud and debris. This is a
government that left girls to die in a fre, fearing that their rescue could lead to the
possibility that some female flesh might be revealed while government officials sin in
secret.
And why would a simple abdominal surgery cause a healthy young athlete like prince bin
Salman a heart attack? These are accounts that remain highly suspect. While coverage by
cameramen who visited the funerals was in abundance, none asked serious questions or
took photos of the sites of these deaths; none provided any details apart from the
fantastic, princely piety and self-sacrifice.
Consider the mathematical probabilities of the following events actually taking place:
· Three princes named by Abu Zubaydah as having helped plan 9/11 all die
mysteriously within four months of Zubaydah's capture and within one week of
each other.
· The stories of these three princes are not included in the 9/11 Commission
Report or available in the original Arabic media sources.
· There are no photos or verifiable names of individuals present during these
deaths.
· One prince dies in a car accident with his finger pointing toward Mecca, after his
vehicle had fipped several times in the air.
· One prince dies after leaving behind a functioning mobile phone and walking
through the desert without water, before dying next to the car he left to fnd help.
Perhaps a Washington Post article written by Douglas Farah in 2002 can provide some
insight into what happened. In that article, Farah references a National Security Council
task force that was making recommendations to President Bush about how best to hold
the Saudi government accountable for cracking down on al-Qaeda's financiers.
Farah relayed what offcials told him might happen if the Saudis didn't play ball:
...they said the United States would frst present the Saudis with intelligence and
evidence against individuals and businesses suspected of financing al Qaeda and
other terrorist groups, coupled with a demand that they be put out of business. In
return, one senior official said, the administration will say, “We don't care how
you deal with the problem; just do it or we will” after 90 days.
This article was written four months after the mysterious deaths of three Saudi princes
who had been outed by a captured Abu Zubaydah four months earlier than those deaths.
Farah reported another interesting assertion by these officials, who allegedly...
“...said they would press the Saudis to act even if there was not enough
information to convict someone in a court of law.”
Three. Saudi. Princes.
Besides the mathematical impossibilities, mysterious deaths are not unusual when it comes
to the Saudi Royal clan, though not without reason. A French-Jewish mother named Candice
Cohen-Ahnine – in a high-profile custody battle with a Saudi prince – died after falling from
a fourth-story apartment, amid suspicions of foul play.
The United States knows full well that Saudi Arabia is the main apparatus that brings the
fundamentalists out of Pandora's box when needed. Yet, it relies on the same royal family
to put those fundamentalists back in because it knows that its survival depends on keeping
this beast locked up. George W. Bush himself, in an op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street
Journal, encouraged westerners to embrace the Arab Spring, even suggesting that the fall of
Middle Eastern dictators is somehow equivalent to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The United States seems to support the Arab Spring no matter where it springs up,
except of course and God forbid, if it erupts in Saudi Arabia. That’s when the U.S. will
be deathly silent because it likely will have meant that 3000 Americans were sold for three
princes and countless barrels of oil; the dealings continue.
SAUDI NATIONALS FLOWN OUT OF U.S. SHORTLY AFTER 9/11
While the three Saudi Princes who met bizarre ends, almost certainly as a result of the
capture and subsequent interrogation sessions with Abu Zubaydah, other members of the
Royal family have escaped justice altogether. Indications are that had Zubaydah not been
captured, Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Prince Sulatan bin Faisal bin Turki
bin Abdullah al-Saud, and Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir would have as well.
Are we to believe that these men of royalty were the only ones who were involved in 9/11
and that justice was done through clandestine foul play? All is now well, right? If they were
the only three, why weren't they arrested and tried publicly? Why weren't they
handed over to U.S. authorities? Could it be that they knew far more than Zubaydah did?
Overwhelming evidence indicates that both the Bush administration and the 9/11
Commission decided not to target the source of al-Qaeda's funding and in instances when
they appeared to be on the right track, they turned back. The Rabita Trust is a case in
point. While it was designated a “Global Terrorist Entity” and had its assets frozen one
month after 9/11, founder Abdullah Omar Naseef has escaped accountability; most
American people don't even know who he is.
The story of Naseef's freedom today is anecdotal when one looks at how Saudi nationals
were handled by the U.S. Government in the days and weeks after 9/11.
After 9/11, fights were grounded until no earlier than 9/13. However, this wasn't like
fipping a switch; restrictions on certain fights were still in place. A simmering controversy
that involved the fights of several Saudi nationals out of the United States in the days after
9/11 surfaced in the weeks leading up to the release of the 9/11 Commission Report.
In fact, in the 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel after 9/11, it was
conceded that the son of Prince bin Salman (the same bin Salman who would die from
that mysterious heart attack) boarded a fight from Tampa, FL to Lexington, KY on
9/13/01, to rendezvous with his father. Both men were on a chartered fight from
Lexington to London, England on 9/16/01.
In an article entitled, “The Great Escape,” that appeared in the New York Times prior to
the release of the 9/11 Commission Report, Craig Unger wrote:
...there were still some restrictions on American airspace when the Saudi fights
began.
According to Unger:
We knew that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis. We knew that Osama bin
Laden, a Saudi, was behind 9/11. Yet we did not conduct a police-style
investigation of the departing Saudis, of whom two dozen were members of
the bin Laden family.
Judicial Watch, a legal government watchdog, obtained a list of passengers on various
fights between 9/11/01 and 9/15/01 courtesy of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Again, according to Unger:
According to newly released documents, 160 Saudis left the United States on 55
fights immediately after 9/11 -- making a total of about 300 people who left with
the apparent approval of the Bush administration, far more than has been
reported before.
If, as was ultimately learned through obvious omissions in the 9/11 Commission Report,
the Bush administration was reticent to go after entities with ties to the Saudi Royal
family in the months and years after 9/11, shouldn't the American people know about
decisions that were made which benefited the Saudi Royal family immediately after 9/11?
Moreover, as Unger rightly pointed out, despite the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that
Saudi nationals were on chartered fights out of the country, a significant number of those
nationals left the U.S. while restrictions on air space were still in place. Had they not been
Saudis, perhaps this could be explained away. The fact that so many Saudis were allowed to
leave the country so soon after the attacks raises fags, especially relative to what we now know
– and the Bush administration must have known at the time – about the involvement of the
Saudi Royal family, in 9/11.
SAUDI PRINCE TURKI AL-FAISAL
According to documented 9/11 Commission staff statements, 34 members of the Saudi
Prince Turki al-Faisal's party departed from Las Vegas for Paris, France on September 24,
2001. The document further stated:
“...it appears that none of the 34 people on this fight was interviewed.”
In 2004, as the 9/11 Commission was wrapping up its report, a post at the Anger
Management Course blog included an excerpt from an article written by Margie Burns
that appeared at the Baltimore Chronicle. According to the author of that post, the article
reported: All together, the hijackers made at least six trips to Vegas. Yet, a few days after
9- 11, 31 passengers were allowed to fy out of Vegas, including one passenger
named Al-Hazmi. One Saudi royal aboard was Prince Turki bin Faisal,
famous as the head of Saudi Arabia's bloodstained and much feared
intelligence service from 1977 until he was abruptly fired in August
2001.
Whoa; time out. What, exactly, was the longtime head of Saudi Arabia's secret
police doing in the United States, while 15 young Saudis were carrying out their
attacks? Prince Turki's brother was also on board the Vegas fight; another of
their brothers is Saudi Arabia's foreign minister.
Why, exactly, did the fired head of Saudi intelligence hotfoot it over to this
country, right after getting the boot? Or was he in the US when he was fired? His
replacement was officially announced on August 31, 2001. Did National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, or anyone in the White House national security office,
even know that these persons were in the United States? Given Prince Turki's
documented contacts with Osama bin Laden and Pakistan's Inter Service
Intelligence, which propped up the Taliban, why did the White House let these
persons leave?
Some time thereafter, the Chronicle scrubbed any mention of Turki in a revised
report. The portion in bold above (as well as the two paragraphs beneath it) was
replaced some time before May 30, 2004 with the following:
The Saudi royals aboard were mostly adults, with only a handful of young people
born in the 1980s and 1990s. At least one of these passengers, Ahmed bin
Salman, the notable horse race fan and owner of a Kentucky Derby
winner, died in somewhat suspicious circumstances a few months
after his return home. Another passenger, a British citizen, was his
longtime chauffeur and major domo, to whom Ahmed Salman gave a prize horse
race in return for his services.
Based on confirmed reports, one of them from the 9/11 Commission Staff
Report itself, we now know that Prince Turki few from Las Vegas to Paris, France
on 9/24/01. That squares with the frst report from the Baltimore Chronicle but not
with the second. The revised version (see the bolded portion) has Prince bin
Salman fying out of Las Vegas too. How can this be? Bin Salman few from
Lexington to London on 9/16/01. Note that the revised report also says bin
Salman few with a British citizen. The Las Vegas fight went to Paris. This would
seem to be another indicator that the Chronicle's first report was more accurate.
Naming bin Salman in 2004 – two years after his death – may have seemed a safer
bet than naming Prince Turki, who would become the Saudi Ambassador to the
U.S. one year later (more on this later).
The newer version continued...
What were the Saudi royals and the others doing in Las Vegas? When did these
officials and those connected with them go to Las Vegas, and how long did they
stay there? What reason could the hijackers have had for trips to Vegas in the frst
place, other than to rendezvous with authorities, given that any extra movement
increased their chances of getting caught? Is the White House really going to
pretend that fve skyjackers including the fervently devout Atta went to Vegas,
separately and together at different times, only to ft in a little gambling? Was Las
Vegas really just a convenient hub for the travelers? What other passengers on
several other fights out were connected to these?
The removal of Turki's name from the Chronicle's article makes his presence in the
U.S. immediately before and after 9/11 – which has since been confirmed – even
more suspicious. The Global Security website made reference to Turki's fight out of
the United States shortly after 9/11 as well.
Considering what was known about Turki at the time – he had recently ended his tenure
as Director of the General Intelligence Directorate, Saudi Arabia's foreign intelligence
service, after 24 years – it is at a minimum, curious that he was not interviewed. Later,
Turki would become the Saudi ambassador to the United States and was welcomed to the
Oval Offce during the Bush administration in 2006. Turki would serve in that capacity
from 2005 – 2007.
In January of 2012, Turki was given a platform by Amy Kellogg of Fox News, to express
his views on Saudi Arabia's problems with Iran. This is noteworthy in light of Prince
Alwaleed bin Talal's ever increasing influence over the “Fair and Balanced” network
through his ownership in Newscorp.
The 9/11 Commission report itself spoke of dealings Turki had with Taliban leader
Mullah Omar during the Clinton administration in 1998. Apparently, it was not deemed
appropriate to revisit the former Saudi intelligence chief's dealings with the Taliban before
allowing him to fy out of the country after 9/11 without being questioned. As was the case with
various organizations found to have financed al-Qaeda, the portrayal of Turki in the report is one
in which no complicity in 9/11 was found. Groups known to have financed al-Qaeda were painted
as practically innocent victims of infiltration; Turki
comes across in the report as an ally, not a foe, of the United States.
That portrayal is seemingly belied by facts and testimony.
In a 2009 New York Times article penned by Eric Lichtblau, it was reported that lawyers for
the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that sought justice for the 9/11 victims, had come into possession
of documents that implicated members of the Saudi Royal family, to include Prince Turki Al-Faisal.
In fact, a link to many of those documents was posted in Lichtblau's piece.
In particular, one document that stands out is the transcript of a sworn deposition
conducted by the plaintiffs of the 9/11 families in a civil lawsuit. The Muslim man who
was deposed (name redacted) allegedly fought against the Taliban (presumably for the
Northern Alliance); his testimony implicated none other than Prince Turki Al Faisal.
We begin with the account of the deposed subject in which he discusses the details of a
prisoner exchange in 1998 that involved a man named Said Jalal as the negotiator:
Q: Did - - was Said Jalal working for anyone from Saudi Arabia?
A: When I - - when I had gone with him to Kabul during this mission that he
starts about exchange of prisoners, I went with him in Kabul. There was a guest
house concerned Mullah Kabir, he was the deputy - - the Deputy Prime Minister
for Taliban and when I was there and I saw with him a cheque, money cheque,
and the cheque was about a billion riyals, Saudi Riyals.
And at that time I guessed that he is not a simple person, he is not at the low
level. Maybe he is - - he is working with the - - I believed at that time he was
working with the intelligent service of Saudi.
Q: And who was the head of the intelligence service of Saudi?
A: At that time he was Turki Al Faisal.
A short time later, the deposed subject confirmed that the riyal is indeed Saudi currency.
That, coupled with the fact that the cheque was for one billion riyals, indicated a very
powerful person with access to Saudi money.
This is significant because of who this individual – according to the deposition – was
meeting with:
Q: And - - did Said Jalal at any time ever talk to you about Mullah Omar?
A: Yes. Every time he - - he had came from - - from Mullah Omar directly.
The subject proceeded to talk about several prisoner exchanges coordinated by Jalal on
Mullah Omar's behalf.
In perhaps the most revealing exchange, the deposed individual talked about the purchase
of hundreds of trucks by Mullah Omar, courtesy of Saudi money:
Q: Did people from Saudi Arabia come openly and give money to Mullah Omar
and the Taliban?
A: Yes.
Q: When Said Jalal said that he gave 500 pick-up trucks to the Taliban and that
he said that he personally made sure that Mullah Omar came to power, was - -
did Said Jalal buy these trucks with his own money?
A: No, because 500 pick-ups is not so little.
Q: It is not, right, it's not cheap?
A: Not cheap.
Q: Who was he buying - - who do you - - who was he buying these - - who gave
him the money to buy these trucks?
A: When I believe that Said Jalal may be working with Turki Al Faisal,
that the money, I believe that the money is from that intelligence service.
Q: And do you personally know that Said Jalal was working with Turki?
A: I guessed yes.
If this is accurate testimony, it means that another Saudi Royal prince was actively
working – through an emissary – to aid the Taliban at a time when Osama bin Laden and
the Taliban were working very closely together. Turki's dealings with Mullah Omar were
known during the Clinton administration so again, why would this particular Saudi
prince be permitted to leave the United States less than two weeks after 9/11/01 without
being questioned?
THIS IS NOT SECOND GUESSING
Those who make the claim that dredging these things up today is just second guessing run
into a bit of a problem courtesy of William Murray, head of the Religious Freedom
Coalition. One month after the 9/11 attacks, Murray, who had access to U.S.
Congressmen, Senators, and powerful operatives within the Bush administration,
published his post-9/11 diary.
Here is an excerpt from what Murray wrote about what happened on 9/12/01:
By mid afternoon on Wednesday I was convinced that not only was the United
States a victim of Islamic Jihad, but that the attack had been perpetrated by an
organization controlled by a Saudi citizen and that most of those involved were
Saudi, and that furthermore the attack was financed for the most part by
Saudi businessmen and members of the Saudi royal family.
Murray then relayed what he said to his wife that evening:
“These attacks were planned, financed and carried out by Saudi
nationals and as a result the real culprits will never come to justice.
We will bomb some third world nation like Afghanistan and our
government will say our “moderate” Islamic friends with all the oil
were not involved. Worse, we will put a handful of people in jail like we did
the last time the World Trade Center was bombed. The Islamic fanatics will think
a trade off of four or five in jail getting three meals a day, versus thousands of
Americans dead, is a great deal.
Perhaps one of Murray's most salient points came one day later – on 9/13/01 – in
response to a Senator who defended the Saudi Royal family's financing of Osama bin
Laden by saying they were “coerced” into doing so.
Said Murray in response to the Senator:
“Maybe those millionaire Saudi businessmen should be more fearful
of us than they are of Bin Laden.”
Sadly, defending the Saudis against those who believed the truth should win out, would
become a central theme of the 9/11 Commission Report – and ultimately, the U.S.
Government.
ABLE DANGER
While stationed at Bagram Air Base in October of 2003, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer was
informed that members of the 9/11 Commission were on base. Shaffer, who was a key
member of a program known as Able Danger, which he – along with other team
members – says identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta one year before the attacks and
well before the program was shut down in October of 2000. Shaffer met with the
Commission's Executive Director Philip Zelikow at Bagram and briefed him on Able
Danger's findings.
In his book Operation Dark Heart, Shaffer explains how after briefing Zelikow and other
Commission members, the Executive Director was noticeably shocked and handed
Shaffer his business card while telling him to contact his office upon returning to the
United States, saying, “What you said today is very important.” [1] The treatment Shaffer
received subsequent to that briefing was contemptible on the part of his own government.
Upon Shaffer's return to the U.S. in January of 2004, Zelikow's interest in Able Danger
seemed to do a 180; Shaffer faced significant consequences for bringing it to the 9/11
Commission's attention. Those consequences included the revocation of his security
clearance. Shaffer learned upon his return to the states that the Inspector General of the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was investigating him. The reasons given stemmed
from three claims against him that involved misuse of a government phone ($67); fling a
false voucher ($180); and undue award of the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. Shaffer
later learned that DIA was searching for a way to rescind his Bronze Star as well.
Shaffer had the following to say about treatment he received from DIA, in sworn
testimony before the House Armed Services Committee just a few short years later:
In my specific instance, DIA has been allowed by DoD to make an “example” of
me to try and intimidate the others from coming forward by spending what we
now estimate $2 million in an effort to discredit and malign me by creating false
allegations, and using these false allegations to justify revocation of my Top Secret
security clearance.
Incidentally, in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, one of Shaffer's Able Danger teammates
—Dr. Eileen Preisser—informed him in real time that she was meeting with Scooter
Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's assistant about the details of Able Danger. [2] This
account confirms that Cheney's office was briefed on the program.
Able Danger received not one mention in the 9/11 Commission Report, which was
released on July 22, 2004.
RABITA TRUST
One month after the September 11th attacks, the Treasury Department froze the assets of
an entity known as the Rabita Trust (RT), identifying it as a Specially Designated Global
Terrorist Entity. RT was suddenly on a list of notorious actors and entities, along with 38
others. In an article published by the Washington Post at the time, it became obvious that
political considerations were a priority:
The list was the product of tense debate within the U.S. government, which is
torn by potentially conflicting priorities: stopping the flow of money, protecting
intelligence sources and methods, and avoiding affronts to key allies such as Saudi
Arabia.
Perhaps the premise that Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States should have been
subjected to more critical analysis after the 9/11 attacks. Abdullah Omar Naseef, who
founded Rabita Trust in 1988 escaped the 9/11 civil trials. As Andrew McCarthy points
out, none other than Wael Hamza Julaidan—an al-Qaeda founder—was put in charge of
Rabita.
The Washington Post article expounded on the stickling political battle over identifying
Rabita as a terrorist entity:
Government officials said federal agencies have argued for weeks about whether
to publicly describe the Rabita Trust, a Muslim charity closely tied to the Saudi
and Pakistani governments, as being affiliated with bin Laden. Ultimately, the
Treasury Department listed the Rabita Trust, which top Pakistani officials helped
establish to resettle refugees from Bangladesh. Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, has had an official affiliation with the trust.
The Washington Post identified Julaidan as Rabita's “secretary-general” while also
identifying the charity as an arm of the Muslim World League, an entity sanctioned by
the Saudi Royal family. None other than Abdullah Omar Naseef – Rabita Trust's founder
—served as MWL's Secretary-General. This would place him above an al-Qaeda founder
in charge of the organization Naseef founded.
Moreover, in a 2003 Washington Post article by Douglas Farah, it was reported that
radical Islamic charities which were allegedly shut down, remained open and that none
other than al-Qaeda founder Julaidan, who had been designated a terrorist fnancier one
year after 9/11, was not being held to account by the Saudis, as they promised.
Wrote Farah:
A source with direct knowledge of U.S. actions said the “highest priority of the
U.S. government is to get the Saudis to do what they said [they] would do and
close down what they were supposed to close down.” The source noted that, after
agreeing to put him on the U.N. list, senior Saudi officials publicly
denounced Julaidan's designation.
In another article by Farah, he quoted one of the officials who was angry about the
situation:
“We were livid at the disavowal of the Jalaidan designation,” a senior U.S. official
said. “The Saudi public statements in that case were nothing short of
schizophrenic. Saudi Arabia is one of the epicenters of terrorist financing.”
You read that right; the Saudi government openly protected an al-Qaeda founder.
Perhaps more egregiously, however, are the subsequent omissions by the 9/11
Commission.
The 9/11 Commission Report identified Julaidan only in footnote #58 of Chapter 7
as having been in Tucson in the “1980's and early 1990's”, hinting that his presence
there may have had something to do with 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour spending so
much time there in the mid-1990's. Despite this connection, neither Julaidan's Rabita
Trust nor that entity's founder, Abdullah Omar Naseef, were mentioned in the 9/11
Commission Report.
MUSLIM WORLD LEAGUE (MWL)
As the Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL) from approximately 1983
– 1993, Naseef headed an organization based in Saudi Arabia. The MWL is not just
based there; it is funded and controlled by the Saudi Royal family. Additionally, the name
Muslim World League is virtually synonymous with the term “Rabita”. In essence,
Naseef's Rabita Trust could have been named the Muslim World League Trust. Once one
makes that leap, it becomes obvious how close the Bush administration came to
identifying the Saudi Royal family as a Specially Designated Terrorist entity in 2001.
A little more than six months after the 9/11 attacks, the Financial Times reported on the
operations of a task force that included the IRS, the FBI, and the Secret Service. Named
Operation Green Quest (OGQ), the objective was to disrupt the sources of terrorist
fundraising. In this case, the Bush administration seemed to be on the right track as the
MWL was identified as a target. Here is an excerpt from the article:
In northern Virginia they (OGQ) targeted, among others, the International
Institute of Islamic Thought, the Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences, the
Muslim World League and the Fiqh Council of North America. These bodies
were described by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) as
“respected Islamic institutions” whose targeting “sends a hostile and chilling
message to the American Muslim community and contradicts President Bush's
repeated assertions that the war against terrorism is not a conflict with Islam”.
In addition to the MWL, each one of the entities identified by the Financial Times
had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet, political pressure applied by groups like
CAIR – which has extensive Brotherhood ties of its own – seemed to be effective
when it came to neutralizing any inclinations to pursue these avenues that the Bush
administration may have had. In 2006, this dynamic was revealed when Bush referred
to America's enemiesas “Islamic fascists”. After pressure was applied by CAIR,
such words were never again uttered by the president.
The MWL was not named in the 9/11 Commission Report.
INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC RELIEF ORGANIZATION (IIRO)
The IIRO was spawned by the MWL and is not only funded by the Saudi Royal family
but in 2003 it was led by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law. The Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) wrote the following:
In July 2003, during the 9/11 Commission hearings, numerous
analysts identified IIRO as a major radical Islamic institution in part
responsible for fueling Islamic militancy around the world. Testimony
delivered at the commission attested to the fact that Mohammad Jamal
Khalifa, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, arrived in the
Philippines in 1988 and became the founding director of the IIRO. He used the
IIRO to funnel Al Qaeda funds to the Abu Sayyaf group and the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front.
Front Page Magazine (FPM) reported on a 2002 $100 trillion lawsuit which “named
defendants (that) gave contributions to charities directly linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist
organization.” Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia was one of those
defendants. This lawsuit pointed to IIRO's Canadian branch director as having claimed
that his organization was a “direct arm of the Saudi Royal family.”
FPM had the following to say about Sultan's dealings:
Sultan also has donated personal money to the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation,
Muslim World League, and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. All of these
groups have been exposed by the brief of having sponsored, aided, abetted or
materially financed al Qaeda.
Jonathan Schanzer cited a former FBI analyst as saying IIRO donated at least $280,000
to Hamas charities while also reporting that Israeli officials identified IIRO as an
organization that implemented a program to compensate the families of Hamas suicide
bombers.
The United Nations identified two IIRO branch offces – in the Philippines and Indonesia
– as terrorist entities from as early as 2007 through 2011.
According to an article in Front Page Magazine by Paul Sperry, the President of the IIRO
in the United States (IRO) shortly before 9/11 was a man by the name of Mohamed S.
Omeish, who also shared an offce with Abdurahman Alamoudi, a man eventually
convicted on charges related to terrorism. Incidentally, Omeish served alongside Anwar
al-Awlaki from late 2001 through early 2002; they were the only two Muslim chaplains
on the board of George Washington University's Muslim Students Association, a Muslim
Brotherhood front. Omeish's brother – Esam Omeish – is credited by Sperry with hiring
al-Awlaki as an Imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque that aided the 9/11 hijackers.
That mosque allegedly received large donations from the IIRO.
In an article by Judith Miller for the New York Times, IIRO was identified as having been
raided by the FBI in 2002. Miller also reported that MWL was a parental entity, saying
further that MWL and IIRO were housed in the same office. This places the MWL—a
group that Naseef once led—above the IIRO.
In a separate New York Times article written by Eric Lichtblau in 2009, it was reported
that Treasury Department documents – obtained by plaintiffs in a case against alleged 9/11
perpetrators – identified the IIRO as a group that showed “'support for terrorist
organizations' at least through 2006.”
In 2009, the IIRO reopened in the United States. According to the Global Muslim
Brotherhood Daily Report (GMBDR), the office is in Hialeah, FL and the president is
Adnan Khalil Basha, who has also served as the Secretary-General for the IIRO in Saudi Arabia.
According to the same report, another entity – Sana-Bell – which had originally been
created to generate funds for IRO, shared an address with SAAR (mentioned later).
GMBDR reported in 2010 that the reopening of the IRO in the U.S. “seems designed to
preserve the organization's ties to the Muslim World League (MWL), the IIRO's parent
organization.”
Moreover, the face of the then newly reopened IRO was Malik Sardar Khan, who shared
an address with a Muslim World Congress front. According to the GMBDR report, none
other than Abdullah Omar Naseef was listed as the President of both the MWC
internationally as well as for its U.S. branch.
The IIRO was not named in the 9/11 Commission Report, despite “numerous
analysts” (according to the ADL) who, during the 9/11 Commission hearings,
identified IIRO as an entity that funded al-Qaeda. Also receiving no mention were
Mohamed S. Omeish, Esam Omeish, Sana-Bell, or Abdurahman Alamoudi, who had
been arrested on charges related to terrorism nearly one year before the release of the
report.
SAAR FOUNDATION
After 9/11, the FBI also raided the offices of the Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Rajihi (SAAR)
Foundation. Interestingly, SAAR's offces were located across the street from a Muslim
Brotherhood front group known as the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT).
It also shared an office with the aforementioned Sana-Bell. Abdurahman Alamoudi, who
once served as executive assistant to the president of the SAAR Foundation, was
convicted of charges relating to terrorism and given a 23-year prison sentence in 2004. At
the New York Times, Judith Miller had the following to say about Rajihi after the 2002 raid:
Officials said SAAR had been financed in large part by Suleiman Abdel Aziz al-
Rajhi, a Saudi banker and financier who is said to be close to the Saudi ruling
family.
SAAR was also implicated in the funding of another individual convicted of financing
terrorism – Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to doing business with the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
SAAR was not named in the 9/11 Commission Report.
WAMY AND AL-HARAMAIN
The World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY) was the parent of the Muslim
Minority Affairs program which was set up in the West by the Abedin family. WAMY is
an organization that has worked extremely closely with the MWL and the IIRO. Discover
the Networks reports that Osama bin Laden's nephew – Abdullah bin Laden – founded the
organization. One of WAMY's aims that is similar to IMMA is to:
Preserve the identity of Muslim youth and help overcome the problems they face
in modern society.
It is important to understand this concept in the context of the goals of the Institute of
Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), which seeks to turn Muslim minority lands into
Muslim majority lands world wide as described in the Saudi Manifesto.
WAMY, like the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, was mentioned in the 9/11
Commission Report (WAMY was identified by name once, al-Haramain twice) but in
both instances, the two organizations seemed to be painted as victims of exploitation
instead of as what they are – terrorist-funding entities.
In talking about al-Haramain, the Report seemed to blame al-Qaeda's reliance on:
...al Qaeda sympathizers in specifc foreign branch offices of large, international
charities – particularly those with lax external oversight and ineffective internal
controls, such as the Saudi-based al Haramain Islamic Foundation. Smaller
charities... had employees who would siphon the money to al Qaeda. [3]
Note the implication. Al-Haramain was not responsible for controlling its own finances; it
had been taken advantage of by al-Qaeda operatives:
Al Qaeda and its friends took advantage of Islam's strong calls for
charitable giving, zakat. These financial facilitators also appeared to rely
heavily on certain imams at mosques who were willing to divert zakat donations
to al Qaeda's cause. [4]
When making its lone reference to WAMY, the 9/11 Commission report also painted that
organization as being victimized by sneaky al-Qaeda operatives:
While Saudi domestic charities are regulated by the Ministry of Labor and Social
Welfare, charities and international relief agencies, such as the World Assembly
of Muslim Youth (WAMY), are currently regulated by the Ministry of Islamic
Affairs. This ministry uses zakat and government funds to spread Wahhabi beliefs
throughout the world, including in mosques and schools... Some Wahhabifunded
organizations have been exploited by extremists to further their
goal of violent jihad against non-Muslims. One such organization has been the al
Haramain Islamic Foundation...[5]
Americans were being told that groups like WAMY and al Haramain had essentially been
infiltrated and deserved little more than wrist slaps. The notion that Wahhabists were
being exploited by extremists was like saying Al Capone was exploited by his mobsters.
WAMY Founder, Abdullah bin Laden, was not named in the 9/11 Commission Report.
WAMY and al Haramain were mentioned once and twice, respectively but only as innocent
bystanders who had been unwittingly duped and infiltrated by al-Qaeda operatives.
INSTITUTE OF MUSLIM MINORITY AFFAIRS (IMMA)
Abdullah Omar Naseef founded the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) in the
late 1970's with the full backing of the Saudi Royal family. As our writings on the Saudi
Manifesto demonstrate, the IMMA was commissioned, in part, after a meeting between
Syed Z. Abedin and Naseef in Gary Indiana. Abdullah Ghazi relays his experience
thusly:
“Later we shifted to Gary in Indiana State, 40 kms from Chicago. In 1976, I met
Rabita (MWL) chief Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef and Dr. Zainul Abedin of
Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs. They encouraged me to take up this
venture. The frst book to come out was Our Prophet, an assignment from King
Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah at Dr. Naseef ’s behest...”
One of the people whom Naseef served with at the IMMA is Huma Abedin, the Deputy
Chief of Staff for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Abedin also served on the board of
the Muslim Students Association's (MSA) George Washington University chapter in 1997
(a few short years later, both IRO President Mohamed S. Omeish and al-Qaeda terrorist
Anwar al-Awlaki would serve on that same board as chaplains). The goal of the IMMA is
to transform all Muslim minority lands into Muslim majority lands, including the United
States of America.
Neither IMMA nor Abdullah Omar Naseef were mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.
NO JUSTICE FOR 9/11 FAMILIES
If one subscribes to the notion that the 9/11 attacks were an act of war comparable to
Pearl Harbor with the Saudi Royal family assuming the role of the Japanese Empire by
comparison, the attacks were not met with a warranted response. To take the analogy
further, it would have been as if the United States decided to demand and expect that the
Japanese emperor punish his fighter pilots for the attacks.
The only recourse left to the families of the fallen would be to file a civil lawsuit against
the Japanese government.
The equivalent of just that happened when the families of 9/11 victims fled a lawsuit
against Saudi Arabia and members of the Royal family for their alleged complicity in the
attacks. After years of legal battles, the families were spurned by those who should have
doggedly pursued justice on their behalf.
At one point, a district court cited the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) and ruled
that it protected Saudi Arabia, that the court had no jurisdiction over a foreign nation.
Isn't that what made the attacks an act of war? Using this logic, the families would be
denied justice when the Bush administration failed to identify the enemy that attacked the
nation he was charged with leading. Then, after deciding to pursue justice for themselves,
those families would be told they had no right to do so.
In 2009, the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau reported, after the families had been through
years of legal battles, that then Solicitor General Elena Kagan fled a brief with the U.S.
Supreme Court in which she agreed with the district court ruling and sided with the
Saudis. The 9/11 families were justifiably livid and said, in part, the following in a
statement:
The Administration's fling mocks our system of justice and strikes a blow against
the public's right to know the facts about who financed and supported the murder
of 3,000 innocent people. It undermines our fight against terrorism and suggests
a green light to terrorist sympathizers the world over that they can send money to
al Qaeda without having to worry that they will be held accountable in the U.S.
Courts for the atrocities that result.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court sided with the disctrict court and the Obama
administration; it refused to hear the case.
A little more than one year later, Kagan was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a Supreme
Court Justice after having been nominated by President Barack Obama.
POSTCRIPT
In late 2005, it was reported by Government Executive that the data mined by Able
Danger was destroyed by Army major Erik Kleinsmith. One of the reasons for doing
so was that the program, identified as “intelligence on steroids” by Kleinsmith,
gathered information on U.S. citizens:
People's names and personal information litter the Internet. Data harvesting, by
its very nature, is indiscriminate and sweeping. Unavoidably, along with
"Osama Bin Laden," an often-mentioned name like "Bill Clinton"
will be harvested. That says a lot about the power, and the limits, of
data mining, and why Kleinsmith destroyed what he had; the military is not
supposed to be gathering information on U.S. citizens.
The technology that was ultimately used in Able Danger was frst used in an experiment
with the Information Dominance Center (IDC) in early 1999 to look into any potential
leaks of U.S. military technology to the Chinese. In the same article, Government Executive reported:
During construction of those link diagrams, the names of a number of U.S.
citizens popped up, including some very prominent figures.
Condoleezza Rice, then the provost at Stanford University, appeared in one of
the harvests, the by-product of a presumably innocuous connection between
other subjects and the university, which hosts notable Chinese scholars.
William Cohen, then the secretary of Defense, also appeared. As one
former senior Defense official explained, the IDC's results "raised eyebrows," and
leaders in the Pentagon grew nervous about the political implications of
turning up such high-profile names, or those of any American citizens who were
not the subject of a legally authorized intelligence investigation. Rumors still
abound about other notable figures caught up in the IDC's harvest. "I heard
they turned up Hillary Clinton," the official said. The experiment
was not continued.
Ok, so based on this report, the China experiment was suspended. Yet, the technology
was resurrected later that year to take the fight directly to al-Qaeda.
In late 1999 / early 2000, Able Danger was in full gear but Kleinsmith was told that
because the harvesting had turned up the names of so many American citizens, he had 90
days to destroy them, which he did:
By the spring of 2000, Kleinsmith said, the IDC had the list of 20 individuals
whom Special Operations wanted investigated further under Able Danger. But in
March, Kleinsmith was ordered to cease all work on the project. He believes the
order came from outside the IDC's command. From May to June, Kleinsmith
and his team destroyed the information, and possibly the linkages between
Mohamed Atta, Al Qaeda, and convicted terrorists already sitting in U.S. prisons.
It's worth noting that Government Executive reported as a matter of fact that the names of
Rice and Cohen came up during the China harvest; that Hillary Clinton's name came up
is allegedly a matter of speculation and rumor.
However, what about the al-Qaeda harvest? If this technology was so sweeping that it
uncovered tangential and innocuous relationships between the future National Security
Advisor and the Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton, why wouldn't it uncover a very
tangible relationship between Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin, a woman with distinct
ties to both al-Qaeda and the Saudi Royal family through her boss, Abdullah Omar
Naseef ?
It's worth noting that Huma Abedin began working for Hillary Clinton in 1996, four
years before the Able Danger harvest of al-Qaeda commenced. An important question
remains:
Did that harvest reveal the Hillary Clinton – Huma Abedin – Abdullah Omar
Naseef connection?
Unlike the innocuous connections that might have come up elsewhere (between Bill
Clinton and bin Laden, for example), Abedin's connection to both Hillary Clinton – as
the first lady's employee – as well as to Naseef, the former Secretary-General of the
MWL, founder of RT and IMMA, would not have been nearly as innocuous.
Based on the omissions of the 9/11 Commission Report, we are left to conclude that the
Commission didn't just want to prevent the truth about Able Danger from coming out; it
also wanted to avoid revealing the truth about those who were ultimately responsible for
the attacks.
[1] Shaffer, Anthony, Operation Dark Heart, p. 178, St. Martin's Press, 2010
[2] Operation Dark Heart, p. 176
[3] The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 170; link is http://www.9-
11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid, p. 372
Walid Shoebat is a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood and author of For God or For Tyranny.
Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the book Unsung Davids.
