A disturbing video has come to mild displaying a person, believed to have ties to Al Qaeda terrorists, filming essential landmarks in Washington DC a bit over a 12 months earlier than the 9/11 assaults.
Within the video, shot in the summertime of 1999, Omar al-Bayoumi walked across the nation’s capital remarking on varied buildings, together with the Washington Monument, earlier than stopping in entrance of the US Capitol Constructing and referring to ‘a plan.’
The Capitol Constructing, one of the crucial recognizable symbols of American democracy, was lengthy regarded as one of many doable targets within the terrorist strikes that killed practically 3,000 individuals on September 11, 2001.
The FBI stated in a declassified doc from 2022 that Bayoumi had ‘a 50/50 likelihood’ of understanding the 9/11 assaults have been going to happen, an assertion based mostly on his prior relationship with the lads who hijacked the airplane that may crash into the Pentagon, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
Bayoumi’s video has been within the possession of the FBI for many years however was simply unsealed because of a courtroom motion by the households of 9/11 victims who sued the Saudi Arabian authorities for its alleged complicity within the assaults, one thing the ruling household denies.
Pictured: Omar al-Bayoumi is out in entrance of the Capitol Constructing. He goes on to element its entrances and exits, in addition to the place safety guards are posted
The FBI obtained the video after British authorities raided Bayoumi’s residence within the days after the devastating assault in 2001, when he was a PhD scholar at Aston College in Birmingham, over 100 miles from London.
In addition they discovered a handwritten deal with guide that legal professionals for the 9/11 households say had the telephone numbers of many Saudi Arabian officers working within the authorities at the moment.
London’s Metropolitan Police handed over all this proof to the FBI, which has sought to maintain it underneath lock and key ever since.
Now 25 years later, the world will get to see contained in the thoughts of somebody who probably had a hand in executing the worst terrorist strike on US soil in its historical past.
Within the video obtained by CBS Information and aired on 60 Minutes, Bayoumi addresses his ‘beloved’ and ‘esteemed brothers’ whereas pointing the digicam on the Capitol Constructing on a cloudy day round 6pm.
Positioned in entrance of the Capitol, he factors out the entrances and exits to the constructing and likewise movies passing safety guards.
He later will get nearer to an unknown constructing and movies what seems to be authorities autos parked outdoors.
‘Their vehicles,’ he stated. ‘You stated that within the plan.’
Khalid al-Mihdhar, left, and Nawaf al-Hazmi hijacked American Airways Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon, killing all 64 individuals on board and 125 individuals throughout the Pentagon. Each males pictured had shut ties to Bayoumi, in response to the FBI
A rescue helicopter flies over the Pentagon simply after the airplane struck the constructing
FBI brokers, hearth fighters, rescue employees and engineers work on the Pentagon crash web site on September 14, 2001, three days after the assaults
Richard Lambert, a retired FBI agent who led the preliminary 9/11 investigation, informed 60 Minutes he believes Bayoumi was speaking to the individuals inside Al Qaeda who deliberate the 9/11 assaults.
‘What I see Bayoumi doing goes out and making an in depth video report of the Capitol, of all its sides and conducting that 360 diploma panoramic view,’ added Lambert, who now serves as a marketing consultant to the households of 9/11 victims of their case in opposition to Saudi Arabia.
One other reference to his shadowy conspirators got here when Bayoumi identified the Washington Monument, which is a brief stroll from the Capitol.
‘I’ll recover from there, and I’ll report…to you intimately what’s there.’
The video additionally provides further weight to the lengthy held idea by federal investigators that the hijackers of Flight 93, which crashed close to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, have been aspiring to destroy the Capitol.
The FBI has stated that Bayoumi was accompanied by two Saudi Arabian diplomats with ties to Al-Qaeda whereas filming this video, solely deepening the chance that state actors have been concerned within the assaults.
Emergency personnel mark off the crash web site of United Airways Flight 93 close to Shanksville, Pennsylvania the day it crashed. Passengers on the flight overwhelmed the Al Qaeda hijackers, inflicting the plane to take a nostril dive into this area
Saudi Arabia has denied that Bayoumi was ever an agent of theirs and has additionally denied any involvement or help of 9/11.
With oral arguments scheduled for this summer season within the 9/11 swimsuit from victims’ households, legal professionals for the Saudi Arabian authorities have filed a movement to dismiss.
The Saudis have additionally claimed that Bayoumi shot the video as a vacationer, one thing retired FBI agent Ken Williams strongly disagrees with.
The official 9/11 Fee report, revealed in 2004, discovered that Saudi Arabia wasn’t tied to Al Qaeda operationally or financially, a bombshell revelation solely revealed to the general public in 2016 when President Obama declassified 28 key pages of the 525-document.
‘Saudi Arabia has lengthy been thought of the first supply of al Qaeda funding, however we’ve got discovered no proof that the Saudi authorities as an establishment or senior Saudi officers individually funded the group,’ it learn.
The report additionally stated this about Bayoumi: ‘Now we have seen no credible proof that he believed in violent extremism, or knowingly aided extremist teams.’
The person who’s been credited on the mastermind of the assaults, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, informed authorities throughout an interrogation that he did not know Bayoumi.
