Nineteen years ago on 09 September 2001, a group of 19 men working in four groups hijacked commercial aircraft in USA, in early morning and used these planes as weapons in suicide missions that successfully targeted the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York city and the Pentagon (headquarters of the United States of America’s Department of Defense) near Washington D.C, while the fourth flight crashed into rural areas killing all abroad. Of the 19 hijackers; 15 were Saudi Arabian nationals, 2 were from United Arab Emirates and 1 each from Lebanon and Egypt. The attacks killed 2,606 people in and around WTC towers, 125 people working in the Pentagon and 265 fatalities on-board the four airplanes; the total fatalities being approximately 2,996.
This was not the first attack on the WTC. On 26 February 1993; a truck bomb was detonated in the basement parking of the North Tower of the WTC; killing seven people and injuring over a thousand. The attackers were a mix of Middle-eastern men who had immigrated to the United States from diverse countries like Kuwait, Egypt, and West Bank of Palestine; and were funded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani national who was a member of the terrorist group, al-Qaeda.
Within hours of the 9/11 attack, it was clear that Western leaders specially from USA and UK were going to use the attack to justify war in Middle-East and Central Asia. The President of USA, George “Dublya”Bush declared ‘war on terror’, an ambiguous policy that had no defined enemy, thereby giving the USA to declare anyone and any organization that they “deemed to be against the interests of the United States of America”, as the enemy.
Robert Gates, who served as the Secretary of Defense in both the George Dublya Bush and Barak Hussein Obama administrations made it clear when he stated that, “ the message that we are sending to everyone, not just Iran, is that the United States is an enduring presence in this part of the world. We have been here for a long time. We will be here for a long time and everybody needs to remember that - both our friends and those who might consider themselves our adversaries."
Gates was merely quoting the doctrine of 39th President of USA, Jimmy Carter; who in his 1980 State of the Union Address had stated clearly that "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
The Carter Doctrine was formed after the disastrous U.S. policy of regime change in Iran; that led to the then Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi being deposed by the Iranian Revolution of 1979, leading to Iran being transformed into an Islamic Republic under the control of the radical Shia clerics. Historically, in the years following World War 2, USA became a global force with its foreign policy structured to extend around the world, especially in the strategic and oil-rich middle-east, which also allowed it to monitor events in Asia, and to contain and restrict any attempts by Asian countries to pursue an agenda for development outside the influence of the U.S., or to challenge its dominance.
The policy of “war on terror” was an extension of this thought process. The policy was not based on critical thinking or logical international strategy; but on displaying the American ‘military might’ in a war that by all standards was both immoral and illegal. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are still dragging on for almost two decades, its clear that Dublya’s vision of quick military victory was merely an illusion, and the attempts of political domination have failed miserably. The same U.S. that had gone to war against the Taliban (‘students’ in Pashto language) for harboring the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; have been dragged to the peace talks with them in 2020.
In Iraq, the fall of Saddam Hussein did not lead to a western style democracy, but to the rise of successive Shia governments loyal to Iran and its clergy. Lack of political strategy in Iraq led to the formation of ISIS (Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) aka Daesh in 2006, which not on defeated the U.S. backed Iraqi military but also destabilized Syria. Daesh went on to form a new country; the ‘Islamic State’ that, at its peak in 2014 controlled 100,000 square kilometers of land area, which has now been reduced to less that 4,000 sq/kms surrounded by Iraqi and Syrian Army forces. However, Daesh is still active and operational in 18 countries, prominently in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Nigeria.
The role of Saudi Arabia in sponsoring the WTC attacks in 2001 has always been a matter of serious consideration. Around 13th May 2020, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) accidentally disclosed the name of a Saudi diplomat suspected of directing support to two al-Qaeda hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, as reported by Yahoo News. Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah was a mid-level Saudi foreign ministry official who was assigned to the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC in 1999 and 2000. He was in charge of supervising the activities of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers in the U.S. A partially declassified 2012 FBI report about an investigation into possible links between the al-Qaeda hijackers and Saudi government officials initially focused on two individuals, Fahad al-Thumairy, a cleric, and Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi agent.
A redacted copy of a three-and-a-half page October 2012 FBI "update" about the investigation said that FBI agents had uncovered "evidence" that al-Thumairy and al-Bayoumi had been "tasked" to assist two hijackers by a person whose name was blacked out and was referred to as the ‘third man’, an accredited Saudi diplomat, who has now been identified as al-Jarrah. Currently, all the evidence gathered by the FBI against al-Jarrah remains sealed, but it does indicate that successive U.S. Governments from 2000 till date have covered up the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the WTC attacks. While the Saudi government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the fact that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens and that the U.S. government has consistently prevented internal investigative documents of its own FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) from becoming public raises questions about collusion and conspiracy between the two countries leaders.
www.matkar.net
