At least two of the nineteen terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks received financial and logistical support from Saudi officials. The American government, however, has refused to release the evidence implicating them. Now the relatives of the 9/11 victims are suing the government of Saudi Arabia for one trillion dollars. And they want their government to produce that evidence. At the ceremony in New York on September 11, 2026, a victim’s widow, Terry Strada, made an appeal to the American government to finally do so. More on her request, and her furious demand that Saudi Arabia “stop lying,” can be found here: “9/11 widow blasts Saudi Arabia during annual ceremony,” by Avery Lotz, Axios, September 11, 2026:
A widow of a 9/11 victim used the annual reading of the names of those killed to plead with the Trump administration about Saudi Arabian officials’ alleged ties to the terror attack, which the kingdom has dismissed.During the New York City ceremony for 9/11’s 25th anniversary, Terry Strada slammed Saudi Arabia, which Axios’ Barak Ravid reports is actively urging President Trump to assist them with U.S. military action….
“For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada said during the ceremony.
“It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that,” she said. “Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have all been suffering through.”…
During an Oval Office meeting between MBS and Trump last year, an ABC reporter pressed Trump on his family’s Saudi business deals and asked MBS about 9/11 families’ anger and the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In response, Trump blasted ABC as “fake news,” denied being tied to the family business and defended MBS, saying “a lot of people didn’t like” Khashoggi.
Trump’s business ties to Riyadh help explain his stout defense of the Saudis, including his airy dismissal of the Khashoggi murder, and his refusal to release evidence of Saudi officials providing support to two of the hijackers. The people who “didn’t like” Khashoggi murdered him and dismembered the corpse with a bone saw. These were Saudi officials in the consulate in Istanbul. But that doesn’t bother Trump. He likes Muhammad bin Salman, a “strong leader.”
MBS said he felt “painful” about the 9/11 families but argued, “We have to focus on reality, reality based in CIA documents and based on a lot of documents that Osama bin Laden used Saudi people in that event for one main purpose … to destroy the American-Saudi relation[ship].”
No, Osama bin Laden was not out to “destroy the American-Saudi relationship.” He was out to destroy, rather, the United States, as the leader of the Infidels.
The families of the victims need, and deserve, the evidence of Saudi financial and logistical support for two of the hijackers. Will Trump hear the plea, or rather the demand, that Terry Strada and other relatives of the 9/11 victims have made? Right now, when Saudi Arabia is in desperate need of the Americans to defend it from the Houthis, would be a good time to release this evidence.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Good point, Hugh! Full acknowledgement of the Saudi government’s associations w/ 2 of the hijackers, and whatever connections members of that government had w/ them – would be a good line item to have in anything that Riyadh has to do before the US lifts a finger to help them. MbS himself has largely been doing the right things since 2015, when he became crown prince, but he needs to turn over the crooks who either were or still are part of the regime that secretly worked w/ those hijackers
That said, the window for the US to have done anything – during the reign of King Abdullah, who was the ruler at the time – has come and gone. Despite the improvement in Saudi policy, such as removing anti-Jewish and anti-Christian material from their schools, the critical mass of Saudi opinion is still not where it needs to be for MbS to openly & comfortably sign on to the Abraham Accords. Which is why the Saudis scrambled for alternatives, got the Mecca Pact w/ Turkey and Pakistan – which turned out to be a farce. None of their Arab allies, such as Egypt, seem willing to send troops to help them – so far
Which brings them to the US and Israel. Due to them putting immense pressure on Washington during the 40 day war to not attack Iran, Trump’s attitude now, when they’re begging him to do the opposite, is “Naah, we’re good!”. For Israel, the price tag is that the Saudis openly join the Abraham Accords if they want any such favors
All that said, we do need to be mindful of the risks if all these attacks from the Houthis and the Popular Mobilization Front of Iraq bring down the Saudi regime. The inheritors will be either the Wahabis, whose traditional alliance w/ the Saudi royal family ended in 2015, when King Abdullah died and MbS started calling the shots. It will be a shame when at the moment the islamic regime in Iran falls and Iran becomes a secular democracy, that across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia reverts to what it was in the 1990s. Only difference: their budgets are no longer something that would enable them to bankroll jihad activities abroad, unless, say, they deprive their citizens of the welfare regime they have been living under to this day
But yeah, their should be enough pressure on the Saudis to both sign the Abraham Accords and compensate the 9/11 victims, as well as publicly acknowledge their role in it and tender an apology. But there should also be efforts to minimize the damage that the Houthis or the Iraqi proxies can do to Saudi critical infrastructure. Last thing we want is for this monarchy to fall, since the Arabs are not Iranians and will not switch to a secular democracy if the regime collapses
࿗Infidel࿘ says
…or it will be the muslim brotherhood – the parent organization of Hamas, al Qaeda, Jabhat al Nusra, et al. If you liked Hamas bigwigs living the high life in Doha, you’ll love it when they get Saudi Arabia, and can install anti-Israeli bases at Neom
Even worse – it could be a coalition of the muslim brotherhood and the Wahabis
Madeline Brooks says
I can feel the pain and outrage of the 9/11 widow and the others she represents who also lost loved ones. That was her HUSBAND she lost, not just a name. It is shameful that Trump and the administrations before him let Saudi off the hook. True, the Saudis are a bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood, as Infidel mentioned in his comment. But if the US made a truly vigourous and effective crackdown on the MB here at home, it might not matter as much if Saudi went more towards the MB.
Pity that we can’t have as much moral clarity and purpose as the MB. They know what they want: worldwide sharia. We, however, seem to be waffling about what we want.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
As Hugh suggested, now that the US has the Saudis over a barrel, doing justice to the 9/11 survivors can and should be a part of any price tag Saudi gets in lieu of defending them. Or else, they can see more Houthi attempts on Mecca, like the one yesterday
Walter Sieruk says
The Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia in no friend of any Western nation, Saudi Arabia is best defined as a kingdom of Islamic hate.
As one Arab scholar who had lived in a Middle Eastern country, for many years revealed “Saudi madrassa notably teach hatred and condemnation of the West and non-Muslims” and “The Saudi Government also provides free textbooks to Islamic schools throughout the world . many of the Saudi- Issued textbook’s contain wording that encourages hatred and intolerance for non-Muslims.” [1]
Saudi Arabia in many ways is no better than Iran.
[1] THEY MUST BE STOPPED by Brigitte Gabriel, page 106