Survivors of 9/11 Attack Urge May To Release Saudi Arabia Terror Report
Local Editor
Survivors of the 9/11 attacks wrote to British PM Theresa May urging her to make public a government report into the extent of Saudi Arabia's funding of extremism in the UK, The Independent reported.
The report into the significance of financing extremists in Britain by Saudi Arabia and other nations was commissioned by May's predecessor, David Cameron, as part of a deal to obtain political support for a parliamentary vote on UK airstrikes on Syria.
In this respect, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said last week the report was not being published "because of the volume of personal information it contains and for national security reasons".
Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas suggested the refusal to make public the report was linked to a reluctance to criticize the kingdom, with which Britain has long had close strategic and economic ties.
Now, a group representing US survivors of the 9/11 attacks and the relatives of some of the almost 3,000 people who died, has urged May to seize the chance to release the report, even if it is not fully complete.
"The UK now has the unique historic opportunity to stop the killing spree of Wahhabism-inspired terrorists by releasing the UK government's report on terrorism financing in the UK which, according to media reports, places Saudi Arabia at its center of culpability," says the letter, signed by 15 people.
"The longer Saudi Arabia's complicity is hidden from sunlight, the longer terrorism will continue. They must be stopped; but who will stop them? We submit that you are uniquely situated to shine the cleansing light of public consciousness."
The letter further added: "We respectfully urge you to release the report now, finished or unfinished. We ask you to consider all the victims of state-sponsored, Saudi-financed terrorism, their families and their survivors in the UK and all over the world."
Last year, a long-classified section comprising 28 pages that detailed potential Saudi government ties to the attack but which had not been verified, were finally made public.
Earlier this spring, a lawsuit was filed in New York on behalf of the families of 850 individuals who were killed and 1,500 who were injured.
The suit, which was filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York and will be heard US District Judge George Daniels, seeks unspecified monetary damages and says Saudi supported Al-Qaeda in four critical ways - supporting government-linked charities that ran training camps, directly funding Osama Bin Laden's terror group, supporting the hijackers by providing them with passports and, finally, and providing on-the-ground support to the hijackers in the 18 months leading up to the attacks.
"9/11 could not have happened without Saudi Arabia's support for al-Qaeda," said lead lawyer Jim Kreindler.
Many believe Britain and the US share a long history of promoting and using extremists when it has benefited their strategic, economic or military goals. Mark Curtis, the historian and author of Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, wrote recently that Saudi Arabia's role in promoting Wahhabism had been known for decades.
"The British elite is perfectly aware of the insidious role that Saudi Arabia plays in fomenting terrorism," he said. "In October 2014, General Jonathan Shaw, a former Assistant Chief of the Defense Staff, told the Telegraph that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were primarily responsible for the rise of the extremist Islam that inspires Isis [Daesh] terrorists."
This is not the first time that a British government has sought to protect strategic ties with Saudi Arabia by covering up embarrassing or damaging information.
In 2006, Tony Blair halted a major criminal investigation into alleged corruption by the arms company BAE Systems and payments to Saudi officials involved in the Al-Yamamah arms deal, after it was decided continuing the probe would endanger Britain's security - the same excuse cited by Rudd.
Source: The Independent, Edited by website team
