A 9/11 widow publicly confronted Saudi Arabia and every living U.S. president during Friday’s 25th‑anniversary memorial, demanding long‑withheld answers about alleged Saudi links to the attacks. Her remarks reignited a long‑running fight over transparency, federal investigations, and the still‑unresolved questions surrounding Saudi nationals who interacted with two hijackers. The confrontation places new pressure on the Trump administration, Congress, and federal agencies as families push for declassification, accountability, and progress in the civil lawsuit against the Kingdom.
The moment unfolded as Terry Strada, whose husband Tom died in the World Trade Center, accused multiple administrations of “protecting the Saudis instead of standing with the families.” Her comments echoed years of frustration from victims’ relatives who say critical FBI records—especially those involving Omar al‑Bayoumi, a Saudi national who assisted two hijackers—remain inaccessible or insufficiently examined. Families say the lack of clarity has persisted for a quarter‑century despite new evidence, declassified documents, and ongoing federal litigation. Twenty‑five years later, one of the most‑searched questions tied to Saudi Arabia remains the simplest: who were the hijackers?
Fifteen of the 19 men who carried out the attacks were Saudi nationals, a fact long cited by families demanding deeper scrutiny of Saudi networks in the United States. Official U.S. findings—including the 9/11 Commission Report—concluded that the Saudi government did not fund the plot. However, those same investigations acknowledged that individual Saudi nationals in California provided logistical help to Nawaf al‑Hazmi and Khalid al‑Mihdhar, the first two hijackers to arrive in the U.S.
That distinction—between government responsibility and individual assistance—has fueled decades of debate. Families argue that the federal government has not fully explained how two men with limited English, no U.S. contacts, and no familiarity with American life were able to integrate so quickly after landing in Los Angeles in January 2000. Their path through San Diego, and the Saudi figures they encountered there, remains central to the ongoing lawsuit and to renewed public scrutiny.
The ProPublica investigation into Omar al‑Bayoumi—published this week and based on newly surfaced FBI records—has intensified questions about the FBI’s handling of Saudi suspects. Bayoumi, a Saudi graduate student living in San Diego, helped Hazmi and Mihdhar secure housing, open a bank account, and settle into the community. For years, the FBI insisted this was an innocent coincidence.
But documents now filed in federal court show Bayoumi was a Saudi intelligence co‑optee, receiving a monthly stipend from the Kingdom’s intelligence service. British police seized boxes of evidence from Bayoumi’s home in 2001, including a handwritten diagram appearing to calculate an airplane’s trajectory and a videotape of him touring the U.S. Much of that material was not shared with field agents investigating the hijackers, and some was nearly destroyed before Encore investigators intervened.
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