Washington, Sept 3 (ANI): Individuals who carried out attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, relied heavily on a domestic support network to facilitate the plot, it has emerged.
The findings of an 18-month investigation by Fox's Specials Unit, called the 'Secrets of 9/11' showed that declassified documents, exclusive interviews, phone and banking records indicated how 9/11 hijackers used domestic support network to carry out the attack.
It showed that some members of the suspected Al Qaeda support network entered America nearly a decade before the attacks and that others are still living in plain sight.
According to the report, the House Homeland Security Committee launched a congressional investigation into the Mexico-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his likely role as a 9/11 facilitator.
Former Senator Bob Graham told Fox that he was always troubled by the hijackers- Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi's so-called chance meeting with a Saudi called Omar al-Bayoumi who was connected to al-Awlaki.
Bayoumi claimed to meet al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar by accident at a Los Angeles Middle Eastern restaurant in January 2000.
Graham believed the 'chance' meeting between the hijackers and the Saudi was planned.
"My assumption is that the one-hour meeting with Bayoumi, he was directed to go to this restaurant and that the two hijackers had similarly been directed to go to the restaurant so that they would have this opportunity to meet and discuss the possibility of relocating to San Diego," Graham said.
Eleanor Hill, the chief of staff for the Joint Congressional Inquiry said that there is little doubt al-Awlaki, using his mosque as a base, along with his associates, facilitated the hijackers in San Diego in 2000.
A year later, the same pattern was repeated in Fall Church at al-Awlaki's new mosque, the report said.
"There was a lot of smoke. There was a lot of connection between al-Awlaki and the two hijackers in California. They go to the mosque that al-Awlaki is at, just as in California, you have an associate of al-Awlaki taking them around and helping them get settled," he added.
'Secrets of 9/11' documents how phone records link the fax number for al-Awlaki's Virginia mosque to one of the 9/11 conspirators on trial at Guantanamo Bay.
According to the report, bank records also showed hijacker Hani Hanjour forwarded his utility deposit from Arizona to the same Falls Church mosque after his pilot training concluded in March 2001. (ANI)
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