Israel Matzav: Federal Judge holds Iran and Hezbullah jointly responsible for 9/11 with Al-Qaeda

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Federal Judge holds Iran and Hezbullah jointly responsible for 9/11 with Al-Qaeda

A Federal Judge has found that Iran and Hezbullah assisted al-Qaeda in carrying out the 9/11 attacks (Hat Tip: Zvi S).

The long-awaited ruling came in the cases of Havlish, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., and Bingham, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., lawsuits filed by families of 9/11 victims. The cases provided clear and compelling evidence that Iranian officials at the top levels of the Tehran regime played a key role in planning and facilitating the 9/11 attacks and, even more specifically, that they provided direct and material support to al-Qa’eda without which the attacks could not have taken place. This week, Judge Daniels agreed.

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Based on its last-minute discovery just days before the 2004 publication of its report of thousands of classified intelligence reports that described what the U.S. Intelligence Community knew about the Iran-al-Qa’eda relationship, the Commission called explicitly on the U.S. government to conduct further investigation of that relationship. As of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, however, there was no indication the U.S. government had conducted any such investigation nor did it appear to have any intent or willingness to do so.

So, taking the 9/11 Commission Report as its starting point, the Havlish team undertook that “further investigation,” relying primarily on open source material. In addition, the Havlish attorneys took 25 hours of sworn testimony (filed under seal) from three former Iranian intelligence officers, who described the direct participation of top Iranian government officials and also of Imad Mughniyah, the Hizballah terror chieftain assassinated in February 2008, who was the key liaison for training and terror operations between Iran and al-Qa’eda for many years.

As detailed on pg. 240 of the Commission’s final report, a “senior Hezbollah operative” (Mughniyah) accompanied some of the future 9/11 hijackers on their final airline flights around the Middle East, into and out of Afghanistan, Iran, and Lebanon. In addition to directing Mughniyah’s extensive involvement in recruiting, guiding, and training the hijackers, Iran provided critical material support to those hijackers by ordering its border and passport officials to not stamp their passports when they crossed Iranian territory, thereby ensuring the hijackers eventually could enter the U.S. with “clean” passports.

Nor did Iranian support to al-Qa’eda end with the 9/11 attacks. Top al-Qa’eda leadership, including Usama bin-Laden, family members, and other important commanders such as Saif al-Adl, fleeing the battles of Tora Bora in late 2001-early 2002, found safehaven inside Iran. There, Ayman al-Zawahiri’s decades-long personal relationships with key regime figures, including Iran’s current Defense Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, and a series of Iranian intelligence directors, smoothed the way for hundreds of al-Qa’eda operatives to live and continue directing terror attacks under the protection of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the IRGC’s Qods Force, and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Even after Usama bin-Laden, Saif al-Adl, and others returned to the wilds of the Afghan-Pakistan border region, Iran continued to provide support, training, and weapons (especially IEDs and the lethal EFPs or Explosively Formed Projectiles) to al-Qa’eda terror militias in Iraq and to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Assuming this makes it into the mainstream media, I wonder whether it will have any effect on the willingness of Americans to attack or support an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program.

Labels: 9/11, al-Qaeda, Hezbullah, Imad Mughniyah, Iran, Osama Bin Laden