PrairiePundit

  Catherine Herridge @C__Herridge BREAKING: Newly Declassified FBI/CIA Reports Reveal Two Saudi Government Employees “May Have Served As An Advance Team” For 9/11 Hijackers These records challenge the official 9/11 narrative shifting the timeline back to December 1998, almost three years before al-Qaeda terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001 See also:  Operation Encore and the Saudi Connection: A Secret History of the 9/11 Investigation Behind the scenes, a small team of FBI agents spent years trying to solve a stubborn mystery — whether officials from Saudi Arabia, one of Washington’s closest allies, were involved in the worst terror attack in U.S. history. This is their story. ...  The FBI has disputed the idea that foreign-policy considerations significantly influenced its investigation. In interviews, current and former bureau officials and federal prosecutors insisted to us that they never would have hesitated to pursue any Saudi who could ...

 Federalist Wire: ... President Donald Trump capped his high-stakes Gulf tour with a landmark announcement on Thursday, unveiling over $200 billion in commercial agreements between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The deals, struck during the final stop of his regional visit, signal a bold step forward in strengthening America’s economic ties with the Gulf and fostering new opportunities for growth. The UAE agreements follow a wave of significant trade and investment commitments secured earlier in Trump’s trip from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These partnerships are poised to drive job creation, enhance U.S. competitiveness, and fuel innovation across multiple industries. “President Trump continues to advance the interests of the American people, enhancing market access for American exporters to strengthen our economic and national security,” the White House stated. Among the “transformative deals” are major wins for American companies. Boeing and GE Aerospace sealed a $1...

 ISW: Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi threatened senior Saudi officials, warning that the Axis of Resistance would attack Saudi energy assets and infrastructure if Saudi Arabia supports an Israeli attack on Iran, according to anonymous Iranian officials speaking to Reuters.[1] Araghchi traveled to Riyadh on October 9 to discuss the October 7 War with senior Saudi officials.[2] Araghchi said that Iran “sent a clear message” to Saudi Arabia that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias or the Houthis could “respond” if Saudi Arabia supports an Israeli attack.[3] Reuters separately reported that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have told the United States that they will deny Israel use of their respective airspaces to attack Iran, citing three unspecified Gulf sources. The sources added that the Gulf states are pushing the United States to prevent Israel from attacking Iranian energy assets or infrastructure because they fear that such an attack could trigger Ira...

 MSN: For more than two decades, the U.S. position has been that al Qaeda acted alone on September 11th , but a newly public video has raised questions about whether the Saudi government provided crucial assistance to the hijackers during the 9/11 terror attacks. Omar al-Bayoumi, whom the FBI says was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service with close ties to two of the 9/11 hijackers, can be heard on the video, which was unsealed in federal court this week and obtained by 60 Minutes. The 1999 video was taken within 90 days of the time when senior al Qaeda planners were deciding on 9/11 targets, Richard Lambert, a retired FBI agent who led the initial 9/11 investigation in San Diego, said. ... "It is another very large brick in a massive wall of evidence that at this point indicates the Saudi government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks," Lambert said. ... Bayoumi filmed the video over the course of several days. It shows entrances and exits of the U.S. Capitol along ...

 The Lid: It’s bad enough that the Biden administration has responded so weakly to Saudi Arabia’s massacres of African migrants. But now it turns out that U.S. officials have been covering up what they knew and when they knew it. Last week, the  New York Times  reported that since last October, the administration has been aware that Saudi Arabian border guards have slaughtered “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of unarmed African civilians. U.S. officials responded that they found out about it only in December. But now, in response to public pressure, the State Department has admitted that it knew about the killings months earlier—in the summer of 2022. The administration also acknowledges that the U.S. has been training Saudi border security forces. However, it claims the training was provided only to maritime guards, not the border guards carrying out the killings. Human rights groups say the unarmed African migrants approached the Saudi border hoping to find work or receive...

 Insider: A senior Saudi Arabian official celebrated the country's decision to defy the US last year and cut its output of oil, cementing a new Saudi approach to world affairs that is unafraid to upset the White House. Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan made the comment at the Davos economic summit in Switzerland on Wednesday. He addressed the diplomatic spat that erupted with the US last October after the Saudis announced alongside Russia that they would cut oil production. At the time, the Biden administration believed it had secured a secret deal with the Saudis to boost production in a bid to cut inflation, a key domestic priority for Biden. US officials and top Democrats were enraged by the Saudi decision, and two countries — ostensibly allies — exchanged accusations and insults. Saudi Arabia has always insisted it made the decision for economic reasons. "Energy security is absolutely key. And here what we feel in the kingdom is that stability is absolutely the key...

 The Hill: Saudi Arabia has warned the United States of an imminent Iranian attack on targets in the kingdom and in Iraq, with the U.S. military now on heightened alert, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Riyadh shared intelligence with Washington indicating the elevated danger, causing Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and other neighboring countries to raise the alert level for their military forces, Saudi and U.S. officials told the Journal. Asked about the report later Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said he would not talk about specific force protection levels but that U.S. officials “do remain concerned about the threat situation in the region.” “We’re in regular contact with our Saudi partners in terms of what information they may have to provide on that front,” Ryder told reporters. “But what we’ve said before, and I’ll repeat it, is that we will reserve the right to protect and defend ourselves no matter where our forces are serving, whether in Iraq or ...

 Jeff Dunetz: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not pleased with President Biden and is doing whatever it can to make him look foolish (even though he often does that himself) Despite its long record of Human Rights violations, the U.S. has had a good relationship with the Saudis as they have great power in OPEC and are the leader of the Gulf Sunni Islam states. The top Saudi leadership feels the Biden administration does not show them the respect they deserve and makes decisions that put them in grave danger. At one of the Democratic primary  debates, Biden  slammed the Saudis for something that should have been said privately to prevent embarrassment. “I would make it very clear we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them, We were going to in fact make them pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are.” Biden also said there is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” and, in reference to Yemen, said he wou...

 Intelligencer: Did Saudi Arabia Just Hand the Midterms to the GOP? The piece contains a litany of Democrat politicians who are angry with the Saudis and also accepts the Democrat canard that Biden has not been reducing US productions when he very clearly has been from day one. He is still blocking production in some federally controlled sites.  The piece also pushes the Big Green agenda of reducing consumption which clearly does not make the US an energy powerhouse.  Green energy is clearly unreliable and it has driven up the cost in states that rely on it. What Europe is learning in spades right now is that Green energy is not the answer nor is a dependency on imports.  Democrats are dead wrong about energy and they deserve the coming shellacking.  We also know that Biden is using the strategic petroleum reserve to lower prices for the mid-term and I do not think that is going to work especially since it clearly makes the US even more vulnerable to his goofy r...

It is hard to see how this will have any positive impact on the price at the pump.

 Jeff Dunetz: On September 13, 2020 twenty-two months ago  President Trump announced the first of the Abraham Accords deals. The UAE agreed to recognize Israel, exchange diplomats, and begin economic cooperation. Over the next four months,  Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan were added to the list of countries making peace with the Jewish State, and we were told that other countries wanted to hop on the peace train. Despite what he has said as he was about to depart for the Middle East the Biden Administration destroyed any chance of expanding the Abraham Accords because he rejected all the strategies that enabled the accords. Instead, he’s returned to the decades-long land-for-peace strategy that failed for Presidents of both the Republican and Democratic Parties, The Abraham Accord negotiations were successful because of “out of the box” thinking. Biden and his team (many with an  anti-Israel history ) has crawled back into the box. The Abraham Accords moderated by Trump ...

 Andrea Widburg: For a long time, Saudi Arabia was one of the intellectual homes of antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment.  The Wahhabi clerics whom the Saudi royal house supported held a special animus for Jews, and that animus infused education in Saudi Arabia.  Now, though, Saudi Arabia is backing away from this hostility to Israel, and its textbooks are reflecting the increasingly friendly relationship between the two nations. Two things are responsible for the change to that dynamic.  The first was that Barack Obama worked hard to set Iran on the road to being a nuclear power, something that terrified Saudi Arabia and pushed it closer to Israel.  The second was Trump's Abraham Accords, which sidelined the troublesome Palestinians and encouraged Muslim nations in the Middle East to make separate peace agreements with Israel for both profit and national security. While Saudi Arabia never officially entered into an Abraham Accords agreement...

  Hot Air: Pariah pilgrimage: Biden to beg Saudis for more oil in person This is just too idiotic to comprehend.  Biden restricts the US and world supply of oil to drive up the price so we have to pay more to import it at great cost while also burning epic amounts to get it here.  Americans are reminded of the Biden idiocy every time they go by a gas station.

This is actually quite funny and pretty close to the mark.  There is a reason the Saudis won't take Biden's calls.

 DailyWire: A group of Iranian-backed extremists, which Democrat President Joe Biden removed from the official Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list, claimed credit on Friday for an attack on Saudi energy facilities. “At (1725), Saudi Aramco’s Bulk Plant in Jeddah was targeted with an act of aggression, the early indications of which suggest that it was targeted by the terrorist, Iran-backed Houthi militia,” the Saudi Press Agency said in a statement. “A fire erupted in (2) tanks in the oil facility; the fire was controlled, and no injuries or loss of life were recorded. This hostile escalation targets oil facilities, and aims to undermine energy security and the backbone of global economy. These hostile attacks had no impact or repercussions in any way, shape or form on public life in Jeddah City.” The attacks came as Jeddah is hosting the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which will go ahead as planned this weekend. The Houthi extremists later claimed responsibility fo...