The Saudi cutout and the CIA shadow over 9/11
As Riyadh fights 9/11 families in US courts, buried intelligence testimony points beyond the kingdom to a far more protected hand.
By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | September 10, 2026
On the eve of 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported that a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Yet evidence alleging that Saudi intelligence managed two future hijackers as potential assets and did so through a “liaison relationship” with the CIA has lain largely unexamined in plain sight. As scrutiny of Riyadh grows, the agency’s shadow remains almost entirely outside the frame.
Bayoumi has long been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival in the US in January 2000.
A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, concluded there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi (and the House of Saud by extension) had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.
Far less attention followed a year later, when a bombshell filing lodged in the Office of Military Commissions – the military court system overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – surfaced publicly.
The document summarizes classified government discovery disclosures and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents set out confidential-source allegations that the CIA sought to recruit at least Hazmi and Mihdhar, if not others who later participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate.
The declaration also alleges that the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavored “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington, D.C., embassy. According to the filing’s sources, probing those connections risked exposing the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID) as a CIA “cutout” in its clandestine dealings with the future hijackers.
High-ranking FBI officials quoted in the filing discuss how the GID was a longstanding CIA “proxy,” exploited by the agency whenever it was “unwise or not practical … to undertake an operation directly.”
This need was particularly pronounced in the context of cloak-and-dagger CIA connivances conducted “on US soil.” After 25 years, it appears Riyadh could finally take the fall for a dastardly CIA operation that one way or another resulted in 9/11. As planned, there is little chance of the agency itself landing in the dock.
‘CIA team’
Among the court filing’s most dynamite excerpts is the insider testimony of an FBI special agent, who was posted to Alec Station – the CIA’s Al-Qaeda tracking unit, ultimately responsible for recruiting Hazmi and Mihdhar as assets.
When, in January 2000, the special agent learned the pair – known Al-Qaeda operatives under intensive CIA and NSA surveillance – had multi-entry visas to the US, they produced a report warning Bureau headquarters. Its dispatch was blocked by an unnamed CIA analyst.
According to the agent’s account, the same analyst directed the GID to make contact with Hazmi and Mihdhar upon their arrival, then falsely told subsequent US government inquiries that the FBI had been informed of the pair’s presence in the US.
The agent also alleged having witnessed CIA director George Tenet and operations director James Pavitt boast about how they “conspired to obstruct the 9/11 Commission” by concealing the analyst’s activities and identity from investigators.
In the process, an extraordinary, hitherto unreported component of Riyadh’s relationship with the hijackers remained determinedly unexplored. The FBI special agent alleged Hazmi and Mihdhar were explicitly provided US visas by the American consulate in Jeddah, “to facilitate the operation run by the Saudis’ GID and the CIA team.”
This disclosure is all the more tantalizing given that 15 of the 19 hijackers obtained a total of 18 visas in Saudi Arabia. Fourteen were issued at the US consulate in Jeddah, 11 of them by a single consular officer, Shayna Steinger. Many of the applications were incomplete or contained details that should have invited far greater scrutiny.
Steinger arrived at the Jeddah consulate in July 2000, fresh out of Columbia University, and went on to approve visa applications for 11 future hijackers. At the time, consular officers in Jeddah were divided over how rigorously Saudi applicants should be screened. Some argued that young Saudi men should be interviewed and required to demonstrate a clear purpose for travel, but the consulate generally followed a more permissive approach.
However, Steinger personally took it upon herself to reverse this policy. Moreover, she issued visas to future 9/11 hijackers despite their applications frequently being incomplete or error-strewn, based on forged documents, and their contents giving ample grounds for suspicion.
Steinger nonetheless interviewed Hani Hanjour, who purportedly piloted Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon. Afterward, she rejected his application for a three-year US visa, due to apparent doubts over his stated purposes in the country. Nonetheless, Steinger approved Hanjour’s renewed application two weeks later.
In ensuing official investigations, she offered wildly contradictory accounts of why the hijackers’ visas were granted. In Hanjour’s case, Steinger initially claimed he provided requested supporting documentation.
She subsequently admitted he actually hadn’t, but Hanjour’s “middle-class” background purportedly led her to conclude he was trustworthy.
If the court filing’s account is accurate, future 9/11 hijackers were granted entry to the US so the CIA could recruit them upon arrival, raising the troubling possibility that Steinger was acting on Agency instructions.
A network hidden in plain sight
Once Hazmi and Mihdhar touched down in Los Angeles in January 2000, almost immediately they crossed paths with Omar Bayoumi at an airport restaurant. FBI reports cited in the court filing indicate a witness who observed their meeting saw Bayoumi “dropping a piece of paper” near the pair’s table, “then striking up a conversation with them” in a manner that appeared “unnatural.” The witness relayed this account to the Bureau in 2002, but it was never publicized.
In interviews with Operation Encore investigators years later, Bayoumi maintained that his meeting with Hazmi and Mihdhar was pure happenstance. The extraordinary assistance he gave them immediately thereafter – including finding them an apartment, co-signing their lease, setting up bank accounts for them, and gifting them substantial sums toward their rent – was simply charity for fellow Muslims who could barely speak English and were unfamiliar with western culture, Bayoumi asserted. But the filing offers numerous striking insights into the dark reality of his contact with the future hijackers.
For example, it appears Bayoumi was secretly instructed to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles by extremist cleric and Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs official Fahad Thumairy.
The filing cites evidence indicating Bayoumi was himself in California “to spy on local dissidents” of Saudi extraction. He was seen with the two 9/11 hijackers “on numerous occasions,” going to the extent of organizing “a social gathering for the hijackers.” We can only guess who may also have been in attendance.
Another stunning exposure in the filing concerns Hazmi and Mihdhar lodging with long-time FBI informant and asset Abdussattar Shaikh from September 2000 onwards. Shaikh failing to provide their surnames to his handler despite being asked has been known for many years.
The joint congressional and Senate intelligence committee probe into 9/11 ruled the pair’s stay with Shaikh was “the [US] intelligence community’s best chance to unravel the September 11 plot.” Insulating Hazmi and Midhar from Bureau scrutiny may have been his explicit objective.
The filing indicates he himself “was receiving funds” from Riyadh, while simultaneously serving as an FBI informant. “Prominent” Saudis “would stay at Shaikh’s boarding house while visiting California,” it states.
His mission was “to monitor the activities of [Saudi] citizens while they were abroad.” Hani Hanjour also stayed with Shaikh alongside Hazmi, after Mihdhar returned to Saudi Arabia in late 2000. It appears that at every stage Stateside, the hijackers were in intimate proximity with figures connected to Saudi intelligence.
If the filing’s account that the GID was acting on the CIA’s behalf is accurate, this contact raises the obvious prospect that the agency – via its Riyadh “proxy” – was directly monitoring the movements of Hazmi, Mihdhar, and Hanjour – if not other Saudi-born hijackers – from the moment they entered the US at the agency’s direction, until 9/11 itself.
How far the CIA could have tracked or influenced their actions and movements remains unknown. The proximity described in the filing nevertheless demands an explanation.
The files Langley kept from the FBI
The established record shows that Alec Station repeatedly withheld the presence of Hazmi and Mihdhar in the US from the FBI until it was too late. The filing records how in June 2001 Station representatives showed senior Bureau officials photographs of three Al-Qaeda operatives, including Hazmi and Mihdhar.
However, the CIA refused to answer questions about the individuals in the photos, or provide identifying information. Had it done so, the FBI could have readily found Hazmi and Mihdhar’s names and addresses listed in San Diego’s local phone directory.
This was a flagrant dangle, obviously intended to gauge the Bureau’s knowledge of the identities of the individuals pictured, and their presence in the US. The filing also indicates the FBI conducted a dedicated counterintelligence investigation into Bayoumi prior to 9/11, due to suspicions that “he was operating as an intelligence officer.” Yet, when the Bureau contacted the CIA for information on Bayoumi, they were told the agency “held no files” on him at all – a “falsehood.”
In reality, the CIA maintained plentiful “operational” records on Bayoumi, which were “never passed to the FBI.” Such brazen stonewalling persisted long after 9/11. Upon learning tens of thousands of dollars had been sent from Haifa bin Faisal, wife of Saudi ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan, to Bayoumi’s wife, the Bureau attempted to subpoena their financial records from Washington, D.C.’s Riggs Bank. Per the filing, “officials at Riggs thwarted the FBI’s efforts to obtain the records for a year.”
Riggs Bank, which counted US presidents and CIA-installed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as clients, collapsed amid major money laundering scandals in 2005. Post-9/11 investigations identified financial improprieties in accounts held by several wealthy Saudis – including a lack of required background checks and consistent failure to alert regulators over large transactions violating federal banking laws.
Riggs’s downfall precisely mirrors the unceremonious end of many confirmed CIA front banks past, such as Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which assisted criminal cloak-and-dagger connivances including Iran/Contra.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the filing records how “diplomatic pressure” was exerted on the FBI not to investigate Riyad’s myriad connections to 9/11. Bureau agents testifying to the joint inquiry into the attacks were moreover “instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Qaeda.”
Senior officials at FBI headquarters knew “of both Bayoumi’s affiliation with Saudi intelligence and … the existence of the CIA’s operation to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar,” but “suppressed investigations” into these burning matters.
The filing concludes by noting Bayoumi was subsequently arrested in Britain on immigration charges immediately after 9/11, with authorities finding “extremist literature in his apartment.” The significance of this disclosure has gone entirely unnoticed since 2022.
Only now, as a result of the New York court case, has the media acknowledged how, within days of the attacks, “game-changing” evidence directly implicating Bayoumi in 9/11 was seized from his British home by counterterror police, then shared with the FBI, which British investigators say failed to provide crucial information in return.
The evidence Britain could not pursue
The seized material reportedly included a phonebook listing over two dozen Saudi government officials in the US and Saudi Arabia; flight simulator software; tickets and travel documents; and a notepad featuring a sketch of an aircraft.
An accompanying note from a British counterterrorism officer stated of the latter: “contains handwritten notes mathematical calculations re height of planes.” A member of the 9/11 families’ legal team behind the court action told BBC, “it’s the mathematical calculation of the [Pentagon] crash.”
By 22 September 2001, this seemingly incontrovertible windfall was in the Bureau’s possession. So too were highly illuminating home video tapes of Bayoumi roaming around Washington, D.C. in 1999, highlighting security measures in place at the Capitol building, openly discussing nearby Reagan National Airport, and referencing an unspecified “plan” on camera. Other tapes feature Bayoumi in close quarters with senior Al-Qaeda figures such as US-born cleric Anwar Awlaki, assassinated in a September 2011 US drone strike in Yemen.
While British detectives apparently believed the evidence could support an extradition request, the FBI did not supply the material needed to sustain one. Bayoumi was released after seven days without charge and later returned to Saudi Arabia.
The US response takes on darker significance alongside allegations that the CIA used its Saudi liaison to approach Hazmi and Mihdhar while withholding their presence from the FBI.
It does, however, strengthen the case for investigating whether an aborted recruitment operation was concealed after ending in catastrophe. Media reluctance to examine the filing’s “proxy” allegations ensures that question remains safely outside the courtroom.
We must ask ourselves whether the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which permitted the families of 9/11 victims to sue Riyadh in US courts, was purposefully passed to keep the House of Saud in line.
Successive Saudi governments have fought tooth and nail to overturn the legislation, while released correspondence indicates that Saudi representatives sought help from convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to lobby for its repeal behind closed doors.
JASTA proved controversial in some quarters, with some critics warning it could trigger reciprocal legislation in foreign countries, given criminal US activities abroad. Legal experts argued it undercut the principle of sovereign immunity.
The plaintiffs’ evidence may yet establish that Saudi officials provided material support to the hijackers. The military filing raises a separate and more dangerous question: whether some of those officials were acting as a CIA cutout in their dealings with future 9/11 hijackers.
But the CIA is not a defendant in the civil action, and Bayoumi is not personally on trial. The state-secrets privilege has repeatedly shielded the agency’s clandestine operations from meaningful judicial scrutiny.
Unless the alleged liaison channel is examined, the Saudi case may expose one layer of the 9/11 support network while leaving the most protected layer untouched.
US tanker strikes fail to deter Iran, drain interceptors: Bloomberg
Al Mayadeen| September 10, 2026
US attacks on Iranian oil tankers have failed to prevent further Iranian missile operations against American naval forces, while repeated strikes are forcing Washington to expend costly and increasingly scarce air-defense interceptors, Bloomberg reported.
The report examined the limits of Washington’s policy of attacking Iranian tankers in response to operations targeting US warships, noting that the strategy has so far failed to establish the deterrence sought by the Trump administration.
US Central Command claimed it destroyed eight Iranian tankers over recent days following two Iranian missile attacks against US Navy vessels.
Washington has presented the attacks on the tankers as a punitive measure aimed at raising the cost of targeting US forces. Analysts cited by Bloomberg, however, said the calculation may favor Tehran, particularly as Iran can continue threatening vastly more expensive US naval assets while forcing American vessels to consume large quantities of defensive missiles.
US retaliation fails to halt Iranian operations
Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, said the possibility of successfully striking a US naval vessel could outweigh the losses Iran incurs from American attacks on its tanker fleet.
“A successful hit would send the message that US naval forces cannot operate with impunity, giving Tehran something it could portray both domestically and internationally as a success,” Grieco said. “Losing the tankers certainly hurts, but Tehran may well think it is worth it.”
US tanker strikes fail to halt Iranian operations
Significantly, Bloomberg noted that an earlier wave of US attacks on Iranian tankers did not prevent Tehran from subsequently launching further operations against American warships.
The latest confrontations are unfolding amid Washington’s continued naval blockade targeting Iranian oil exports and renewed tensions over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz following the expiration of the previous ceasefire arrangement.
Iran has sought to enforce restrictions on maritime traffic through the strategic waterway as the United States continues its campaign aimed at choking off Tehran’s oil revenues.
Rubio vows to continue tanker retaliation
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio nevertheless defended Washington’s policy on Tuesday, signaling that the administration intends to continue attacking Iranian tankers in retaliation for operations against US vessels.
“When they try to hit US naval ships, they will get hit themselves,” Rubio told reporters. “The back and forth is pretty straightforward. For every time they do that, or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.”
Meanwhile, Bloomberg stressed that Iran can still impose substantial costs on the US Navy even when incoming missiles are intercepted.
Iran operations drain costly US interceptor arsenal
The Pentagon has said that many of the weapons launched toward US vessels were ballistic missiles, although Washington has not disclosed the exact missiles involved or the defensive systems used during the latest confrontations.
American warships depend on several layers of missile defenses, including SM-3 Block IIA interceptors, SM-6 missiles, and short-range Rolling Airframe Missiles.
According to Bloomberg, a single SM-3 interceptor produced by Raytheon costs roughly $15 million, while each SM-6 costs around $5 million.
Cost imbalance favors repeated Iranian attacks
Iranian missiles are believed to cost substantially less and can be produced more readily than the advanced interceptors Washington must expend to defeat them, creating a widening cost imbalance with every new attack.
Becca Wasser, defense lead for Bloomberg Economics, said repeated missile operations can therefore benefit Tehran even without producing a direct hit on a US vessel.
The same challenge previously emerged during US naval confrontations with Yemen’s Ansar Allah. Wasser said the Yemeni Armed Forces launched around 480 relatively basic cruise missiles toward US Navy vessels between November 2024 and January 2025, compelling Washington to expend billions of dollars’ worth of defensive weapons.
US struggles to replenish interceptor stockpiles
Heavy interceptor consumption during the ongoing US war on Iran has further compounded the problem, with Washington and its allies already struggling to replenish air-defense stockpiles.
“The sheer amount of air-defense interceptors consumed in every attack continues to be unsustainable,” Wasser said. “The US risks running bare, and the continued costs on US stockpiles may lead Washington to reevaluate its approach.”
The assessment highlights a broader vulnerability facing US naval forces: Tehran does not necessarily have to penetrate American defenses in order to inflict strategic costs.
Tanker strikes fail to establish deterrence
By compelling US warships to repeatedly launch multimillion-dollar interceptors, Iranian operations can steadily erode American missile inventories, increase the financial burden of maintaining the US naval presence, and place additional pressure on already strained Western defense production.
Meanwhile, Washington’s destruction of Iranian tankers has yet to demonstrate that it can prevent Tehran from continuing operations against US forces, raising further questions over the sustainability of the Trump administration’s attempt to impose deterrence through attacks on Iranian maritime assets.
Yemeni Official Underlines Safety of Navigation after Expelling of Pro-Saudi Mercenaries from Coastal Areas
Al-Manar | September 10, 2026
The head of the national negotiating delegation, Mohammad Abdulsalam, confirmed that freedom of navigation and the flow of international trade in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait are safe and smooth, urging everyone not to be concerned.
In a statement, Abdulsalam explained that the ongoing operations have specific targets as previously announced and fall within a defensive framework. He noted that once the aggression against Yemen stops and the blockade is lifted, current operations will cease. He pointed out that the actions taken by the Yemeni Armed Forces in some coastal areas were a national operation aimed at enforcing Yemeni sovereignty and addressing challenges and ambitions that threaten internal peace.
He highlighted that a true, just, and honorable peace was and will remain their strategic choice, emphasizing that everyone must realize that choosing peace with Yemen is the least costly and shortest path toward reorganizing relations based on the principles of good-neighborliness, mutual respect, and shared interests.
He also stressed that the Republic of Yemen harbors no ambitions against any neighboring, Arab, Islamic, or other country worldwide, and has not aggressed against any state; rather, it is the party that was attacked in a manner contrary to Islamic and Arab brotherhood.
For his part, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Abdulwahed Abu Ras, confirmed that maritime navigation is safe. In a statement to the Yemeni News Agency (SABA), Abu Ras said: “Maritime navigation is safe, and navigational security has no connection to the skirmishes that were quelled in the West Coast districts.”
Additionally, the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOCC) in Yemen announced to all international shipping companies that navigation in the Red Sea is safe for all companies, with the exception of the previous ban on Saudi vessels.
Yemeni forces recapture strategic port city of Mokha from Saudi-backed troops
The Cradle | September 10, 2026
The Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) captured the southwestern port city of Mokha on 10 September, in a lightning advance that comes after heavy losses were inflicted by the YAF on Saudi Arabia and its proxies inside Yemen.
Reuters cited sources as saying that Mokha fell to YAF troops on Thursday.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Sanaa also reported that Ansarallah-led YAF forces have “achieved a stunning victory against the internationally recognized Yemeni government forces.”
“The city has been taken. [Internationally recognized, Saudi-backed] government forces have fully withdrawn all of their military divisions,” local sources told the correspondent.
The YAF now has “full advantage to prevent ships from crossing Bab al-Mandab and also … the ability to cut off three main supply lines to the government in the south of the country,” according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent.
Ansarallah-led forces lost Mokha in 2017 in battles against Saudi and Emirati-backed forces.
The recapture comes after a major YAF mobilization that began earlier this year, aimed at expelling Saudi-backed forces and what remains of Emirati-supported militias.
It also follows major losses inflicted on Saudi-backed troops in Yemen, belonging to the Saudi-backed, Aden-based Presidential Leadership Council (PLC).
President of Yemen’s Sanaa government Mahdi al-Mashat released a statement hours before the recapture of Mokha, vowing amnesty for all Saudi-backed fighters who lay down their arms.
A statement on YAF official media, released early on Thursday, said Mashat issued “a presidential amnesty for all those who were deceived into fighting on the Western Coast fronts, provided they lay down their arms and return to their senses.”
The statement directed “the local authorities in the governorates of Hodeidah and Taiz to make the necessary arrangements to implement the amnesty.”
A day earlier, new Yemeni missile strikes hit Saudi military and energy infrastructure inside the kingdom. These sites have been under heavy Yemeni attacks in recent days.
Sanaa’s recent escalation of retaliatory operations was prompted by Saudi Arabia’s July attack on Sanaa International Airport, which has been under blockade by the kingdom for more than a decade since Riyadh launched its brutal war on Yemen in 2015 at the head of an Arab coalition.
A 2023 Saudi–Yemeni peace process nearly resulted in an agreement between the two sides.
The peace talks stalled but prevented a major escalation from erupting. Yet the kingdom has continued attacks for years and its illegal and deadly blockade of Yemeni ports and airports.
Sanaa has been heavily mobilizing and has vowed to expel the Saudi-led coalition from Yemen.
“The continued Saudi aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered or unpunished. The Saudi enemy must bear the consequences of its crimes against the Yemeni people,” Yemeni army spokesman Yahya Saree said on Monday following several military operations.
Algeria cuts ties with UAE over interference, destabilization
The Cradle | September 10, 2026
Algeria announced on 10 September that it will sever its diplomatic relations with the UAE in response to “provocative or hostile actions” and after “exhausting all means to preserve bilateral relations.”
The Algerian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the government had decided to “sever diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates” after exercising “great restraint and a high sense of responsibility.”
The statement said Algiers had repeatedly warned Abu Dhabi of the “grave consequences” if such actions persisted.
The ministry reported that the UAE ambassador to Algeria was officially informed of the decision and given a 48-hour deadline to comply.
Last year, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune described his country’s relations as warm with all Gulf states except one, in a veiled reference to the UAE.
He described relations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar as “fraternal,” while accusing the unnamed country of interfering in Algeria’s internal affairs and seeking to destabilize it.
Tensions escalated in February when Algeria began proceedings to cancel an air services agreement with the UAE signed in Abu Dhabi in May 2013.
The cancellation came amid reports that the UAE was seeking to support the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a separatist group in northern Algeria, which Algiers considers a terrorist organization.
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated in recent years amid the UAE’s efforts to destabilize states and fuel civil wars across West Asia and North Africa in partnership with Israel.
In April 2024, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune referred to the UAE when he stated that, “Wherever there is conflict, the money of this state [the Emirates] is there – in Mali, Libya, and Sudan.”
The UAE has also strongly backed Morocco in its bid to annex Western Sahara, while Algeria supports the Polisario Front, which fights for self-determination in the territory.
The UAE also supported Morocco’s normalization with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords, which Algeria opposed.
Since gaining independence from France in 1962, Algeria has consistently supported the Palestinian cause, in part due to both countries’ shared history of resisting foreign colonial occupation.
Algiers cut ties with Morocco after Rabat normalized relations with Israel under US auspices in December 2020, viewing the deal as a direct threat to Algeria’s borders and security.
“Morocco’s military exercises with Israel contradict the principles of good neighborliness that we have always tried to uphold,” stated President Tebboune in an interview with French media.
Russia, China clash with West at UNSC over legality of Iran ‘snapback’ sanctions
Press TV – September 10, 2026
Russia and China have opposed the activation of the so-called snapback mechanism against Iran at a UN Security Council meeting, warning that Western attempts to reactivate the relevant UN sanctions regime would only further heighten divisions and undermine multilateral diplomacy.
The five permanent members of the Security Council engaged in a fierce procedural battle on Thursday over the legal validity of international sanctions against Tehran.
At the heart of the dispute is the “snapback” provision embedded in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was originally designed to automatically restore UN Chapter VII sanctions in the event of significant Iranian non-compliance, deliberately bypassing the veto power of permanent council members.
Despite fierce objections from Moscow and Beijing, the council voted 11-2 in favor of adopting the provisional agenda, with two abstentions.
Under UN rules, procedural votes require a minimum of nine affirmative votes and cannot be blocked by a permanent member’s veto.
‘Legal mandate expired’
Both Russia and China stressed that the legal framework for the snapback mechanism no longer exists.
They emphasized that UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA, officially expired on October 18, 2025.
Consequently, the nonproliferation agenda item regarding Iran was struck from the council’s list of active issues on that same day.
The Russian representative stated that because the resolution has expired, there are no legal or procedural grounds to reactivate the 1737 sanctions committee, which ceased to exist in 2015.
Moscow dismissed Western claims and UN Secretariat conclusions supporting the snapback as “biased and erroneous.”
China echoed the sentiments, expressing “grave concern” and “strong opposition” to the West’s maneuvers.
Beijing warned that forcing the reimposition of sanctions and convening meetings under a defunct agenda item would seriously impede any chances of a political settlement to the Iranian nuclear issue.
China called on all council members to respect the termination date outlined in Resolution 2231 to preserve the authority of the Security Council and the credibility of multilateral diplomacy.
Western powers defend sanctions regime
Western delegations, however, firmly rejected the Russian and Chinese legal challenges, insisting that the sanctions have been legitimately revived following Iran’s alleged breaches of the nuclear deal.
“The United Kingdom, with France and Germany, initiated the snapback mechanism in full accordance with Security Council Resolution 2231,” the British representative stated, arguing that the European troika (E3) acted in response to Iran’s “significant non-performance” under the 2015 pact.
London maintained that the snapback process officially concluded on September 28, 2025, keeping six Chapter VII resolutions in effect.
The US representative took a harder line, accusing Moscow and Beijing of attempting to undermine council decisions merely to shield Tehran.
“Regardless of such politically driven matters, the facts are the facts. The 1737 Committee exists,” the American diplomat asserted, pointing to recent IAEA reports claiming Iran remains non-compliant with its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.
Tehran has consistently condemned the European troika’s actions, viewing the snapback maneuver as a politically motivated stunt orchestrated by Washington rather than a legitimate diplomatic tool.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei previously lashed out at the E3, describing their move as an act of “stubbornness” carried out to fulfill US orders without rational calculation.
He said that Britain, France, and Germany damaged their own credibility as parties to the JCPOA by misusing the snapback mechanism.
Baghaei emphasized that the E3’s illegal maneuver caused confusion within the UN system and creates no legal obligations for member states.
“In line with the preservation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, we expect countries to refrain from complying with the three European countries’ move, which is considered a form of imposition on the structure of the Security Council,” he said.
Washington demands NATO allies help ‘systematically dismantle’ ICC: Report
The Cradle | September 10, 2026
Washington is pressing its NATO allies to help “systematically dismantle” the International Criminal Court (ICC) and abandon its mandate, in an effort to shield US officials from war crimes prosecutions and Israeli leaders from accountability over the genocide in Gaza, POLITICO reported on 9 September.
US envoy Matthew Whitaker reportedly delivered the demand behind closed doors in Brussels in mid-July, in front of the alliance’s 32 ambassadors, urging member states to help take the court apart and to walk away from the Rome Statute, three anonymous NATO diplomats told POLITICO.
“We will be watching closely who stands with America,” Whitaker said as he closed his remarks, according to the three diplomats.
Alongside his intervention, the US mission circulated a document to NATO delegations stating “The United States will systematically dismantle the capabilities of the ICC … we firmly request that you immediately take steps to withdraw.”
The paper instructed allies to assess the court as a threat to their own governments, to publicly denounce its mandate as “overreach,” and to halt all material support to it without delay.
It closed by calling for an “end [to] the charade of the ICC once and for all.”
This comes after US State Secretary Marco Rubio announced on 13 July 2026 a sweeping Washington campaign to isolate and dismantle the ICC “brick by brick,” pressuring allied nations hosting US troops to reject the court’s authority or face retaliation, following Trump’s 6 February 2025 executive order that imposed asset freezes and travel restrictions on ICC prosecutors and judges investigating US and Israeli war crimes.
The campaign has already stripped lead prosecutor Karim Khan of his post, following a sustained Israeli effort that weaponized sexual misconduct allegations against him after he issued the November 2024 arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant over their leading roles in the Gaza genocide.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned in February, after US technology firms complained to the White House about her findings that they were complicit in Gaza.
Nine of the court’s 18 judges and both deputy prosecutors have since been placed under US sanctions.
Alternative ‘Führer’ Deutschland? Alarmism over AfD win is absurd
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 9, 2026
The shockwave reaction to the Alternative für Deutschland landslide election victory in Germany is absurdly out of proportion. It also defies any easy categorization of conventional right, left, or centrist politics.
What it does signify is a massive popular protest against the warmongering political establishment in Europe and the United States. The Western establishment has right, left, and liberal adherents, so it is confounding to interpret the AfD election win as reflecting a precise position on the political spectrum.
Western establishment politics and media have labelled AfD as a “far-right party,” a label which the party rejects. It claims to be conservative, nationalist, Eurosceptic, anti-immigration, and seeking more reasoned foreign relations.
The far-right epithet seems to be a more politicized term that the establishment uses to demonize opponents, as it does in France and elsewhere. “Far left” is also used as a term of abuse to marginalize opponents. But what does it mean when those in the “liberal center” are more often the ones who are more warmongering and supportive of censorship, repression and anti-democratic powers?
The AfD’s historic victory at the weekend in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which could see it taking regional governance for the first time, is certainly a watershed event. The party was only formed in 2013 and is now tipped to win national elections in 2029. That’s pretty “seismic.”
Its populist politics are gaining support among German voters. AfD is the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag, the federal parliament. It has made major gains in other state elections across Germany, although its stronghold is in the east of the country.
The AfD’s success is as much about the collapse of the establishment parties. The Christian Democrats of Chancellor Friedrich Merz have seen their electoral support crash, as have the Social Democrats.
However, it seems a wild overreaction to portray the electoral rise of AfD as a rerun of the Nazi Party’s takeover in the 1930s. European media headlines are screaming about the first time a “far-right party” in Germany has been elected since Hitler’s National Socialists won a majority in 1932 and went on to form a fascist dictatorship.
The AfD leadership under Alice Weidel maintains that it does not deny the crimes of Nazi Germany. Rather, the party says it wants to emphasize other facets of rich German culture and history and not dwell on wartime guilt of the 12-year Third Reich.
Here’s where contradictions complicate the international reaction to the AfD’s victory.
The party is highly critical of Merz’s government and other establishment parties for what it decries as reckless support for Ukraine and the war against Russia. The AfD is campaigning on ending the massive financial and military aid to Ukraine. It wants to restore normal relations with Moscow and resume the traditional energy trade that had been crucial to Germany’s economy.
If the AfD were following in Hitler’s footsteps, it wouldn’t be seeking to end support for the NeoNazi regime in Kiev and to restore friendly relations with Moscow. It would be gung-ho for more war.
The shrill denunciations and pearl-clutching over the AfD are ironically coming from parties that are supposedly “centrist” and “liberal”.
Chancellor Merz said he was “shocked” by the AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt.
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said it was a “very, very worrying signal to Europe.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski condemned the result as “alarming,” while Prime Minister Donald Tusk said only “idiots would celebrate” the AfD’s victory.
These politicians and media outlets like Britain’s Guardian and BBC, which are supposedly “liberal” are posing as defenders of democracy and opponents of fascism. Yet, it is these same parties that are backing the NeoNazi regime in Kiev in fighting a catastrophic NATO proxy war against Russia, with endless supplies of weapons and the expenditure of public money destroying European societies.
The AfD’s nationalist politics and “Germany First” platform are hardly a cause for hysterical alarm, if we are objective about who is really driving war in Europe.
The real culprits for war are found among those liberal, centrist political parties who use a veneer of bourgeois politeness to hide what is imperialist warmongering.
The likes of Britain’s Andy Burnham is another case in point. He is supposed to be a leftwing democrat and says he wants to relieve cost of living crisis for ordinary people, yet Burnham, like Merz, Macron, Tusk and others, wants to throw billions of public money at fueling a war in Europe against Russia. These “liberals” have no problem aligning with a regime in Kiev that glorifies World War Two collaborators with Nazi Germany. So who are the fascists? The AfD or the alternative liberal führers of Europe?
There’s no easy positioning of the AfD and international reaction. The party’s win was congratulated by right-wing parties in Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland, parties which are also ardent supporters of NATO and the proxy war with Russia.
Trump and his MAGA advocates, like Elon Musk, welcomed the AfD victory, yet this U.S. president is arguably a war criminal for his aggression against Iran and support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.
The so-called establishment reaction to the AfD is absurd and hypocritical. This is not an “alternative führer” that is suddenly threatening moral decent Western democracy. The West’s sponsoring of war in Ukraine and the Middle East – and the media’s role in covering it up – would tend to show that fascism and imperialist war are already alive and well within the ruling establishment.
Rather than raising the alarm over the AfD, it is possible to view its growing support among voters as a healthy sign of protest and rejection of “mainstream” propaganda. Trump’s election and other populist parties can also be seen in the same way, only Trump has ended up betraying his supporters. Will the AfD go the same way? Maybe.
But the positive takeaway from the recent German election is that the Western public wants radical change from the moribund mainstream political class. Change is possible. A different political and economic order is possible, one that delivers genuine democracy and peaceful international relations.
Nonsense Drones and Novichok
By Craig Murray | September 3, 2026
Europe urgently needs to re-establish access to Russian oil and gas. Gas prices are high – as all UK energy consumers know – and German gas storage is at a record low for September. Gulf production is degraded, supplies are cut off and its long-term strategic stability undermined.
German manufacturing already suffered a 9.5% production loss from 2022 to 2026 following the Russian gas shutdown, with the loss in energy-intensive manufacturing (inc petrochemicals, chemicals, metals, glass/ceramics/stone, paper, mineral oil etc.) at 15.2%.
Western Europe can regain access to Russian hydrocarbons either by accepting a negotiated peace in Ukraine, or by attempting regime change in Russia. The political class in Europe have evidently decided to go all out for regime change.
It would of course be much easier, and much safer, to settle the Ukrainian conflict. We can identify the following reasons the European political “elite” is not taking that path:
- Loss of face and political capital by in situ leaders who have gone all in for conflict with Russia – von der Leyen, Kallas, Merz, Rutte, Stubb etc
- Generational family and national hatred of Russia by those wanting to reverse World War II in Eastern Europe – von der Leyen, Kallas, Merz, Stubb etc
- Deep common interests between the political personnel and the military-industrial complex
Note that none of these motives has anything to do with the welfare of their people, and still less “democracy.” I find it very hard to think of any occasion when a drive towards war had such little foundation.
Consider this. The United Kingdom, like many Western countries, is openly supplying the Ukraine with long-range missiles, manufacturing plans for long-range missiles, and personnel to service them, in the full knowledge that Ukraine is using those missiles in an attempt to devastate civilian infrastructure deep within Russia, killing many Russian civilians in the process.
Yet we are repeatedly told by both politicians and the media that Russia is the threat to the UK, when very plainly it is the opposite which is the truth. Until this year, Russia had in three hundred years of history never had any plans to invade or occupy the UK – while the UK invaded Russia in 1854 and 1917. I presume the Russians are currently working on defensive plans against the UK, given the disgraceful warmongering of our government.
The notion that the boundaries of a Ukrainian state, which had never existed in history until 1991, are so sacrosanct they cannot be adjusted to avoid World War III, is mad. They were only ever internal Soviet boundaries. Ukrainian is a new nationality, but the Ukrainians are entitled to a state if they wish one. What they are not entitled to do is insist on the old Soviet boundary, when they have:
- closed Russian schools, universities, bookshops, theatres, cinemas, libraries, kindergartens, banks and churches
- banned the Socialist Party, Communist Party, Left Party, eleven other parties and eight trade unions
- continued the systematic glorification of Nazi and genocidal figures from Ukraine’s past – alienating Poland in the process.
The notion that nuclear war should be fought over who is Mayor of Lugansk has so little public support that Russophobia is being assiduously stoked by Western governments and the EU itself.
The latest episode is the extraordinarily thin gruel of the “Leipzig airport attack” story. Yesterday we had the most incredible release of coordinated statements by Western European leaders all telling us that the evidence is plain of a “hybrid attack” by Russia.
All accompanied by no evidence whatsoever.
The German state of course has history with this sort of false flag. On the night of 31 August/1 September 1939 it staged false flag attacks by Polish forces on the German border post at Gliwice (Gleiwitz), and a couple of other locations. Murdered corpses of political prisoners were dressed in Polish uniforms and spread around. A radio broadcast was transmitted in Polish. This “attack” was the justification for the German invasion of Poland the next day.
Now the “Russian attack” on Leipzig Halle airport was on 4 August, and yet the carefully coordinated attribution to Russia, with identical statements from all western European powers, was not launched until 1 September. I have seen it suggested that this was deliberately on the anniversary of Gliwice. That seems to me unlikely, and yet not to have at least avoided the date of perhaps the most famous false flag in history – by the same state – is very curious, when the date was so obviously voluntary for an attack that occurred four weeks before.
If you reject the warmongers’ logic for a moment, the actual scandal is that there were Ukrainian aircraft in Leipzig stacked with German weapons to kill Russians, not that an amateur toy drone allegedly tried to stop them.
To be told that this is a Russian attack by precisely the same set of goons who lied to us that it was Russia that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, is testing not just the gullibility of the public, but its patience.
In the UK the purveyors of Russophobia – including government ministers – fall back repeatedly on the farcical “Russian novichok on Salisbury” story to explain why we should prepare for war with Russia.
Nobody has ever even pretended to answer the dissection of the official line I published in my article Pure – Ten Points I Just Don’t Believe. I am now able to add a further point I was not aware of at the time, thanks to Tim Norman and his coverage of the Sturgess Inquiry. The use of a judicial inquiry to determine official cause of death, rather than a coroner’s court which exists for that specific purpose, is almost always a sign of a government cover-up – see also the Hutton Inquiry and the murder of David Kelly.
But one thing the inquiry did receive was the toxicology report on Dawn Sturgess from the NHS central toxicology lab in Birmingham. This is what it found in Dawn Sturgess’ blood.
It is worth noting that fentanyl was also found, but this was removed from this list presented to the inquiry as she had been given fentanyl in hospital. That does not, of course, mean there was, or was not, already fentanyl in her bloodstream. But what you do have for sure is cocaine, plus a synthetic opioid given by the NHS to heroin addicts, plus gin and tonic, plus two different antidepressants, plus sleeping tablets.
What you don’t have is novichok. The idea that the NHS central toxicology lab cannot detect organophosphate poisoning, or was not testing for it in the blood of someone in Salisbury when the entire media was already screaming novichok, is arrant nonsense.
Only the Ministry of Defence laboratory at Porton Down claimed to find novichok – and controlled the samples which the OPCW (an equally corrupt institution) got.
Dawn Sturgess was a frail, known long-term drug addict. The combination in her bloodstream could kill anybody – of course depending on the quantities. The astonishing thing is that the pathologist at the inquiry stated he had been given no quantities or concentrations for these substances. He was therefore in no position to say they did not kill her.
This is incredible. There is no such thing as a toxicology report which does not quantify concentrations. Otherwise the information is clinically meaningless. I have spoken with three doctors, two nurses and a senior NHS administrator. All say it is impossible the toxicology report came without quantification. I assume the pathologist was not lying; so they must have been deliberately deleted. Only government can do that, and the obvious motive is to cover up the actual cause of death.
Let us face it: from that list of substances in her blood the actual cause of death is extremely obvious.
The great structural weakness of the inquiry was that nobody had the job of scepticism about the official story. The only non-governmental representative was Michael Mansfield, who represented Dawn Sturgess’ family, and his brief was to argue that Dawn Sturgess was not a drug addict. That – I am sorry to say, completely untrue – version of events fitted the story which both the government and Sturgess’s family wished to be put forward.
I am genuinely upset to have to relate unpleasant things about a dead woman who was a victim of circumstance in her life, in order to tell the truth, but you don’t get cocaine and buprenorphine in your blood by accident. We therefore had the farce of the police apologising at the inquiry for having called Dawn Sturgess a drug addict.
So we have alleged novichok in Salisbury which killed nobody, and an explosive drone, or possibly two, in Leipzig which did not explode. To counter this massive threat, we need to push an entire continent to nuclear war. As a first step, we need to cut health and social spending to give trillions more to arms manufacturers, and prepare our children for conscription, to die on the battlefield.
Forgive me if I am not convinced.
Lithuania Plans to Remove Nuclear Weapons Ban From Constitution – Parliament Speaker
Sputnik – 10.09.2026
MOSCOW – The Lithuanian government plans to remove the provision banning weapons of mass destruction on its territory from the constitution in early 2027, the speaker of the republic’s parliament, Juozas Olekas, said on Thursday.
“The Lithuanian parliament plans to adopt a constitutional amendment this winter and remove the provision banning weapons of mass destruction on its territory from the country’s basic law. This will require extending the autumn parliamentary session, which begins on Thursday,” Olekas was quoted by the broadcaster LRT as saying.
He added that the autumn session will have to be extended until January 13, 2027 so that the parliament can adopt this particular article of the constitution.
Olekas said earlier that the provision of Article 137 of Lithuania’s basic law, which rules out the deployment of nuclear weapons in the republic, no longer corresponds to geopolitical reality. In early July, the parliament approved an amendment to this article after the draft was presented.
To amend Lithuania’s constitution, at least 94 of the 141 parliamentarians must vote in favor twice, with a three-month interval between votes.
Moldova debunks drone threat to Zelensky’s plane
RT | September 10, 2026
Moldova has dismissed a claim by Norway’s prime minister that Vladimir Zelensky’s plane was nearly struck by a UAV while leaving Chisinau, saying the aircraft was never in any direct danger.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told broadcaster NRK on Wednesday that Zelensky’s plane “was almost hit by a drone” as the Ukrainian leader traveled from Moldova to Oslo for the funeral of King Harald V.
Before any evidence was produced, Store’s claims were widely picked up by Western media outlets, who tried to frame the incident as evidence of a supposed Russian drone threat to Europe.
On Thursday, however, Moldova flatly rejected that account, with government spokesman Dumitru Ciorici saying Zelensky’s flight had been delayed because the country temporarily closed its airspace following a drone alert.
He stressed that there had been “no direct threat” to the aircraft, which remained on the ground throughout the airspace closure. The drone that had allegedly entered Moldova’s airspace ended up crashing and exploding near a village around 160km from Chisinau airport, causing no casualties, Moldovan authorities said.
Meanwhile, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon has accused the authorities of concealing from the public a separate incident involving a Ukrainian national allegedly caught at the border with a drone and explosives.
“We see more and more attempts and provocations to involve the Republic of Moldova in everything that is happening in Ukraine,” Dodon said, urging Chisinau to stay away from Kiev’s “war strategy.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also dismissed the alleged threat to Zelensky’s plane as “ephemeral,” saying it “did not exist” and noting that even Ukrainian sources have acknowledged there was no direct danger.
Moldova, whose pro-EU government under President Maia Sandu has moved closer to Brussels and NATO while severely downgrading relations with Moscow, has repeatedly joined other pro-Ukraine governments in blaming Russia for drone incidents before producing evidence.
Similar accusations across Europe have frequently collapsed under scrutiny, with investigators in several cases finding no proof that Russian drones were involved and some incidents later traced to Ukrainian UAVs or even misidentified aircraft.
Moscow has accused Kiev of repeatedly staging drone provocations in an effort to draw its Western backers deeper into the conflict.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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