Araghchi: US acknowledgment of Bahrain damage exposes cost of Israel’s wars
Press TV – September 11, 2026
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has referred to Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao’s remarks on extensive damage to US facilities in Bahrain, saying Americans should not pay for Israel’s wars.
“We appreciate the candor of Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao. Our powerful Armed Forces did indeed ‘blow the hell out of the 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain,’ as well as other bases supporting US aggression,” Araghchi wrote on X on Friday.
“The American people deserve better than footing the bill for Israel’s wars,” he said.
Cao acknowledged in a September 9 interview with The Epoch Times the extensive damage inflicted on US naval facilities in Bahrain by Iranian attacks.
Cao said Iranian forces had “blew the hell out of Bahrain,” referring to the damage sustained by Naval Support Activity Bahrain, which serves as the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.
The damage also disrupted operations involving the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, with Cao saying there was “no place for them to pull in.”
The comments come after open-source and satellite imagery had also pointed to significant damage at US facilities in Bahrain during the early stages of US-Israeli aggression against Iran which began on February 28.
Adm. Daryl Caudle, the US Navy’s top uniformed officer, said earlier this month that the Navy would not return to the Bahrain facility “anytime soon” because of the damage.
Jim Webb, a US Marine infantry veteran and independent national security consultant, said Cao’s latest comments suggest that the current US force posture in West Asia “is unsustainable without continuing to be under attack.”
“I don’t think there’s any way, you know, in the short, medium, or potentially even long term, that we can adequately defend a place like NSA Bahrain, or let alone the rest of the logistics bases there,” Webb told The Epoch Times.
Webb said keeping US troops at bases in the region makes those troops “constant targets.”
Cao said the Navy was reviewing whether the facility would be needed for future high-intensity deployments, adding that he had assigned a task force to examine the issue.
The USS Abraham Lincoln recently ended an extended deployment of nearly nine months, including around 200 days in a combat zone, after arriving in Thailand earlier this month.
The deployment had faced scrutiny over shortages of food and water, plumbing problems, declining morale among sailors as well as concerns about sailors’ mental health and the risk of self-harm.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, however, rejected reports about conditions aboard the carrier, claiming they are “completely misrepresented.”
YAF secure Bab al-Mandab, advance toward Dhubab
Al Mayadeen| September 11, 2026
The Yemeni Armed Forces have advanced into Dhubab on the western coast, reaching the area overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported on Friday. The advance follows their taking control of al-Mokha and other positions along the Red Sea coast, as normal life returns to the area and government institutions resume their work.
The Saudi-backed government confirmed that the Yemeni Armed Forces had completed their control over the Bab al-Mandab Strait and taken control of the strategic Mayyun Island, AFP reported, citing a local Yemeni official.
Two officials in the Saudi-backed government also told Reuters that the Saudi-backed forces had withdrawn from Perim Island, located in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Saudi-backed forces face encirclement
Saudi-backed forces also told AFP that the YAF were besieging their forces on the Greater and Lesser Hanish Islands.
“We do not know the fate of our forces, numbering more than 2,000 personnel on the islands,” the sources said. “As far as we know, the Houthi enemy has called on them to surrender.”
A senior military official told AFP that the besieged forces had appealed to the authorities to “rescue them, send food and water, and lift the siege,” adding that this would require air support.
‘A strategic disaster for Washington and Riyadh’
The Yemeni Armed Forces had taken control of the Yemeni city of al-Mokha on the Red Sea. Reuters quoted a military official in the Aden government and witnesses as confirming the development, noting that the YAF were advancing toward areas adjacent to the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.
The Yemeni Armed Forces also took control of al-Khokha and Hays, south of the coastal Red Sea province of Hodeidah, as well as al-Wazi’iyah in Taiz.
As part of international and regional assessments of these developments, The Guardian described the Yemenis’ control of the Red Sea coast as a “strategic disaster” for the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Israeli media outlets continued to follow developments in Yemen, with Israeli Channel 14 stating that the “Houthis’ control of the city of Mokha constitutes a strategic event that could have far-reaching repercussions.”
YAF prepare to announce a large-scale military operation
The YAF advances come as the Saudi aggression across Yemen continues, with the aim of supporting and reinforcing Saudi military mobilizations on the ground.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is carrying out airstrikes targeting several provinces, including Marib, al-Jawf, Taiz, and Hodeidah.
In this context, the Saba News Agency reported on Friday that Saudi Arabia had carried out two airstrikes on al-Mokha Airport, west of Taiz province in southwestern Yemen.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Armed Forces are expected to issue a statement today announcing a large-scale and qualitative military operation.
YAF take control of key areas, military sites in Mokha, west of Taiz
The Yemeni forces have taken control of key areas and military positions in the coastal district of al-Mokha, west of Taiz Governorate, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported on Thursday.
In detail, our correspondent revealed that the Yemeni Armed Forces have taken control of Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, which serves as the command headquarters for military forces on the western coast.
This development comes as the YAF made advances in several areas, taking control of al-Wazi’iyah, al-Khokha, and Hays, before reaching the outskirts of the city of al-Mokha.
It is worth noting that the area of the districts of Hays and al-Khokha to the south of the coastal Hodeidah governorate on the Red Sea exceeds 1,050 square kilometers, local sources told Al Mayadeen.
The accelerating developments follow the Yemeni Armed Forces’ announcement in July that the 2022 truce with Saudi Arabia had collapsed following Saudi Arabia’s aggression on Sanaa International Airport.
Ansar Allah’s Victory Is A U.S. Defeat
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | September 10, 2026
Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement, which has controlled the country’s capital, Sanaa, and the majority of the country where Yemeni’s live since 2014, has recently made some major advances into the rest of the country controlled by Saudi Arabia-backed proxies.
From 2015 to 2022, the U.S. supported Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen following Ansar Allah’s seizure of Sanaa in 2014 with intelligence and weapons, which killed 377,000 people when direct and indirect deaths are included.
The U.S. supported Saudi Campaign in Yemen included a brutal blockade of fuel, blocking clean water and sanitation, leading to the world’s worst cholera outbreak in modern times, and forced millions into “famine-like conditions” by blockading food.
More recently, both the Biden and Trump administrations took part in direct strikes against Ansar Allah in Yemen after the movement stood up in solidarity for the Palestinians undergoing a genocide in Gaza, and put a blockade on Israeli-linked ships crossing the Red Sea, in an attempt to pressure the U.S. and Israel to end the genocide.
This year, Saudi Arabia began to restart its war on Yemen after it bombed the Sanaa International Airport in July, the“only airport providing international flights to and from Houthi-controlled territory,” as well as a “critical entry point for humanitarian personnel and aid,” in an effective attempt to reinstate the blockade.
The strike was reportedly greenlit by the U.S.
Following this strike, “Saudi-backed forces reportedly began mobilizing inside Yemen in preparation for a possible invasion.”
In response, Yemen fought back to take back the rest of Yemen from the Saudi Proxies.
Ansar Allah was able to seize the strategically important city of Mokha as well as its port from Saudi Proxy forces, an important development given its proximity to the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
Ansar Allah has stated that this development is not intended to block international shipping, but to take Yemen back from Saudi proxy forces it believed were planning an invasion.
Member of Ansar Allah’s Political Bureau Hizam al-Assad said that “the ongoing battle along Yemen’s western coast is an internal operation aimed at restoring Yemeni territory and does not threaten maritime navigation” and that “the western coastal areas are Yemeni territory and that Yemenis have the right to reclaim them from Saudi-backed forces.”
The capture however, gives Ansar Allah a major leg up over Saudi Arabia in it’s renewed war on Yemen, given that “Saudi Arabia pivoted to the Red Sea to export most of its oil” after the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
This is not only a major defeat for Saudi Arabia, but for the U.S. as well.
Behind the Saudi plan, according to recent CNN report, was a team of “more than 100 US military advisers” on the ground.
According to the report, “The US military personnel are working as part of a newly-established joint forces command, which was formed in recent weeks,” which was “focused on ensuring Saudi Arabia’s operations run smoothly and professionally”.
In other words, Saudi Arabia’s renewed campaign in Yemen was backed by a team of “US military personnel” established weeks before the gains made by Ansar Allah.
Therefore, Ansar Allah’s seizure of Mokha, and likely ensuing seizure of more Saudi-occupied territory, is not only a defeat for the Saudi’s, but for the U.S., which was apparently advising Saudi Arabian plans on the ground going back weeks.
Insider trading proves 9/11 foreknowledge
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | September 11, 2026
On September 12th 2001, chaos reigned supreme. Yet, as governments the world over struggled to make sense of the previous day’s catastrophe, and before a motive was established, any perpetrators identified, or other basic facts ascertained, the US Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into potential insider trading by unknown figures with apparently precise foreknowledge of 9/11. The evidence seemed overwhelming. Mainstream journalists openly mocked the implausibility of numerous deeply abnormal stock market trades immediately prior to the attacks being pure coincidence.
For one, several companies prominently impacted by the event were abruptly ‘shorted’ at inexplicable levels over the preceding weeks. In other words, investors bet certain stocks would perform poorly in the near future, and sought to profit accordingly. For example, just five days before 9/11 over 2,000 shorts were placed against United Airlines – 90 times more in a single day than over the entirety of August. The company’s share price collapsed following the attacks, turning $180,000 in shorts into $2.4 million.
Meanwhile, substantial investments were serendipitously made in private security, intelligence and defence firms that benefited enormously from the 9/11 attacks and ensuing ‘War on Terror’. On September 10th, purchase of shares in major US defence contractor Raytheon surged sixfold. Just one week later, as the Pentagon began bulk purchasing Raytheon’s flagship Patriot and Tomahawk missiles in preparation for invading Afghanistan, the firm’s shares rocketed 37%. Other major defence stocks, including Boeing and Lockheed, also experienced abnormal trading pre-9/11.
Purchase and shorts of dozens of stocks in almost every conceivable industry that one way or another profited, or were harmed, as a result of 9/11 incongruously spiked in the weeks before the fateful day. The evidentiary trail was literally globespanning, with major financial authorities in several Western countries launching their own investigations. Numerous officials in European capitals alleged the trading was definitively indicative of 9/11 foreknowledge, and “terrorists” were responsible.
For example, commenting on Italian securities regulator CONSOB’s investigation into the suspicious market activity on September 17th 2001, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Martino boldly declared “terrorist states and organizations [were] behind speculation on the international markets.” One week later, German central bank President Ernst Welteke asserted his researchers had uncovered “irrefutable proof of insider trading.” He and his team were certain “people connected to the terrorists must have been trying to profit from this tragedy”:
“You look at the movements in markets before and after the attacks, it really makes your brow furrow… we are confident we will be able to pinpoint the source.”
Welteke declined to release further information, pending consultation with European and US regulators. However, the 9/11 insider trading scandal quickly faded from public consciousness thereafter. In July 2004, the SEC announced the end of its grand investigation – conducted in conjunction with the Department of Justice and FBI – having “not [developed] any evidence suggesting that anyone who had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks traded on the basis of that information.” Which, rather than closing the case, begs the obvious question of who did.
Declassified records of one suspicious pre-9/11 trade probed by the FBI sheds potential light on why US and other authorities may have decided to leave the entire issue alone. From September 6th – 10th 2001, a total of 56,000 Stratesec shares were purchased by a single investor. The company provided security systems to several airports, including New York City’s Dulles from where one of the hijacked planes departed, and the World Trade Center. Its share price almost doubled in the attacks’ wake.
The shady trades were traced back to Wirt D. Walker III – a distant relative of the Bush family and business partner of Marvin Bush, then-President George W. Bush’s brother. The FBI reportedly uncovered “no ties to terrorism or other negative information” regarding Walker, so didn’t even interview him before concluding his lucrative transactions were innocent happenstance and closing the investigation. Apparently, the evident possibility Walker III possessed foreknowledge of 9/11 via other means than “ties to terrorism” wasn’t worth exploring.
Still, this sleight of hand granted the Bureau, Department of Justice and SEC an extremely effective “out”. The 9/11 Commission likewise summarily dismissed any suggestion of “unusual pre-9/11 trading activity” on the basis investors involved “had no conceivable ties to Al Qaeda.” Such specious reasoning was sufficient to kill the scandal dead in the mainstream. Nonetheless, ever since, numerous peer reviewed academic papers have contrarily concluded insider trading did occur, and was motivated by 9/11 foreknowledge.
In 2006, University of Illinois professor Allen Poteshman authored a well-cited study focusing on suspicious pre-9/11 trading activity in airline stocks. He concluded this shorting was “unusually high”, and “terrorists or their associates traded… on the basis of foreknowledge of the impending attacks.” Similar findings were reached by a 2011 Multinational Finance Journal paper, which identified highly abnormal market movements in numerous key industries, including insurance and reinsurance stocks directly impacted by 9/11. This was “consistent with insiders anticipating the 9-11 attacks.”
While the media failed to report on these studies, they were academically impactful, and cited as precedents in a December 2023 paper tracking peculiar Israeli stock market activity in the days preceding Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th that year. Authored by two US scholars, they found a “significant spike” in the shorting of publicly listed Israeli companies days prior to that world-changing strike on the Zionist entity. This activity was “consistent with informed traders anticipating and profiting from the Hamas attack.”
The authors found shorting of Israeli companies listed on the Tel Aviv stock exchange “increased dramatically” before October 7th. Israeli stocks on major US exchanges also experienced a “sharp and unusual increase” during the same period. Shorting of publicly traded Zionist entity firms on October 2nd “far exceeded” levels of shorting witnessed at the start of COVID19 pandemic, which triggered a temporary global stock market collapse. No wonder the paper concludes it was “extremely unlikely the volume of short selling… occurred by random chance.”
“Random chance” seems an even less plausible explanation when one considers “similar patterns” of shorting Israeli stocks were also identified in early April 2023, right when Hamas was planning to conduct a comparable attack to Al-Aqsa Flood during Passover. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th too, a flurry of mainstream media reports exposed how Zionist Occupation Forces had numerous advance warnings of an impending Hamas attack for months prior. This included a detailed “point by point” battle plan, outlining Al-Aqsa Flood.
Fast forward to today, and Haaretz reveals UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed personally warned Benjamin Netanyahu 10 days prior to October 7th Hamas intended to wage a major offensive, but “Israel’s” premier failed to act. This disclosure comes at a time the mainstream media finally acknowledges the need for a complete reevaluation of what happened on 9/11. Any new investigation should surely focus on the insider trading angle – ascertaining who knew what when, and why, could unravel the entire conspiracy.
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.
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.
The Long Road In, and the Short Way Out: How the West Built Ukraine into a Weapon Against Russia
By Larry C. Johnson | Sonar21 | September 10, 2026
Across three pieces I’ve written for Sonar21, I have been making one continuous argument: The war in Ukraine was not a crisis that erupted in 2022. It was the payoff of a deliberate, decades-long Western project to turn Ukraine into an instrument for weakening Russia — carried out under the cover of “partnership” and “peacekeeping.” And having spent thirty years building that instrument, Washington and NATO will do with Ukraine exactly what they have done with every client before it: discard it the moment it stops paying.
The camel’s nose: 1992–1999
The West slipped its nose under the Ukrainian tent almost the instant the Soviet Union collapsed. The formal machinery started in 1992, when Ukraine joined NATO’s North Atlantic Cooperation Council. The practical military ties came fast behind it: the U.S.–Ukraine State Partnership Program with the California National Guard in 1993, Ukraine’s entry into the Partnership for Peace and its first joint exercise in 1994, and the standing-up of the Yavoriv training area near Lviv.
The “peacekeeping” label was camouflage, and the drills themselves give it away. Once the Sea Breeze exercises in the Black Sea began incorporating anti-submarine warfare in the late 1990s, the humanitarian pretense was finished. You do not rehearse hunting submarines to deliver disaster relief. You do it to prepare to fight the Russian navy. I spent 23 years scripting military exercises for U.S. Special Operations Forces, and I know the difference between a training game and a rehearsal for war. These were rehearsals — a structured program to train and equip Ukraine to fight Russia, if need be with NATO at its side.
Set that against 1999, when NATO took in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. That expansion broke James Baker’s assurance that the alliance would not move “one inch” to the east — a promise Bill Clinton simply threw away. And it is no accident that when the war came, Russia struck the Yavoriv facility in the opening weeks of March 2022. They knew exactly what had been built there, and why.
From partner to de facto member: 2000–2010
The next decade finished the job, turning Ukraine into a NATO member in everything but name. Consider one figure: between 2000 and 2010, Ukraine ranked among the top six hosts of NATO and U.S. European Command exercises, with Georgia right behind it. Two non-members hosted more allied exercises than the overwhelming majority of the actual member states. That is not partnership. That is prima facie evidence that the West meant to bring both countries in, whatever Moscow said.
By 2010, only two things still separated Ukraine from a full member: it paid no dues, and it had no Article 5 guarantee. In every operational sense — Sea Breeze, Rapid Trident, the Yavoriv pipeline, the annual target plans — it was already inside the alliance. And this was never only a military effort. U.S. and British intelligence, the CIA included, were coordinating with NATO and EUCOM to pry Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and lock it into the West’s. When the 2008 Bucharest Summit declared that Ukraine “will become a member” — even as France and Germany blocked the formal Membership Action Plan — the trajectory to 2014 and everything after was set.
The exit: under the bus
That is how the instrument was built. Here is how it gets discarded. Any foreign government that trusts an American security promise should first study what happened to the South Vietnamese, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Cambodians. When a war stops serving Washington’s purposes, the U.S. says adios.
The recriminations over the failed counteroffensive are the opening of exactly that. The West is lining up to blame Kyiv while its pledges of weapons turn out to be lip service. The maritime-drone strikes on Russian ships are pinpricks — militarily trivial, and dangerous mainly because the Western surveillance that guides them invites Russian retaliation against NATO reconnaissance over the Black Sea and stiffens Moscow’s resolve to strangle Ukraine’s ports. If you want an honest barometer of where this war is heading, forget the briefings from British intelligence and the Institute for the Study of War. Watch for the day the London bookmakers start taking bets on when Zelensky falls.
The through-line
Lay the three pieces end to end and the shape is plain. The first two document the patient construction — three decades of exercises, training centers, intelligence coordination, and summit declarations, all aimed at Russia. The third describes the disposal: the moment the project stumbles on the battlefield, the same patrons who spent thirty years cultivating it start hunting for the door. The line running from the 1992 partnership councils to the blame game of 2023 is not accident, and it is not drift. It is design. The men who built the road into this war have no intention of walking back out of it alongside the country they sent down it.
Douglas Macgregor: U.S. Defeated in Iran & Israel Will Not Survive
Glenn Diesen | September 9, 2026
Douglas Macgregor is a retired Colonel, combat veteran, and former senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Please like, subscribe & share!
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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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