Hijackers' time in Southern California at center of allegations of Saudi government involvement in 9/11 attacks

With Congress opening the way for Sept. 11 families to sue Saudi Arabia, victims' families are focusing on an unproven theory that a Saudi consular official in Los Angeles and a Saudi intelligence operative in San Diego directly assisted two of the 19 hijackers. The alleged Southern California connection is the key to showing that Saudi Arabia financed Muslim extremists who played a direct role in supporting some of the hijackers, according to lawyers for the families of those killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. The families contend that lower-level Saudi operatives in Southern California helped find housing for the two hijackers, both Saudi citizens, months before they muscled their way into the cockpit of an American Airlines passenger jet that smashed into the north side of the Pentagon. If a pending lawsuit is allowed to proceed, the families hope to find the evidence in thousands of classified FBI, CIA and Treasury Department documents that could be made public as part of discovery in federal court. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any direct or indirect support for Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that carried out the attacks, or any foreknowledge or involvement in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.