15 of Sept. 11 Suspects Were Citizens, Saudis Say

The government acknowledged for the first time today that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijacking suspects were Saudi citizens.

“The names that we got confirmed that,” Interior Minister Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz said. “Their families have been notified.”

Saudi Arabia previously said the citizenship of the 15 suspects was in doubt despite U.S. insistence that they were Saudis.

Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the attacks, was born in Saudi Arabia but was stripped of his citizenship in 1994.

Asked if he had information on whether Bin Laden was alive, Nayif said: “We have no information, and we have no interest in this subject.”

Nayif said the kingdom has detained about 30 people since the attacks, based on lists provided by the United States. Some have been released. He said the men still in detention “have been influenced by Bin Laden’s thinking.”

“It’s possible that we will find among them members of the [Al Qaeda] organization,” Nayif added. “But so far we haven’t found anything.”

He said the Saudi leadership was shocked to learn that 15 of the suspected hijackers were from the kingdom, and he said it was natural that the nation had not noticed their involvement beforehand.

“I believe they were taken advantage of in the name of religion and regarding certain issues pertaining to the Arab nation, especially the issue of Palestine,” he said.