Did the 20-year-old Saudi national questioned in the Boston Marathon bombing probe visit the White House?
As reported by The Right Scoop blog, the White House visitor log available online shows that an Abdulrahman A. Alharbi visited Dec. 8, 2009.
The visit was listed as a group tour, however, and at that time, the Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi who was questioned by authorities for two hours after the April 15 bombings was 16 years old.
There are two entries on Oct. 14, 2011, for an Abdulrahman Alharbi with a different middle initial, S. The entries are also associated with a group tour.
According to The Blaze, which has reported Alharbi was on a federal watch list, the Saudi national entered the U.S. last August on a student visa.
Last week, WND was first to report Alharbi shares the same last name as a major Saudi clan that includes scores of al-Qaida operatives. Some in the clan are senior al-Qaida members while others are reportedly being held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has insisted that authorities absolved Alharbi of anything to do with the Boston bombings. But The Blaze has reported the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center issued an event file for the Saudi calling for his deportation under Section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes a foreigner inadmissible to the U.S. because of terrorism or related activity.
Wednesday, The Blaze further reported the event file created for Alharbi indicated he was “armed and dangerous.”
In addition, The Blaze said, emails that are automatically triggered when anyone alters an event file of that kind indicated someone removed the deportation reference.
Later, someone tried to destroy both the original event file and an amended version, The Blaze said.
In a hearing last week, Napolitano angrily dismissed an inquiry by a congressman about Alharbi as “not worthy of an answer,” but she admitted in a Senate hearing this week the Saudi was on a terror watch list.
However, as WND reported, Napolitano still has not responded to a request by the lawmaker she indignantly brushed off last week, Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., for a classified briefing on Alharbi.
While it is not clear whether the Alharbi questioned as part of the marathon probe is a member of the well-known Saudi clan, his Facebook page lists him as Facebook friends with at least seven other Alharbis, located in both Boston and in Saudi Arabia.
One of the Alharbis on his Facebook friends list, Ahmed Alharbi, is listed as a pharmacy technician at the Saudi Ministry of Health. Most others live in Riyadh.
The Alharbi clan has long been active in al-Qaida. Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harbi, for example, is a Saudi national who joined Osama bin Laden’s mujahadeen group in the 1980s. He reportedly became an al-Qaida member in the mid-1990s. He turned himself in to Saudi authorities in 2004 as part of an amnesty deal.
The BBC reported Khaled Alharbi was married to the daughter of al-Qaida’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahri. He reportedly appeared with bin Laden in a video praising the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Another top al-Qaida operative is Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi, a Saudi national identified by the State Department as “a key member of an al-Qaida network operating in Iran.”
The State Department has offered a multimillion-dollar reward for the capture of Abdel Alharbi, saying he is an Iran-based al-Qaida facilitator who serves as the deputy to Muhsin al-Fadhl, who runs al-Qaida’s Iran network.
On his website, former Palestinian Liberation Organization operative Walid Shoebat translated a list of the Saudi government’s 85 wanted al-Qaida members.
The list includes several members of the Alharbi clan:
- Badr Saud Uwaid Al-Awufi Al-Harbi
- Muhammad Atiq Uwaid Al-Awufi Al-Harbi
- Khalid Salim Uwaid Al-Lahibi Al-Harbi
- Raed Abdullah Salem Al-Thahiri Al-Harbi
- Abdullah Abdul Rahman Muhammad Al-Harbi (leader)
- Fayez Ghuneim Humeid Al-Hijri Al-Harbi
Shoebat also points out that several Alharbi clan members are being held by the U.S. government at Guantanamo Bay, including Salim Salman Awadallah Al-Saidi Al-Harbi, Majid Abdullah Hussein Al-Harbi, Muhammad Abdullah Saqr Al-Alawi Al-Harbi, Ghanem Abdul Rahman Ghanem Al-Harbi and Muhammad Atiq Uwaid Al-Awfi Al-Harbi.
