U.S. House of Representatives Approves Bill Allowing 9/11 Victims' Families to Sue Saudi Arabia

On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill allowing victims of the September 11 attacks and their relatives to sue Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Senate had previously approved the bill in May, but the Obama administration opposed it, warning of its potential impact on U.S.-Saudi relations. According to CNN, the House's action comes just two days before the fifteenth anniversary of the attacks, and the bill is set to be sent to the White House for signature and enactment. President Barack Obama had previously warned that he would veto the bill. Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House, who had faced pressure from foreign policy and legal experts to prevent the bill from being introduced, stated that the bill had previously passed unanimously in the Senate and that concerns had been taken into account, which is why it was approved. The White House has not yet responded to this legislation. The U.S. government claims that such a bill could expose Americans abroad to legal risks. Although Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the New York terrorist attack, came from a family close to the Saudi government, and 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi nationals, Riyadh has consistently denied any involvement in the September 11 terrorist incident, which resulted in the deaths of over three thousand people. According to a New York Times report on April 15, Riyadh threatened to sell $750 billion of its assets in the U.S. to prevent them from being frozen if such a bill were passed. The New York Times reported that Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi Foreign Minister, personally conveyed this threatening message to Washington. After years of conflict between the U.S. government and Congress, the House Intelligence Committee released 28 pages of a previously classified report on the potential links between the Saudi government and the September 11 hijackers. According to Reuters, this report contains information about 'potential connections' between some hijackers and certain Saudi officials, but 'none of these connections have been independently verified.' The report states: 'According to several documents and evidence from the FBI and CIA reports, some of the September 11 hijackers apparently had contacts with individuals who may have been connected to the Saudi government while residing in the U.S.' However, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, had told reporters before the release of these 28 pages that the report contained no evidence of Saudi involvement or participation.