Al-Qaida was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, not Israel

Context

A video from far-right news website TruNews shared on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) shows American conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles incorrectly claiming that Israel and Mossad were behind the 9/11 attacks.

In the video, another presenter, Edward Szall, states it is the "definition of a false flag." Wiles further claims that the Israeli Mossad "can carry out attacks on Americans and make it look like Arabs did it."

Other claims that state "Israel did 9/11" or "Jews did 9/11" have also surfaced on X following 7 October. 

However, the claim is not true and there is no evidence that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks.

In fact

To support his claim, Wiles points to what he refers to as a "United States Army report." Through social media posts and comments, we found that the report he references is a School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) paper published in 2001. However, a copy of the paper itself could not be accessed. 

We did find forum posts sharing the same claims as Wiles, linked to an article from 10 September 2001 by the Washington Times that discussed the SAMS paper. According to the Washington Times, the paper is a plan and prediction for a U.S. peace enforcement operation in Israel and Palestine and the potential dangers U.S. soldiers might face from either side. 

The article makes no mention of 9/11 but does state that "Of the Mossad, SAMS officers say: Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act." However, this refers to attacks against U.S. soldiers and military operations in Israel and Palestine. It is part of the paper's discussion of dangers to peace enforcement. There is no indication that it refers to attacks against American civilians in the U.S., and it is not evidence that Israel planned 9/11. The paper also outlines dangers from Arab and Palestinian groups.

According to a 2001 LA Times article, the FBI and CIA were warned in August 2001 by Mossad, Israel's Intelligence Agency, that terrorists were slipping into the country. This information was linked back to Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden. Mossad warned that they had picked up information indicating a "large-scale target" in the United States. 

While Israeli intelligence warned the U.S. and was potentially active during 9/11, this is not evidence that Israel orchestrated the attack. 

Conspiracies that 9/11 was a false flag operation have consistently circulated following the events on 11 September 2001. However, these claims remain unfounded. 

According to the U.S. government, the first direct indication of al-Qaida's involvement came in a videotape broadcast from November 2001. In the tape, bin Laden talks about the attacks, and it is clear he knew about the attacks ahead of time. In later tapes, Osama bin Laden directly admitted that he and al-Qaida planned and orchestrated the attacks.

Evidence shows that al-Qaida terrorists were behind the attacks on 9/11. According to a 2023 BBC article, al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden, planned the "plane attacks" in 1998 from Afghanistan. In 2000, the group made it into the U.S. and carried out the attack in 2001. While U.S. security officials were aware of the group's plans, they did not know where an attack would occur. 

According to a 2020 article by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Rick Wiles founded TruNews, a fundamentalist Christian platform that has featured antisemitic, Islamophobic, and anti-LGBTQ messages. The ADL further states that since 2019, Wiles and his co-hosts have taken increasingly antisemitic positions and that they "have obliterated the distinction between Israelis, Zionists and Jews, using terms like 'Jewish lobby' and 'Israel lobby' interchangeably." Furthermore, according to a 2021 Independent article, Wiles has spread anti-vax conspiracies and claimed that COVID-19 vaccines were part of the "cabal's" plans to control the world.

The verdict

Israel was not behind the 9/11 attacks. All available evidence shows that al-Qaida was behind 9/11. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.