Saudi National Suspect In Boston Marathon Bombing To Be Deported

by Pamela Geller

On “Hannity” Wednesday night, Steve Emerson broke the shocking news that a Saudi national, Abdul al-Harbi, who was first questioned in the Boston bombing, is going to be deported on “national security grounds.” A devout Muslim from Medina, anti-Jihad activist and blogger Walid Shoebat reports that he is a scion of a very powerful Saudi family with terrorist ties.

When al-Harbi was first questioned over his possible involvement in the Boston Marathon bombings, it raised the possibility of jihad in Boston. But then, law enforcement started a succession of extraordinary and inexplicable actions.

The first red flag for me, as events were unfolding, was when Catherine Herridge of Fox News casually mentioned that al-Harbi appeared to be connected to a powerful Saudi family. When I heard that, I became very concerned. And with good reason. I said at my website AtlasShrugs.com early Wednesday, I approximated that he had been investigated for no longer than 15 hours. To investigate all of Abdul al-Harbi’s relatives, friends, acquaintances, and business and school friends in that time would be impossible. Yet, he was deemed merely a “witness,” fresh off the heels of a raid on his apartment that resulted in several bags of evidence removed from of his home.

How could law enforcement possibly go through all of that evidence, hard drives, connections, and family and business and school friends, particularly when Walid Shoebat meticulously documented the scores of terrorists likely in his clan?

Shoebat wrote Wednesday: “Perhaps a quick look at the Arabic sources should raise the eyebrows of every American relative to the extent of the problem at hand. Many from Al-Harbi’s clan are steeped in terrorism and are members of Al-Qaeda. Out of a list of 85 terrorists listed by the Saudi government shows several of Al-Harbi clan to have been active fighters in Al-Qaeda.” Remember: directions for how to make a bomb out of a pressure cooker were in a recent issue of al-Qaeda’s glossy Inspire magazine.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s meeting with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud Al-Faisal, was abruptly closed to the press on the same day that Abdul al-Harbi was being questioned. There is no doubt in my mind that this was discussed. And according to Reuters, “Barack Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal at the White House on Wednesday and discussed the conflict in Syria, a spokeswoman said.”

I believe the “conflict in Syria” was a pretext for the al-Harbi deal.

And then Wednesday’s embarrassing display of rolling incompetence extended to badly mangled leaks, cancellations of press conferences, misidentified suspects, the promise of an imminent arrest, walking back of the arrest announcement, and more.

Very suspicious.

We have seen the extraordinary lengths that the U.S. Government goes to, sacrificing our own people and our own national security concerns, to placate this Islamic supremacist regime that promotes jihad around the world. The bin Laden family was flown out of the country in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, although it could be argued that they weren’t culpable in any way. A Miami Herald exposé Wednesday shows how we kowtow to the Saudis. And the Saudis are not our friends.

The Herald revealed that “a Saudi family who ‘fled’ their Sarasota area home weeks before 9/11 had ‘many connections’ to ‘individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.’” The FBI has denied this for years, but it has just come out in material received through the Freedom of Information Act.

It is still unclear the extent to which al-Harbi was involved in the Boston Marathon attack or if the “national security grounds” on which he is being deported are related to the bombing. But the denial and obfuscation have to end. The American people must demand that we be told the whole story.

About Pamela Geller