October 17, 1992: 9/11 Hijacker Associate Hosts Party for ‘Blind Shiekh;’ FBI Soon Finds out but Fails to Investigate

Osama Basnan, who will later be accused of assisting two 9/11 hijackers in San Diego (see December 4, 1999), throws a party for the “Blind Sheikh,” Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. The party is held at Basnan’s house in Washington, DC. In 1993, the FBI receives reports about Basnan hosting this party. In 1992, the FBI was told that Basnan had a link to the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, a militant group later linked to al-Qaeda (see May-December 1992). Furthermore, records indicate Basnan entered the US in 1980 on a guest visa and has been in the country illegally ever since. But the FBI fails to investigate Basnan, and no effort is made to deport him. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/3/2001 ; US Congress, 7/24/2003 ] A post-9/11 FBI report will indicate that in 1992 Basnan is working for the Saudi government in some capacity, but details of his job remain classified (see October 3, 2001).