The FBI late Saturday released a newly declassified document related to logistical support given to two of the Saudi hijackers in the run-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The document details contacts the hijackers had with Saudi associates in the U.S. but does not provide proof that senior Saudi government officials were complicit in the plot. Released on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, the document is the first investigative record to be disclosed since President Joe Biden ordered a declassification review of materials that for years have remained out of public view. The 16-page document is a summary of an FBI interview done in 2015 with a man who had frequent contact with Saudi nationals in the U.S. who supported the first hijackers to arrive in the country before the attacks. Biden last week ordered the Justice Department and other agencies to conduct a declassification review and release what documents they can over the next six months. He had encountered pressure from victims’ families, who have long sought the records as they pursue a lawsuit in New York alleging that Saudi government officials supported the hijackers. READ: From 9/11′s ashes, a new world took shape. It did not last. The heavily redacted document was disclosed on Saturday night, hours after Biden attended Sept. 11 memorial events in New York, Pennsylvania and northern Virginia. Victims’ relatives had earlier objected to Biden’s presence at ceremonial events as long as the documents remained classified. The Saudi government has long denied any involvement in the attacks. The Saudi Embassy in Washington has it supported the full declassification of all records as a way to “end the baseless allegations against the Kingdom once and for all.” The embassy said that any allegation that Saudi Arabia was complicit was “categorically false.” The trove of documents are being released at a politically delicate time for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, two nations that have forged a strategic — if difficult — alliance, particularly on counterterrorism matters. The Biden administration in February released an intelligence assessment implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but drew criticism from Democrats for avoiding a direct punishment of the crown prince himself. Victims’ relatives cheered the document’s release as a significant step in their effort to connect the attacks to Saudi Arabia. Brett Eagleson, whose father, Bruce, was killed in the World Trade Center attack, said the release of the FBI material “accelerates our pursuit of truth and justice.” READ: 9/11 artifacts share ‘pieces of truth’ in victims’ stories Jim Kreindler, a lawyer for the victims’ relatives, said in a statement that “the findings and conclusions in this FBI investigation validate the arguments we have made in the litigation regarding the Saudi government’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. “This document, together with the public evidence gathered to date, provides a blueprint for how (al-Qaida) operated inside the US with the active, knowing support of the Saudi government,” he said. That includes, he added, Saudi officials exchanging phone calls among themselves and al-Qaida operatives and then having “accidental meetings” with the hijackers while providing them with assistance to get settled and find flight schools. Regarding Sept. 11, there has been speculation of official involvement since shortly after the attacks, when it was revealed that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudis. Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida at the time, was from a prominent family in the kingdom. The U.S. investigated some Saudi diplomats and others with Saudi government ties who knew hijackers after they arrived in the U.S., according to documents that have already been declassified. Still, the 9/11 Commission report in 2004 found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” the attacks that al-Qaida masterminded, though it noted Saudi-linked charities could have diverted money to the group. Particular scrutiny has centered on the first two hijackers to arrive in the U.S., Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar and support they received. In February 2000, shortly after their arrival in southern California, they encountered at a halal restaurant a Saudi national named Omar al-Bayoumi who helped them find and lease an apartment in San Diego, had ties to the Saudi government and had earlier attracted FBI scrutiny. Bayoumi has described his restaurant meeting with Hazmi and Mihdhar as a “chance encounter,” and the FBI during its interview made multiple attempts to ascertain if that characterization was accurate or if it had actually been arranged in advance, according to the document. The 2015 interview that forms the basis of the document was of a man who was applying for U.S. citizenship and who years earlier had repeated contacts with Saudi nationals who investigators said provided “significant logistical support” to several of the hijackers. Among his contacts was Bayoumi, according to the document. The man’s identity is redacted throughout the document, but he is described as having worked at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles. Also referenced in the document is Fahad al-Thumairy, at the time an accredited diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles who investigators say led an extremist faction at his mosque. The document says communications analysis identified a seven-minute phone call in 1999 from Thumairy’s phone to the Saudi Arabian family home phone of two brothers who became future detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison. Both Bayoumi and Thumairy left the U.S. weeks before the attacks.

Rocket fire apparently targeting Kabul’s international airport struck a nearby neighborhood on Monday, the eve of the deadline for American troops to withdraw from the country’s longest war after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was hurt. The rockets did not halt the steady stream of U.S. military C-17 cargo jets taking off and landing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Last week, the Islamic State group launched a devastating suicide bombing at one of the airport gates that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. Read: Afghan official claims 3 children killed in US drone strike The airport repeatedly has been a scene of chaos in the two weeks since the Taliban blitz across Afghanistan that took control of the country, nearly 20 years after the initial U.S. invasion that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But since the suicide bombing, the Taliban have tightened their security cordon around the airfield, with their fighters seen just up to the last fencing separating them from the runway. In the capital’s Chahr-e-Shaheed neighborhood, a crowd quickly gathered around the remains of a four-door sedan used by the attackers, which had what appeared to be six homemade rocket tubes mounted where the backseat should be. The Islamic State group and other militants routinely mount such tubes into vehicles and quietly transport them undetected close to a target. “I was inside the house with my children and other family members, suddenly there were some blasts,” said Jaiuddin Khan, who lives nearby. “We jumped into the house compound and lay on the ground.” The rockets landed across town in Kabul’s Salim Karwan neighborhood, striking residential apartment blocks, witnesses said. That neighborhood is some 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from the airport. There were no immediate reports of injuries. In Washington, the White House issued a statement saying officials briefed President Joe Biden on “the rocket attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport” in Kabul, apparently referring to the vehicle-based rocket launch that morning. “The president was informed that operations continue uninterrupted at HKIA, and has reconfirmed his order that commanders redouble their efforts to prioritize doing whatever is necessary to protect our forces on the ground,” the statement said, using an acronym for Kabul’s airport. The U.S. military did not respond to requests for comment. After the rocket fire, planes continued to land and taxi across to the northern military side of the airport. Planes took off roughly every 20 minutes at one point Monday morning. Read:US says drone kills IS bombers targeting Kabul airport The airport had been one of the few ways out for foreigners and Afghans fleeing the Taliban takeover. However, coalition nations have halted their evacuations in recent days, leaving the U.S. military largely alone at the base with some remaining allied Afghan forces providing security. The U.S. State Department released a statement Sunday signed by around 100 countries, as well as NATO and the European Union, saying they had received “assurances” from the Taliban that people with travel documents would still be able to leave the country. The Taliban have said they will allow normal travel after the U.S. withdrawal is completed on Tuesday and they assume control of the airport. However, it remains unclear how the militants will run the airport and which commercial carriers will begin flying into the field given the ongoing security concerns there. While the Taliban has honored a pledge not to attack Western forces so long as they evacuate by Tuesday, the threat from the Islamic State’s local affiliate remains a danger. The group, known as the Khorasan Province after a historic name for the region, saw some of its members freed as the Taliban released prisoners across the country during their takeover. On Sunday, a U.S. drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying Islamic State suicide bombers before they could attack the ongoing military evacuation at Kabul’s airport, American officials said. An Afghan official said three children were killed in the strike. U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the American military’s Central Command, acknowledged the reports of civilian casualties. “We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life,” he said in a statement. Read:US airstrike targets Islamic State member in Afghanistan The U.S. carried out another drone strike elsewhere in the country on Saturday that it said killed two Islamic State members. By Tuesday, the U.S. is set to conclude a massive two-week-long airlift of more than 114,000 Afghans and foreigners and withdraw the last of its troops, ending America’s longest war with the Taliban back in power. However, Afghans remain fearful of the Taliban returning to the oppressive rule for which it was once known. There have been sporadic reports of killings and other abuses in the sweep across the country.

After nearly 20 years, the U.S. military left Bagram Airfield, the epicenter of its war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, two U.S. officials said Friday. The airfield was handed over to the Afghan National Security and Defense Force in its entirety, they said on condition they not be identified because they were not authorized to release the information to the media. One of the officials also said the U.S. top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, “still retains all the capabilities and authorities to protect the forces.” Afghanistan’s district administrator for Bagram, Darwaish Raufi, said the American departure was done overnight without any coordination with local officials, and as a result early Friday dozens of local looters stormed through the unprotected gates before Afghan forces regained control. Read:Biden vows 'sustained' help as Afghanistan drawdown nears “They were stopped and some have been arrested and the rest have been cleared from the base,” Raufi told The Associated Press, adding that the looters ransacked several buildings before being arrested and the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANDSF) took control. “Unfortunately the Americans left without any coordination with Bagram district officials or the governor’s office,” Raufi said. “Right now our Afghan security forces are in control both inside and outside of the base.” The deputy spokesman for the defense minister, Fawad Aman, said nothing of the early morning looting. He said only the base has been handed over and the “ANDSF will protect the base and use it to combat terrorism.” The withdrawal from Bagram Airfield is the clearest indication that the last of the 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops have left Afghanistan or are nearing a departure, months ahead of President Joe Biden’s promise that they would be gone by Sept. 11. It was clear soon after the mid-April announcement that the U.S. was ending its “forever war,” that the departure of U.S. soldiers and their estimated 7,000 NATO allies would be nearer to July 4, when America celebrates its Independence Day. Most NATO soldiers have already quietly exited as of this week. Announcements from several countries analyzed by The Associated Press show that a majority of European troops has now left with little ceremony — a stark contrast to the dramatic and public show of force and unity when NATO allies lined up to back the U.S. invasion in 2001. The U.S. has refused to say when the last U.S. soldier would leave Afghanistan, citing security concerns, but also the protection of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport is still being negotiated. Turkish and U.S. soldiers currently are protecting the airport. That protection is currently covered under the Resolute Support Mission, which is the military mission being wound down. Read:Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias Until a new agreement for the airport’s protection is negotiated between Turkey and the Afghan government, and possibly the United States, the Resolute Support mission would appear to have to continue in order to give international troops the legal authority. The U.S. will also have about 650 troops in Afghanistan to protect its sprawling embassy in the capital. Their presence it is understood will be covered in a bilateral agreement with the Afghan government. The U.S. and NATO leaving comes as Taliban insurgents make strides in several parts of the country, overrunning dozens of districts and overwhelming beleaguered Afghan security Forces. In a worrying development, the government has resurrected militias with a history of brutal violence to assist the Afghan security forces. At what had all the hallmarks of a final press conference, Gen. Miller this week warned that continued violence risked a civil war in Afghanistan that should have the world worried. At its peak around 2012, Bagram Airfield saw more than 100,000 U.S. troops pass through its sprawling compound barely an hour’s drive north of the Afghan capital Kabul. The departure is rife with symbolism. Not least, it’s the second time that an invader of Afghanistan has come and gone through Bagram. Read: US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal The Soviet Union built the airfield in the 1950s. When it invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to back a communist government, it turned it into its main base from which it would defend its occupation of the country. For 10 years, the Soviets fought the U.S.-backed mujahedeen, dubbed freedom fighters by President Ronald Reagan, who saw them as a front-line force in one of the last Cold War battles. When the U.S. and NATO inherited Bagram in 2001, they found it in ruins, a collection of crumbling buildings, gouged by rockets and shells, most of its perimeter fence wrecked. It had been abandoned after being battered in the battles between the Taliban and rival mujahedeen warlords fleeing to their northern enclaves. The enormous base has two runways. The most recent, at 12,000 feet long, was built in 2006 at a cost of $96 million. There are 110 revetments, which are basically parking spots for aircraft, protected by blast walls. GlobalSecurity, a security think tank, says Bagram includes three large hangars, a control tower and numerous support buildings. The base has a 50-bed hospital with a trauma bay, three operating theaters and a modern dental clinic. Another section houses a prison, notorious and feared among Afghans. There was no immediate comment from Afghan officials as to the final withdrawal from Bagram Airfield by the U.S. and its NATO allies.

A pickup truck attack that killed four members of an immigrant family has shaken Canada, a country where immigrants are largely accepted, and drew denunciations Tuesday from Canada’s prime minister, who called it a hate crime directed at Muslims. The victims — two parents, two children and a grandmother — were on an evening walk when the driver of the truck struck them at an intersection in London, Ontario. The sole survivor was a 9-year-old boy, who was hospitalized. “This was a terrorist attack, motivated by hatred, in the heart of one of our communities,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Parliament. “If anyone thinks racism and hatred don’t exist in this country, I want to say this: How do we explain such violence to a child in a hospital? How can we look families in the eye and say “Islamophobia isn’t real”? Read:Canadian police say Muslim family targeted by deadly attack The victims’ extended family issued a statement identifying the dead as Salman Afzal, 46; his wife Madiha, 44; their daughter Yumna, 15; and a 74-year-old grandmother whose name was withheld. The hospitalized boy was identified as the couple’s son, Fayez. Friends said the family immigrated to Canada 14 years ago. Many Canadians have been enjoying evening walks to get fresh air after long days at home during the pandemic, Trudeau said. “But unlike every other night, this family never made it home,” Trudeau said. “Their lives were taken in a brutal, cowardly and brazen act of violence. This killing was no accident. ... Canadians are outraged by what happened on Sunday. And many Muslim Canadians are scared.” Trudeau said words matter and in part blamed rhetoric, disinformation and extremism online and in politics. “They can be a seed that grows into an ugly, pervasive trend. And sometimes, they lead to real violence,” the prime minister said. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Twitter that the attack revealed the growing Islamophobia in Western countries. A 20-year-old suspect, Nathaniel Veltman, was arrested in the parking lot of a nearby mall. He was facing four counts of first-degree murder. Police were inside the suspect’s London apartment on Tuesday. Read:Canada lowers flags after discovery of bodies at school site Police said Veltman did not know the victims. Detective Supt. Paul Waight said it was not clear if he belonged to any specific hate group, but that local police were working with federal authorities to investigate potential terrorism charges. He said the attack was planned. Veltman worked part time at an egg farm in nearby Strathroy, Ontario. The chief executive of Gray Ridge Eggs Inc., William Gray, gave no details about Veltman’s job. He said the company was “shocked and saddened” by the attack, and he expressed sympathy for the victims’ relatives and the Muslim community. Arman Moradpourian, a friend who worked with Veltman, called Veltman a very devout Christian and said he was home schooled. Moradpourian said Veltman didn’t have a problem with him being Persian and raised Muslim. “He never judged me,” Moradpourian told The Associated Press. “He would give his shirt off his back for you.” Moradpourian said Veltman helped him with rides to grocery stores and helped him mediate family issues. He said Veltman deleted his social media years ago and remade it a few months ago. He said he used the same name but said it was deactivated after he was arrested. He said Veltman was into video games and fishing. Everyone who knew the Afzal family knew “the model family they were as Muslims, Canadians and Pakistanis,” the statement from the extended family said. “They worked extremely hard in their fields and excelled. Their children were top students in their school and connected strongly with their spiritual identity.” A fundraising webpage said the father was a physiotherapist and cricket enthusiast and his wife was working on a doctorate in civil engineering at Western University in London. Their daughter was finishing ninth grade, and the grandmother was a “pillar” of the family, the page said. Read:More than 200 bodies found at Indigenous school in Canada Thousands of mourners including Trudeau and the leaders of all of Canada’s political parties attended a vigil Tuesday night at the mosque the family attended. Pandemic restrictions were eased to allow mourners to attend the outdoor vigil. “There are no words that can ease the grief of having three generations murdered in their neighborhood,” Trudeau told the crowd. “There are no words that can undo the pain and yes the anger of this community. There are no words that can fix the future of that little boy who has had his future taken away. But know this: You are not alone. All Canadians mourn with you and stand with you.” Imam Abd Alfatah Twakkal of the London Muslim Mosque said he hoped the vigil would be a pivotal moment for his community and country in the fight against the scourge of racism and discrimination. “Every single one of us need to do our part,” he said. Rauf Ahmad and three friends earlier watched the growing tribute at the intersection in the day. “I didn’t think there was racism in Canada, and I felt very safe when I came here two years ago, but I do not feel safe now,” Ahmad said. “Humanity is first. We should not care about whether someone is a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian.” Near the crash scene, Zahid Khan, a family friend, said through tears: “They were just out for their walk that they would go out for every day. I just wanted to see.” Read:US tribe shares vaccine with relatives, neighbors in Canada Mayor Ed Holder said flags would be lowered for three days in London, which he said has 30,000 to 40,000 Muslims among its more than 400,000 residents. Canada is generally welcoming toward immigrants and all religions, but in 2017 a French Canadian man known for far-right, nationalist views went on a shooting rampage at a Quebec City mosque that killed six people. “Canada is not immune to the kind of intolerance and division we have seen elsewhere in the world,” Trudeau said.

Three local Awami League activists were injured as terrorists carried out attack and vandalised their office at Gatipara village in Benapole on Sunday night.

The U.N. envoy for West Africa and the Sahel says the region has experienced "a devastating surge in terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets" in recent months.