reasury Secretary Scott Bessent said recently that Iranian assets seized by the U.S. Treasury could be held for the Iranian people or be distributed to victims of Iranian state terrorism.
He mentioned specifically the families of those killed on the USS Cole in 2000. In previous statements, he has mentioned families of those killed by Iran in the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut in April 1983 and those of sailors killed in recent attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
But he has never referred to the families of those who perished in the September 11, 2001, attacks, even though they account for a majority of claimants to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund (USVSST), which was established by Congress in 2015.
The 9/11 Commission documented Iranian assistance to al-Qaeda on pages 240-241 of its final report, based on information it uncovered at the eleventh hour before publication.
The Commission mentioned “the willingness of Iranian officials to facilitate the travel of al-Qaeda members through Iran, on their way to and from Afghanistan,” including “8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi ‘muscle’ operatives” who made the journey, accompanied by a senior Hezbollah operative, between October 2000 and February 2001.
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