NEW YORK — As New York marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the City Council has approved measures to preserve the memory of 9/11 and called for its history to be incorporated into school curricula across New York State. But if a new generation is going to study September 11, what exactly should it be taught?
The New York City Council approved Resolution 7-A calling on the State Legislature and governor to incorporate a 9/11 curriculum in All New York Schools. The Council also moved forward with commemorative names for 26 streets and public places connected to September 11 remembrance.
NYC Council — Resolution 7-A: 9/11 curriculum in New York schools
NYC Council — 25 Years of 9/11 Remembrance
Remembering the victims, the firefighters, police officers, emergency workers and civilians who responded that day is essential.
But history education should also confront unresolved or insufficiently examined questions.
That does not mean treating every allegation as fact. It means distinguishing what American investigations have established, what archival records demonstrate, what witnesses and defectors have alleged, and what still requires documentary verification.
What the United States officially established
The FBI’s investigation of September 11, code-named PENTTBOM, became the largest investigation in the Bureau’s history. At its peak, more than half of FBI agents were working on the case. Investigators followed more than half a million leads and identified the 19 hijackers. The FBI says the investigation remains open.
The official U.S. account concluded that the attack was organized by al-Qaeda, with Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other senior figures playing central roles in the plot.
The 9/11 Commission traced the evolution of al-Qaeda out of the network created during and after the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, and it reconstructed the selection, movement and training of the men who ultimately carried out the attack.
But even the Commission’s own report contains areas where its findings were not final.
Iran: a foreign-state connection the Commission explicitly examined
One of the most important sections of the 9/11 Commission Report concerns Iran.
The Commission found strong evidence that Iranian authorities facilitated the transit of al-Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before September 11, often without stamping their passports. The Commission determined that several future hijackers traveled through Iran.
It did not conclude that Iran or Hezbollah knew the specific 9/11 plan.
That distinction is essential.
But the Commission nevertheless wrote that the relationship between Iran, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda operatives warranted further investigation.
9/11 Commission Report — official archive
The question therefore is legitimate:
Why was an Iranian facilitation channel investigated and described in the final report, while other allegations involving possible foreign intelligence contacts received far less public examination?
Saudi Arabia: a question still alive in American courts
The Saudi dimension has also remained controversial for decades.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.
The 9/11 Commission investigated the activities of Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar after they arrived in California and their contact with Saudi national Omar al-Bayoumi, who helped them obtain an apartment and settle in San Diego.
9/11 Commission Hearing — June 16, 2004
The Commission did not conclude that the Saudi government financed the 9/11 operation.
But that was not the end of the issue.
On August 28, 2025, U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels denied Saudi Arabia’s renewed attempt to dismiss the long-running civil litigation brought by 9/11 families and survivors. Saudi Arabia appealed, and subsequent proceedings were stayed pending that appeal. The ruling was not a judicial finding that Saudi Arabia orchestrated 9/11; it meant that the plaintiffs’ case survived that stage of litigation.
Federal court litigation — In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001
That leads to an obvious historical question:
Why have Saudi-related allegations generated decades of official investigation and litigation while claims involving possible Russian intelligence contacts with figures around al-Qaeda have received much less visible public examination?
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s unexplained Russian episode
One of the most unusual episodes in the pre-9/11 history of al-Qaeda involves Ayman al-Zawahiri, later bin Laden’s deputy and eventually his successor as leader of al-Qaeda.
It is not merely an allegation that al-Zawahiri spent time in Russia.
He was detained in Dagestan in late 1996 while attempting to reach Chechnya and remained in Russian custody for several months before being released.
That fact is separate from the much more serious claim later made by former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko.
Litvinenko alleged in 2005 that al-Zawahiri had been an FSB asset and had received approximately six months of special training in Dagestan before traveling onward and joining bin Laden’s circle.
That allegation has not been proven by a publicly available U.S. or Russian government document.
It must therefore be described as Litvinenko’s allegation—not as an established fact.
A published account of Litvinenko’s interview records him making precisely that accusation.
Published account of Alexander Litvinenko’s al-Zawahiri allegation
The allegation also contains factual problems. Critics have pointed out that some details of Litvinenko’s chronology do not match the independently known history of al-Zawahiri, including his pre-existing contacts with bin Laden.
That makes the correct investigative question narrower and stronger:
What exactly happened during al-Zawahiri’s months in Russian custody?
Who interrogated him?
What materials were taken from him?
What did the FSB learn about him?
Why was he released?
And do American intelligence agencies possess assessments of that episode that have never been fully disclosed?
Konstantin Borovoy: not merely a warning about an attack
Another line of allegations comes from former Russian parliamentarian Konstantin Borovoy.
The important issue is not simply that Borovoy later said he had heard of a possible terrorist strike involving bin Laden and civilian aircraft.
His allegation is more serious.
Borovoy has claimed that information he received in 1999 concerned Russian intelligence personnel allegedly involved in preparing or assisting bin Laden’s network and that he brought that information to American authorities.
At present, the critical missing evidence is a contemporaneous American record showing what, exactly, Borovoy reported, to whom, and when.
We do know that Borovoy was in Washington in October 1999 and appeared before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations during hearings titled “U.S. Policy Toward Russia: Warnings and Dissent.” That is documented in the official congressional record.
U.S. Government Publishing Office — U.S. Policy Toward Russia: Warnings and Dissent, October 1999
But the published congressional transcript does not itself establish Borovoy’s later claim that he separately warned U.S. authorities about Russian intelligence, bin Laden and an aircraft-based attack.
That is precisely why the archives matter.
If Borovoy actually conveyed such information to the FBI, State Department or another agency in 1999, there should potentially be a documentary trail: an interview memorandum, cable, intelligence report, referral or investigative lead.
Midtown Tribune has called for those records to be located and compared against Borovoy’s later account.
Midtown Tribune — FBI Asked to Locate Records of Konstantin Borovoy’s 1999 Warning
Vladimir Malsagov: another allegation requiring archival verification
Writer and former Soviet official Vladimir Malsagov has also published allegations involving Russian security structures, Chechen intermediaries, bin Laden’s network and information concerning American civil aviation.
Those claims are serious.
They are also not independently established merely because they were published.
Malsagov’s account overlaps in part with allegations attributed to Alexander Litvinenko, including claims involving Russian security services and people connected to bin Laden’s network.
The investigative standard should be straightforward:
A statement made years after September 11 is evidence that a person made an allegation.
It is not proof that the underlying event happened.
What would matter far more would be a diary demonstrably written before 9/11, an intelligence memorandum created at the time, a contemporaneous manuscript, a government cable, an FBI interview report or other record that predates the attacks.
This is where the Borovoy, Litvinenko and Malsagov lines should be tested—not through belief, but through archives.
A much older Soviet history: terrorism, the KGB and civilian aircraft
The Russian question does not begin in the 1990s.
There is substantial historical evidence that the Soviet KGB developed covert relationships with Middle Eastern militant organizations during the Cold War.
One of the most important documentary collections is the Mitrokhin Archive, based on notes secretly copied from KGB files by archivist Vasili Mitrokhin and later brought to Britain.
Historian Christopher Andrew and Mitrokhin describe especially close KGB cooperation with Wadi Haddad, the head of external operations for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
According to the Mitrokhin material, the KGB used its relationship with Haddad both to influence PFLP operations and to encourage “special actions” serving Soviet interests.
Most significantly for the history of aviation terrorism, the archive states that the most dramatic operation organized by Haddad in 1970 was a plan for the almost simultaneous hijacking of four airliners bound for New York.
The Mitrokhin Archive II — KGB relations with Wadi Haddad and the PFLP
The New York connection is independently confirmed.
TIME reported at the time that Haddad and George Habash deliberately selected New York-bound flights, in part to ensure that large numbers of American civilians would be among the hostages.
TIME — Dawson’s Field hijackings, September 1970
The U.S. National Archives likewise records that on September 6, 1970, the PFLP simultaneously targeted four commercial aircraft destined for New York City.
U.S. National Archives — September 1970 hijackings
A primary Soviet document: KGB weapons for Wadi Haddad
This subject is not based only on Mitrokhin’s retrospective notes.
A Soviet KGB memorandum from Yuri Andropov to Leonid Brezhnev, dated May 16, 1975 and preserved in the Bukovsky Archive, states that the KGB secretly supplied weapons and ammunition to what the document calls its “trusted KGB intelligence agent W. Haddad,” head of the PFLP external operations section.
The shipment included submachine guns, pistols, silencers and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. The document states that the delivery was conducted covertly at night by a Soviet naval intelligence vessel.
Bukovsky Archive — Andropov to Brezhnev, May 16, 1975: arms transfer to Wadi Haddad
This establishes a documented Soviet relationship with a figure whose organization specialized in international aircraft hijackings.
It does not establish that the Soviet Union designed the September 11, 2001 operation.
Those are very different propositions.
Ion Mihai Pacepa: “Airplane hijacking is my own invention”
Former Romanian intelligence general Ion Mihai Pacepa, who defected to the United States in 1978, made even broader allegations about Soviet sponsorship of international terrorism.
Pacepa wrote that KGB foreign-intelligence chief General Aleksandr Sakharovsky repeatedly argued that terrorism should become a principal weapon against the West.
Pacepa further claimed that during a 1971 visit to Sakharovsky’s office at the Lubyanka, he saw a world map marked with hijacked aircraft and heard Sakharovsky boast:
“Airplane hijacking is my own invention.”
That statement is Pacepa’s recollection and should be labeled as such. It is not the same as a contemporaneous recording or Soviet document.
Ion Mihai Pacepa — “Russian Footprints”
Pacepa also argued retrospectively that aircraft hijacking, developed into a tool of political terror during the Cold War, became the type of weapon later exploited on September 11.
Again, that historical comparison does not prove operational continuity from the KGB to al-Qaeda.
But it raises a legitimate historical question:
Should the Soviet development and sponsorship of international aviation terrorism be included in the broader history of the methods that ultimately culminated in September 11?
What the documents do — and do not — prove
The evidence must not be overstated.
There is documentary evidence that:
- Soviet intelligence maintained clandestine relationships with Middle Eastern militant organizations.
- The KGB secretly armed Wadi Haddad.
- Haddad’s organization specialized in international airline hijackings.
- In September 1970, Haddad organized an operation targeting multiple aircraft bound for New York.
- Ayman al-Zawahiri was detained for months in Russia before later becoming one of al-Qaeda’s most important leaders.
- Konstantin Borovoy was in Washington in 1999 and gave congressional testimony about Russia.
- Borovoy, Litvinenko and Malsagov later made allegations about Russian intelligence and Islamist terrorist networks.
- American authorities investigated Iranian transit assistance and Saudi-linked contacts in connection with the 9/11 plot.
But the publicly available material reviewed for this article does not establish that:
- the Soviet KGB designed the 9/11 attack;
- Russian intelligence directed bin Laden’s 2001 operation;
- al-Zawahiri was definitively recruited or trained by the FSB;
- Borovoy’s alleged 1999 warning was received and validated by the FBI exactly as he later described it;
- or Malsagov’s allegations have been independently proven.
Those distinctions are crucial.
An investigation becomes weaker, not stronger, when allegations are presented as established facts.
The media battle after 9/11
There is another question that deserves examination.
After September 11, an enormous amount of media attention moved toward allegations that the U.S. government itself had carried out, enabled or deliberately allowed the attacks.
The most successful example was the internet film Loose Change.
By 2007, The Guardian reported that the film had reached millions of viewers and become one of the most influential vehicles for alternative 9/11 conspiracy theories.
The Guardian — The rise of Loose Change
A separate Guardian analysis argued that many of the film’s central claims lacked a factual basis.
The Guardian — critique of Loose Change’s claims
Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 pursued a different argument. It did not present the same controlled-demolition theory promoted by Loose Change, but it placed George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the Bush family’s relationships with Saudi elites and the political exploitation of 9/11 at the center of the story. Roger Ebert’s contemporary review described the film as a sustained indictment of Bush’s presidency and noted its emphasis on Bush-Saudi connections.
Roger Ebert — Fahrenheit 9/11 review
There is nothing illegitimate about investigating the American government’s failures before 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission itself documented severe intelligence failures.
But the media history raises a separate question:
Did the overwhelming focus on alleged American internal conspiracies divert public attention from potentially significant foreign-state relationships surrounding extremist networks?
And if so:
Who amplified those narratives, and why?
At present, publicly available evidence does not justify claiming that Loose Change, Fahrenheit 9/11 or the entire 9/11 Truth movement was centrally orchestrated by Russia or any other foreign state.
That would require evidence.
But studying how such narratives spread—and whether foreign influence operations later promoted them—is a legitimate subject for intelligence and media research.
The questions a serious 9/11 curriculum should ask
If New York is going to teach the next generation about September 11, students should learn the established history.
But they should also be taught how to examine evidence.
They have a right to ask:
Who created al-Qaeda, and out of what historical network did it emerge?
See:
9/11 Commission Report — official archive
Where were the perpetrators recruited and trained, and who assisted their international movement?
Why did the 9/11 Commission specifically investigate Iranian facilitation of al-Qaeda transit, while the public report contains no comparable analysis of the later Borovoy, Litvinenko and Malsagov allegations involving Russian intelligence?
What exactly happened to Ayman al-Zawahiri during his months in Russian custody—and what do U.S. intelligence agencies know about that episode?
See the published record of Litvinenko’s allegation:
The Litvinenko allegation concerning al-Zawahiri
Why has litigation over possible Saudi assistance to people connected with the hijackers continued for almost a quarter-century, while no comparably visible public investigation has tested the claims made by Borovoy, Litvinenko and Malsagov?
See:
Federal litigation involving Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 attacks
Does a contemporaneous U.S. government record exist documenting what Konstantin Borovoy says he told American officials in 1999 about bin Laden and Russian intelligence?
See:
U.S. congressional record documenting Borovoy’s Washington testimony in October 1999
Why is the Soviet history of KGB cooperation with organizations specializing in international aircraft hijacking rarely discussed as part of the historical background to aviation terrorism?
See:
Mitrokhin Archive II — KGB and Wadi Haddad
Why is the documented Soviet weapons relationship with Wadi Haddad—whose organization attacked civilian aviation—rarely connected to the broader historical study of terrorism against the United States?
See:
KGB memorandum: secret arms transfer to Wadi Haddad
Why did Haddad’s organization target multiple New York-bound passenger aircraft as early as September 1970?
See:
U.S. National Archives — Dawson’s Field hijackings
What warnings did U.S. agencies receive before September 11—and which were ignored, misunderstood or never connected?
Why did narratives blaming the United States itself become among the most successful cultural interpretations of 9/11?
See:
The Guardian — Loose Change and the global 9/11 conspiracy phenomenon
And finally:
Was there a second battle after September 11—a battle over what Americans would believe about who attacked them, who may have helped, and which questions were worth asking?
That question should not be answered with another conspiracy theory.
It should be answered with documents.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, the United States possesses enormous archives at the FBI, CIA, State Department, Defense Intelligence Agency and other agencies.
Records concerning Borovoy, al-Zawahiri’s detention in Russia, Litvinenko’s allegations, Soviet support for foreign terrorist organizations, Saudi-linked contacts and pre-9/11 intelligence reporting should be located, compared and—where national-security law permits—declassified.
“Never Forget” should mean more than remembering the horror of September 11.
It should also mean refusing to stop asking historically legitimate questions.
Sources and Documents
New York City Council
NYC Council — Resolution 7-A, incorporating a 9/11 curriculum in New York schools
NYC Council — 25 Years of Remembrance / street co-namings
NYC Council — Introduction 1020, naming 26 public places
Official U.S. 9/11 investigations
FBI — 9/11 Investigation / PENTTBOM
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States — 9/11 Commission Report
FBI — Final 9/11 Review Commission Report
9/11 Commission Hearing — June 16, 2004, including Hazmi, Mihdhar and Bayoumi
Saudi-related litigation
In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 — federal court proceedings
ProPublica — August 2025 ruling concerning the Saudi lawsuit
Konstantin Borovoy
U.S. Government Publishing Office — U.S. Policy Toward Russia: Warnings and Dissent, October 1999
Midtown Tribune — FBI Asked to Locate Records of Konstantin Borovoy’s 1999 Warning
Alexander Litvinenko and Ayman al-Zawahiri
Published account of Litvinenko’s allegation concerning al-Zawahiri and the FSB
Soviet intelligence, the PFLP and aircraft hijacking
The Mitrokhin Archive II — Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin
Bukovsky Archive — May 16, 1975 KGB memorandum on Wadi Haddad arms transfer
U.S. National Archives — 1970 New York-bound aircraft hijackings
TIME — “Drama of the Desert: The Week of the Hostages,” 1970
PBS American Experience — Hijacked!
Ion Mihai Pacepa
Ion Mihai Pacepa — “Russian Footprints”
Media narratives after September 11
The Guardian — The rise and reach of Loose Change
The Guardian — factual critique of Loose Change
Roger Ebert — Fahrenheit 9/11 review
Editorial note: This investigation distinguishes between established facts, documentary evidence, judicial findings and allegations by former intelligence officers or political figures. Claims concerning Russian intelligence involvement in al-Qaeda or the September 11 plot remain allegations unless and until corroborated by independently authenticated records.
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