The story that emerges details a saga linking the charities to money-laundering, police raids, and terrorist attacks. It spans the globe, from New York and Philadelphia to the Balkans, the Mideast and beyond. It begins in Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh, November 1994

Pasqua, gruff, confident and imposing, had oversight of French intelligence operations. He pulled Naif aside.

The French, he said, had information that the Muslim World League, a sprawling charity that the Saudi government had created to promote Islam around the world, was funding terror cells in France.

The French were deeply worried, Pasqua said, and he needed the Saudis to address the situation.

Pasqua's warning was the first of several that Western intelligence agencies gave the Saudis before 9/11, the lawsuit asserts.

The government, the suit contends, did nothing.

Washington, 1998

Six years later, the 9/11 Commission concluded that the Saudis never acted on that information.

The Cozen suit also cites a conclusion by Sen. Robert Graham of Florida, chairman of the congressional joint inquiry into 9/11, that a Saudi government employee named Omar al-Bayoumi helped two of the hijackers find an apartment in Southern California and lent them money.

Although the 9/11 Commission and the FBI discounted Bayoumi's involvement, Graham told The Inquirer that he was convinced Bayoumi was a Saudi intelligence agent and that his aiding of Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar signaled some degree of Saudi government participation.

During the inquiry, Graham said, the FBI repeatedly stonewalled efforts to subpoena a Muslim academic and FBI informant who had housed the hijackers.

"That is one of the major unanswered questions of 9/11: Why the administration tried to disguise the role of the Saudis," Graham said.

Washington, 1999

Abdullah agreed to put U.S. officials in touch with their Saudi counterparts.

Following up on Gore's request, two delegations of senior U.S. officials traveled to Riyadh, one in 1999 and the second a year later.

On both trips, according to people familiar with the meetings, U.S. officials gave the Saudis lists of suspect charities, money exchanges, banks, and suspected terrorism financiers.

It was essential, the Americans said, that the Saudis crack down on these entities. If their financial support could be stopped, jihadist groups would have a harder time extending their reach.

"We gave them detailed and very specific intelligence," said William Wechsler, then a senior National Security Council official, who traveled to Riyadh with the U.S. delegation in 1999 and helped oversee the follow-up visit.

But the delegations did not have the desired effect.