Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a disagreement persists within the FBI over whether others inside the U.S. had advance knowledge of the operation and supported the suicide hijackers, a special review commission found.

The commission, mandated by Congress to assess the FBI's continuing anti-terror capabilities, said the FBI's 9/11 investigation into a potential broader conspiracy remains open and "active.''

Yet agency Director James Comey, while acknowledging the inquiry was still "alive,'' said there is no evidence so far that unknown others assisted in carrying out the most deadly terrorist assault in American history.

"We have no credible evidence that there were additional assisters or funders,'' the director said.

Aspects of the continuing inquiry, the largest in the bureau's history, was outlined in a 127-page report, which concluded that while the FBI has made measurable progress in dealing with the evolving terror threat, there is an "urgent'' need to further develop its ability to collect and analyze intelligence.

The report highlighted a "significant gap between the articulated principles of the bureau's intelligence programs and their effectiveness in practice.''

"The bureau needs to accelerate its pursuit of its stated goals for intelligence as a matter of increased urgency,'' the report found.

An outgrowth of the 9/11 Commission created by then-president George W. Bush to initially examine the government's handling of information in advance of the attacks, the new panel was tasked to specifically examine the FBI's response to subsequent terror attacks and to evaluate any newly developed evidence that may have had some bearing on the 2001 assaults.

Commissioners, including former attorney general Edwin Meese, former congressman Tim Roemer and Georgetown University professor Bruce Hoffman, focused new scrutiny on the pre-attack activities of San Diego-based hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Midhar and whether they were provided operational assistance previously unknown to authorities.

Despite differing accounts from one associate of the hijackers, Mohdar Abdullah, who once allegedly bragged that he knew in advance of the hijackers' plans, the commission "did not discover anything new'' that would alter previous conclusions that there was no broader conspiracy in the U.S. before the 2001 attacks.

The commission also re-examined the pre-9/11 activities of American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who before being killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen helped inspire a string of strikes and attempted assaults on the U.S, including the failed Christmas 2009 suicide bombing aboard a commercial airliner approaching Detroit and the attempted 2010 truck bombing in New York City's Times Square.

In the aftermath of the 2001 attacks, Al-Awlaki had been questioned about al-Midhar and al-Hamzi and their visits to a San Diego mosque where the cleric once preached. He was not detained at the time and left the country shortly after where he eventually rose to prominence in al-Qaeda's franchise in the Arabian Peninsula, where he became the organization's chief spokesman and recruiter.

Asked about the FBI's dealings with al-Awlaki immediately after the 2001 attacks, Comey said only that there was "not any effort to develop (the cleric) as a source'' for the bureau.

Despite Awlaki's demise, the commission said the operative's death "did not prevent further spread of al-Qaeda-affiliated English-language media, where many of the cleric's videos continue to inspire new recruits in the West."

"The FBI must now contend with a threat environment where a speech, comment, Tweet or video can travel around the worldin seconds to facilitate radicalization -- in one's own language and in the comfort of their home -- and direct violence against the U.S,'' the panel concluded.