FBI threatens to cut ties with Canada's CBC over 9/11 terminology

FBI Director Kash Patel has warned that Canada’s public broadcaster CBC could lose its partnership with the US agency if it does not reverse what he described as an unacceptable distortion of the history of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Patel said CBC’s reported refusal to refer to the events as a terrorist attack was both insulting and disrespectful to the memory of those who lost their lives.

“Any agency in Canada that doesn’t publicly reject this bastardization of history, and an insult to the souls lost during our largest terrorist attack in US history will no longer have friend in this FBI… Not to mention our heroes that responded in the aftermath,” Patel wrote on X.

His comments followed a report by the National Post that CBC had issued an internal directive advising staff not to describe the September 11 events as a terrorist attack.

CBC said the directive was intended simply to remind employees of the broadcaster’s existing editorial standards and did not represent an attempt to reinterpret the events of September 11.

By Vafa Guliyeva