N.Y., N.J. PORT AUTHORITY JOINS SUIT:

The government agency that owns the World Trade Center site said it intends to hold Saudi Arabia and nearly 100 other defendants liable for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the complex. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced that it planned to join as a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, a bond-trading firm that lost two-thirds of its workers in the trade center attack. The Cantor Fitzgerald lawsuit named as defendants Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and other accused terrorists, with financial institutions and charitable organizations that reportedly raised money for terrorism efforts. The lawsuit sought $7 billion in damages. The case is among a number of Sept. 11-related suits filed recently in Manhattan federal court to meet the three-year statute-of-limitations deadline. Insurers for some World Trade Center buildings sued American Airlines, United Airlines and others, saying their negligence allowed the deadly hijackings. The suit, filed by London’s QBE International Insurance and certain underwriters at Lloyd’s of London, seeks more than $300 million from each of the two airlines and various amounts from other defendants. In a statement, the Port Authority said it had “an obligation to preserve its legal options” because the three-year statute of limitations was about to expire. “We also have a responsibility to the millions of people who live and work in the region as well as to our bondholders to pursue every legal avenue to recover the losses we sustained on Sept. 11,” according to the Port Authority, which lost 84 of its employees in the 2001 attacks.