Afghan businessman openly sells vile 9/11 rug in Santa Barbara

The “finest rug store in Santa Barbara” has sparked fury for proudly selling a product depicting horrific images of the 9/11 attack on New York City, the California Post can reveal.

Tribal Rugs & Art was promoting one of the items as the centerpiece of its display on the sidewalk on the bustling State Street on Saturday afternoon.

The controversial mat, priced at $450, shows the moment the two planes hit the Twin Towers with parts of the buildings missing where the jets collided.

The lower portion of it also features what appeared to be references to the US war in Afghanistan, showing tanks, grenades and military helicopters with the date “19-3-03” stitched in.

Another label in the top corner of the rug simply said: “9-11-01.”

The rug sparked fury among 9/11 survivors, with the FDNY commissioner during the attacks tearing into it in an interview with The Post.

Tom Von Essen said: “The people who created the rug and the people who purchase it are disrespectful imbeciles. For most of us the pain of that day has not gone away.”

The store is owned by Masood Azizi, an Afghan native, who has been running the store since 1980, according to his website.

In a brief conversation with The Post, he defended the rug claiming it was a nice design and was not glorifying the terror attack.

He said: “It’s not actually celebrating. You’re just putting it in the weaving of what happened. So they just leave it on the rug as a memory.”

Azizi told the Post that it was imported from Afghanistan and touted the rug’s unique appearance, saying it was for sale for $450.

He added: “It’s unusual. The design is nice.”

The 9/11 motif is not an uncommon feature for Afghan war rugs, which document such historical incidents. Makers have claimed such depictions are made to symbolize an anti-war sentiment.

But in America, the products have stirred controversy and backlash for as long as the rugs have been around.

”It’s disgusting,” said Ed Cutting, a New York City firefighter back in 2003. Others said that while the makers may have innocent motives, the execution is wrong.

“It’s like if we had a market of rugs in the US that had imagery of the bombs blowing up Nagasaki,” a YouTuber commented last year on the rugs, referring to the nuclear bombing of Japan in WWII.

Azizi himself is no strange to controversy, having been hauled through the courts in Santa Barbara over unpaid taxes.

He was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay $30,759 in restitution in 2012 for failing to retain a business permit after failing to pay sales tax for more than two years.

Photos on Azizi’s social media show him promoting his rugs while catching photographs with celebrities in the rizty enclave.

One showed him smiling as he chatted to Olympus Has Fallen star Gerard Butler and an unnamed woman back in 2016.

His website says: “His longstanding, family-owned business is a staple of Santa Barbara’s famed lower State Street shopping district.”

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