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U.S. officials say Saudi Arabia has eliminated al-Qaida leadership at home but continues to fund the terrorist network abroad, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.
Officials said Saudi Arabia has captured or killed many al-Qaida leaders over the last three months. Saudi security forces, with support from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement, raided al-Qaida strongholds in Buraida, Mecca, Jeddah and Riyadh, they said.
“Saudi Arabia is working hard to shut down the facilitators and financial supporters of terrorism, and they have captured or killed many first-tier leaders of the al-Qaida organization in Saudi Arabia,” the White House said in a Sept. 11 statement. “Today, because Saudi Arabia has seen the danger and joined the war on terror, the American people are safer.”
The statement largely echoed an earlier assertion by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz. In August, Abdullah said Saudi authorities had eliminated virtually the entire al-Qaida leadership and was searching for lower-level operatives.
The Saudi effort has led to a sharp reduction in al-Qaida attacks against Westerners in the kingdom, officials said. Saudi authorities have bolstered their intelligence on the operations and infrastructure of the al-Qaida network.
“Three years ago, terrorists were well-established in Saudi Arabia,” the White House statement said. “Inside that country, fundraisers and other facilitators gave al-Qaida financial and logistical help with little scrutiny or opposition. Today, after attacks in Riyadh and elsewhere, the Saudi government knows that al-Qaida is its enemy.”
Saleh Al Awfi has been identified as the head of the al-Qaida network in Saudi Arabia. Al Awfi, a former Saudi prison officer, succeeded Abdul Aziz Al Muqrin who was killed by Saudi security forces in Riyadh June 18. Officials said Al Awfi lacks Al Muqrin’s operational experience. The result has been a drop in the capability of al-Qaida cells.
Spreading jihad
But U.S. officials said Saudi Arabia has failed to stop financing to al-Qaida. Despite U.S. appeals, Saudi charities continue to relay funds to al-Qaida abroad, particularly in financing Arab operatives in Africa and Chechnya.
In September, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the U.S. and Comoros branches of the Al Haramain Foundation, a state-sponsored Saudi charity, as financiers of terrorism. The department also designated a director of Al Haramain in the United States, Suliman Al Buthe, as a financier and facilitator of terrorism.
So far, more than a dozen branches of Al Haramain have been listed as facilitators of terrorism. These include the former director of the foundation, Aqeel Abdul Aziz Al Aqil. Al Haramain has dismissed the U.S. designations.
Officials said the latest designation came after more than two years of cooperation between U.S. and Saudi officials investigating Al Haramain’s financial activities. The FBI and other federal agencies have also investigated Al Haramain branches in the United States.
“The investigation shows direct links between the U.S. branch and Osama Bin Laden,” the Treasury Department said. “In addition, the affidavit alleges the U.S. branch of AHF criminally violated tax laws and engaged in other money-laundering offenses.”
In June 2004, the Saudi government announced it was dissolving Al Haramain and other Saudi charities that operate abroad and would fold their assets into a new Saudi National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad.
U.S. officials said Al Haramain continues to operate abroad, despite Riyadh’s action.
At a conference last week by the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, analysts said Saudi Arabia has maintained funding to ensure the spread of al-Qaida-inspired ideology abroad even as authorities fight the movement within the kingdom.
“The Saudis have been jolted by the al-Qaida threat,” said Dore Gold, a senior Israeli government consultant and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “At the same time, they are ideologically committed to supporting jihad externally.”
Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, presented documents that told of Saudi support to the Palestinian movement, Hamas, as late as May 2003. The payment was made through the kingdom-sponsored charity, International Islamic Relief Organization.
Other analysts addressing the three-day conference supported Gold’s assertion. They said Saudi Arabia has become the leading financier of the so-called jihad ideology in the West and in Russia.
Sergey Kurginyan, director of the Moscow-based International Foundation for Experimental Creativity, said Saudi Arabia has become the leading financier of the Sunni insurgency in neighboring Iraq. Kurginyan said Riyad could soon become a target of the United States.
“If [President George] Bush wins the election he will probably hit the source of the Iraqi insurgency, probably Saudi Arabia,” Kurginyan said.
Yehudit Barsky, an analyst with the American Jewish Committee, cited U.S. reports that Riyadh has pumped $70 billion in the propagation of Wahabi ideology around the world since the 1970s. Barsky said the Saudi goal was to bolster radical Muslims in their effort to turn the West into part of the Islamic world.
“In a certain sense, the West has become part of the global jihad, to spread jihad around the world,” she said.
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