Saudi Fundamentalist Cleric's Fatal Ruling - Joel Brinkley
A few weeks ago, Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak, one of Saudi Arabia's most senior religious authorities, directed that Abdullah bin Bejad al-Otaibi and Yousef Aba al-Khail, two reporters for a mainstream Saudi newspaper, be executed for publishing stories suggesting that religions other than Islam are worthy of respect. Barrak, a leading authority on Wahhabism, the country's fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam, is not just some cranky old miscreant. He is a member of the Saudi legislature, appointed by the king. Two weeks after he issued that fatwa, the legislature soundly defeated a proposal to adopt a law promoting respect for other religions. (San Francisco Chronicle)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, May 6, 2008]

Saudi Clerics Back Death for Liberal Writers (Reuters)
    Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak, the leading independent authority of Saudi Arabia's hardline version of Sunni Islam, often termed Wahhabism, said in a fatwa last week that two columnists should be tried for apostasy for "heretical articles" and put to death if they do not repent.
    The two had questioned the view that adherents of other faiths should be considered unbelievers.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, March 20, 2008]

BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince,  The Guardian, February 15 2008

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Saudi Arabia Is Prime Source of Terror Funds, U.S. Says - Josh Meyer
Saudi Arabia remains the world's leading source of money for al-Qaeda and other extremist networks and has failed to take key steps requested by U.S. officials to stem the flow, the Bush administration's top financial counter-terrorism official, Stuart A. Levey, told a Senate committee Tuesday. "Saudi Arabia today remains the location where more money is going to terrorism, to Sunni terror groups and to the Taliban than any other place in the world," Levey said. The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday ordered an independent review of the efforts to choke off financing used by al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. (Los Angeles Times)

U.S. Plans Sale of 900 Sophisticated Missiles to Saudi Arabia
The Bush administration notified Congress Monday that it would sell 900 sophisticated satellite-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia as part of a $20 billion arms sale. The administration is worried that some in Congress might object, since the missiles are some of the most accurate produced by the U.S. (New York Times)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, January 15, 2008]

A New Arms Race in the Gulf? - Walter Pincus
The Joint Direct Attack Munition is a kit that, when added to the back end of a 500- or 2,000-pound "dumb" bomb, turns it into a lethal, all-weather "smart" weapon that can hit within four feet of a target when launched from a fighter aircraft more than 10 miles away. As proposed in a message to Congress on Jan. 14, the Saudis are authorized to buy 900 Joint Direct Attack Munition kits along with 550 500-pound bombs, 250 2,000-pound bombs, and another 100 2,000-pounders with penetrating warheads. The United Arab Emirates is in line to get 200 JDAM systems for its 80 F-16s. Because JDAMs are offensive weapons, their acquisition by Arab states such as Saudi Arabia that are considered hostile to Israel has drawn concern on Capitol Hill.
    The Saudis are also in line to receive $631 million in armored vehicles, personnel carriers, towed mortars and machine guns, as well as five sets of airborne early-warning and command and control systems worth $400 million. They would also buy for $220 million 40 Sniper advanced targeting pods, which would upgrade the ability of their F-15s to detect other aircraft at long range. The UAE hopes to buy 900 Hellfire missiles and 300 blast-fragmentation warheads for use with its U.S. attack helicopters and 2,106 anti-tank TOW missiles that also can be fired from helicopters.
    Anthony H. Cordesman, a specialist in Middle East national security affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said a surge of arms sales to countries in the region is just beginning. With oil and gas exports providing $2 trillion in revenue, Cordesman expects that "southern Gulf arms sales will be 50 to 100% higher over the next four years." The U.S. will supply only a quarter of the weapons; Russia and European nations also will push to make sales. (Washington Post)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, January 21, 2008]

Poll of Saudis: Don't Like Jews and Christians, Want Israel Destroyed and Saudis to Have Nuclear Weapons - Tom Gross (National Review)
    A telephone survey conducted in Saudi Arabia in Arabic for Terror Free Tomorrow found:
    Opinion of Jews: Favorable 6%, Unfavorable 89%; Opinion of Christians: Favorable 39%, Unfavorable 54%.
    51% agreed that "I oppose any peace treaty recognizing Israel, and I favor all Arabs continuing to fight until there is no Israel in the Middle East"
    30% agreed that "I would favor a peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel, if an independent Palestinian state is established."
    Should Saudi Arabia develop nuclear weapons? Favor 52%, Oppose 31%.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, December 25, 2007]

Saudis Give Big to U.S. Colleges - Julia Duin (Washington Times)
    Some say the sheer size of Saudi donations to Middle East studies departments amounts to buying influence and creating bastions of noncritical pro-Islamic scholarship within academia.
        There are 17 federally funded centers on American college campuses devoted solely to Middle Eastern studies and another 30 to 40 that do not receive federal aid, according to Amy Newhall, executive director of the Middle East Studies Association at the University of Arizona. Not counting several positions at Georgetown University, she estimated at least 10 chaired professorships currently funded by Saudis at major universities.
    "With all the talk of the Israel lobby, no one talks about the Saudi lobby," said Winfield Myers, director of Campus Watch. "There is no counterweight to Saudi influence in American higher education."

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Dec 12, 2007]

Saudi Arabia Is Hub of World Terror - Nick Fielding and Sarah Baxter (Sunday Times-UK)
    Wealthy Saudis remain the chief financiers of worldwide terror networks. "If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia," said Stuart Levey, the U.S. Treasury official in charge of tracking terror financing.
    According to Levey, not one person identified by America or the UN as a terrorist financier has been prosecuted by Saudi authorities.
    An analysis by NBC News suggested that the Saudis make up 55% of foreign fighters in Iraq. They are also among the most uncompromising and militant.
    In recent months, Saudi religious scholars issued fatwas calling for the destruction of the great Shi'ite shrines in Najaf and Karbala in Iraq.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Nov 5, 2007]

Suicide Bombers Head to Iraq from Damascus - Hala Jaber and Ali Rifat (Sunday Times-UK)

More than 1,300 suicide bombers have struck in Iraq since 2003. The bombers have killed and injured more than 4,000 people in the first nine months of 2007. In interviews with men passing through Syria on their way to die in Iraq, we found articulate, middle-class men in their twenties and early thirties who had come from good homes and gone to university. One was a newly married accountant. Yet all had reached the chilling conclusion that killing "sinners" would transport them to paradise.

According to Mohammed Hafez, a visiting professor at the University of Missouri and author of Suicide Bombers in Iraq, the Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom, the influence of the Saudi Wahhabis is key to any understanding of the phenomenon.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Oct 8, 2007]

How a British Jihadi Saw the Light - Ed Hussain
I had never expected to see such poverty in Saudi Arabia. Many African immigrants in Jeddah live in Karantina, a slum full of poverty, prostitution, and disease. Visiting Karantina, it dawned on me that many Muslims enjoyed a better lifestyle in non-Muslim Britain than they did in Muslim Saudi Arabia.
    All my talk of ummah seemed so juvenile now. It was only in the comfort of Britain that Islamists could come out with such radical utopian slogans as one government, one ever-expanding country, for one Muslim nation. The racist reality of the Arab psyche would never accept black and white people as equal. Racism was an integral part of Saudi society. Even dark-skinned Arabs were considered inferior to their lighter-skinned cousins.
    [Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Apr 25, 2007]

The Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University has been renamed after Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal donated $20 million to its projects. And while that may be just the tail, the dog appears to be moving away from its historic Catholic and Jesuit teaching philosophy too.

Christians Still "Swine" and Jews "Apes" in Saudi Schools - Harry de Quetteville
Freedom House, a non-partisan American research group which monitors civil rights worldwide, has found that despite promises of change from leading Saudi officials, schoolbooks in the kingdom still promote hatred of those who do not practice its strict form of Wahhabi Islam. The report quotes the following exercise for the youngest children: "Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than --- is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ---." (Telegraph-UK)
    See also Text: Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance (Freedom House)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Jun 27, 2006]

S. Arabia to host Israel boycott event, Jerusalem Post, MICHAEL FREUND, Mar. 7, 2006

Despite a promise made to Washington last November to drop its economic boycott of Israel, Saudi Arabia plans to host a major international conference next week aimed at promoting a continued trade embargo on the Jewish state, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The Post also found that the kingdom continues to prohibit entry to products made in Israel or to foreign-made goods containing Israeli components, in violation of pledges made by senior Saudi officials to the Bush administration last year.

"Next week, we will hold the ninth annual meeting for the boycott of Israel here in Jidda," Ambassador Salem el-Honi, high commissioner of the Organization for the Islamic Conference's (OIC) Islamic Office for the Boycott of Israel, said in a telephone interview.

"All 57 OIC member states will attend, and we will discuss coordination among the various offices to strengthen the boycott," he said, noting that the meeting is held every March.

The OIC, consisting of 57 Muslim countries, is based in Jidda, as is its boycott office.

Feeding at Saudis' trough, Former U.S. envoys lobby for kingdom, San Francisco Chronicle, Jeff Stein,  February 12, 2006

Actually, it would be big news if a senior U.S. diplomat in the Middle East did not accept the warm embrace of the Saudis or other despots upon leaving the region. They are sprinkled all over Washington, particularly in such well-known Saudi-supported think tanks as the Middle East Institute. Two former American ambassadors to Saudi Arabia lead the institute -- Wyche Fowler Jr., chairman, and Edward Walker, president. Former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and deputy assistant secretary for the Near East David Mack is the institute's vice president. Also at the institute is Richard Parker, former ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco, and Michael Sterner, former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and deputy assistant secretary of Near Eastern Affairs.

Chas. Freeman Jr., another former U.S. ambassador to the kingdom, is president of the Saudi-backed Middle East Policy Council. Another ambassador, Walter Cutler, leads the Saudi-backed Meridian International Center.

From the Saudi point of view, all this is a good thing.

Perfidious Princes Teaching Tolerance? - Abby Wisse Schachter
Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal gave $20 million each to Harvard and Georgetown last week, as he explained, because "the understanding between East and West is important for peace and tolerance." One question: Is American intolerance of Muslims really a major world problem? Isn't it more the other way around? Who's funding religious understanding, pluralism, and tolerance in Saudi Arabia? Not Prince Alwaleed, that's for sure. Saudi Arabia outlaws religious pluralism. After oil (maybe), religious intolerance is its biggest export, with countless billions spent to promote only the most intolerant strand of Islam - what the Saudis call Hanbali Islam, and critics call Wahhabism.

    Let's see him fund "cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue" at a Saudi school. And why don't those Saudi-funded madrassas start offering classes in religious diversity and understanding? (New York Post)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Dec 19, 2005]

The Elephant in the Middle East Living Room, Watching Wahhabis

By R. James Woolsey, NRO, December 14, 2005

Within Sunni Islam, along with several more moderate schools, there are two varieties of theocratic totalitarianism. Both of these are Salafists, believing that only a literal version of the model of rule implemented in the seventh century in Islam has ultimate legitimacy. Both have the objective of rule by a unified mosque and state; for some this theocracy is personified by the caliph. Different individuals in these movements emphasize different aspects, but generally the common objective is to unify first the Arab world under theocratic rule, then the Muslim world, then those regions that were once Muslim (e.g. Spain), then the rest of the world.

Such totalitarian visions seem crazy to most of us; we thus tend to underestimate their potency.

[A]l Qaeda and the Wahhabis share essentially the same underlying totalitarian theocratic ideology. It is this common Salafist ideology that the Wahhabis have been spreading widely — financed by $3-4 billion/year from the Saudi government and wealthy individuals in the Middle East over the last quarter century — to the madrassas of Pakistan, the textbooks of Turkish children in Germany, and the mosques of Europe and the U.S. Alex Alexiev, senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, testified before Congress on June 26, 2003, that this is approximately three-four times what the Soviets were spending on external propaganda and similar "active measures" at the peak of Moscow's power in the 1970s.

 

Saudi Teacher to be Lashed for Praising Jews
A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced secondary school teacher Mohammad al-Harbia to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, Al-Madina newspaper said on Sunday.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Nov 15, 2005]

Senate to Probe Saudi Distribution of Hate Materials - Meghan Clyne
The American government is demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores. The flurry of activity comes months after a report from the Center for Religious Freedom discovered that dozens of mosques in major cities were distributing documents, bearing the seal of the government of Saudi Arabia, that incite Muslims to acts of violence and promote hatred of Jews and Christians. (New York Sun)
[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, Oct 6, 2005]  [PAC Comment -  Mosques aren't the only target for Saudi hate -- Saudi Arabia is also paying to influence the teaching of American public schoolchildren.]

Saudi Monarchy: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? - John Bradley (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
The royal family must appease both its Wahhabi constituents and the U.S., even though the two parties are inherent enemies. Current U.S. policy toward the kingdom may help keep terrorists at bay in the short term. Yet, by remaining complicit with the regime, Washington is essentially allowing the kingdom to become a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda. If the U.S. does not look beyond the short-term benefits of its relationship with the regime, it can expect to face severe consequences in the future.
[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, July 8, 2005]

The Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005 - Stephen Schwartz
On June 7, Sen. Arlen Specter introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005 - S. 1171, with cosponsors Sens. Evan Bayh, Susan Collins, Tim Johnson, Patty Murray, Russ Feingold, and Ron Wyden. The bill's text stands as an indictment of Saudi Arabia, an inventory of evidence against the role of its rulers in enabling terrorism. The Council on Foreign Relations concluded almost three years ago that Saudi Arabia is the main source of al-Qaeda backing and that Saudi officials have refused to take serious action to end it. David Aufhauser, former general counsel of the Treasury Department, called the Saudi state the "epicenter" of global terror financing. The Saudis have also subsidized half the annual budget of Hamas. The bill provides for sanctions, including a bar on exporting special military technology to the kingdom and restriction on travel by Saudi diplomats in the U.S. (Weekly Standard)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, June 9, 2005]

Kingdom’s Religious Wrongs, The religious tyranny in Saudi Arabia is not just Saudis’ businnes, Nina Shea, NRO, April 25, 2005

Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom released a report on the radically intolerant Wahhabi ideology contained in documents generated by the government of Saudi Arabia and found in the U.S. A publication with "Greetings from the Cultural Department" of the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., gave detailed instructions on how to "hate" the Christian and Jew.

Saudi Arabia's Top Educator Leaves No Wahhabi Child Behind - Olivier Guitta
The most important political event in Saudi Arabia in the last year may have been the appointment on Feb. 9 of Abdullah bin Saleh al-Obaid, a hard-core Wahhabi, as education minister. Al-Obaid replaces a secularist reformer at the head of a ministry controlling 27% of the national budget and influencing the minds of the next generation. In choosing a Wahhabi for this vital post, Crown Prince Abdullah snubbed his Western friends and handed a victory to the sympathizers of al-Qaeda.
    From 1995 to 2002, al-Obaid was head of the Muslim World League, an organization that in its origins, mission, and associations is bound up with Islamic extremism. Since its founding in 1962, it has spent billions of Saudi government dollars to expand worldwide for the purpose of spreading Wahhabism. The Muslim World League also has direct links to al-Qaeda. Its branch in Peshawar, Pakistan, was led by Wael Jalaidan, "one of the founders of al-Qaeda," according to the U.S. Treasury Department. (Weekly Standard)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, March 29, 2005]

LGF, 1/5/05: Last year, Saudi Arabia raised more than $150 million for the families of suicide bombers.  To help their Muslim brothers devastated by the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, the oil-rich country is contributing $30 million.  And on it goes.

The Saudi Syndrome - Editorial (New York Times)
[W]hat [the Saudi government] still pays for, and what the religious charities its citizens are obliged to contribute to pay for, is a worldwide network of mosques, schools, and Islamic centers that proselytize the belligerent and intolerant Wahhabi variant of Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia. As a result of this oil-financed largess, the teachings of more tolerant and humane Muslim leaders are losing ground in countries like Indonesia and Pakistan. Wahhabi mosques that glorify armed jihad have also made alarming gains among the Muslim populations of Europe and the U.S.

There is no sinister Saudi conspiracy at work here. This is just what anyone should expect to happen when mind-boggling sums of oil money flow into an absolute monarchy that bases its legitimacy on puritanical militant Islam and offers no pretense of political accountability or transparent accounting. The more copiously that oil money flows, the less pressure a divided Saudi royal family feels to undertake the kind of difficult political and economic reforms that might conceivably break the nexus between oil and terror.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, January 3, 2005]

Saudi Religious Scholars Back Iraqi Insurgents, (AP/Los Angeles Times)
A group of 26 prominent Saudi religious scholars have urged Iraqis to support militants fighting U.S.-led forces. In their letter Saturday, the clerics issued a fatwa, or religious edict, prohibiting Iraqis from offering any support for military operations carried out by U.S. forces against insurgent strongholds, stressing that armed attacks by Iraqi groups on U.S. troops and their allies represent "legitimate" resistance.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, November 8, 2004]

Saudi Royal Family Faces Troubles, Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, Fox News, 8/9/04

Behind a façade of control, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia is in tough shape and teetering on the brink of collapse, a victim of its own corruption and a violent Islamic insurgency at its door, some U.S. experts warn.

"Anyone who knows anything about the area knows it's not a question of ‘if,' but of ‘when,'" said Bill Lind, a military analyst with the Free Congress Foundation. "We need to delay it as much as possible … and think of what to do when it does happen."

Saudi Castle of Sand - Laurent Murawiec, (Toronto Globe and Mail)
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's offer of a limited amnesty to al-Qaeda terrorists is a sure sign of the panic that has taken hold of the enfeebled House of Saud. It is also a sign of weakness, and will be read as such by the Saudi population. The dynasty does not have what it takes to fight and win. Arabia's Islamists believe they can grab it all: power, money, oil fields, holy places, and high-tech weaponry. There is an informal consensus among many Saudi watchers: The regime's life expectancy does not exceed 18 to 24 months. The writer is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. [Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, July 12, 2004]

Saudi Security Organs Infiltrated - Richard Sale (UPI/Washington Times)
Al-Qaeda sympathizers and operatives within the Saudi armed forces "are believed to be gaining ground" in their campaign to topple the royal family, according to a senior administration official.

"Our great worry is the degree to which al-Qaeda has penetrated the Saudi police, the National Guard, and other security organs," another administration official said.
A U.S. intelligence official said, "al-Qaeda has a huge manpower pool to draw from inside Saudi Arabia."

A classified DIA study says there are as many as 10,000 al-Qaeda sympathizers in the Saudi police, National Guard, and security forces.

Al-Qaeda Steals Saudi Police Cars for Expat Attacks - Keith Jones and Philip Sherwell (Telegraph-UK)
Al-Qaeda militants in Riyadh have stolen up to 15 police cars, possibly with the help of sympathizers within the force, as part of a strategy to set up fake official roadblocks to abduct or kill Westerners.

The militants have also painted other vehicles to resemble official ones and made replica uniforms.

U.S. intelligence believes that al-Qaeda has started inserting its agents at oil installations in preparation for an attack.

Incitement to Jihad on Saudi Government-Controlled TV - Steven Stalinsky (MEMRI)
MEMRI continually monitors Saudi government-controlled television channels, which include shows with leading Saudi religious figures, professors, members of the royal family, government leaders, and intellectuals.

Constant themes within the shows include: calls for the annihilation of Christians and Jews, rampant anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, support for jihad, incitement against U.S. troops in Iraq, and the coming Islamic conquest of the U.S.[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, June 28, 2004]

Saudi Envoy's Zionist Claims "Are Offensive"  (Telegraph-UK)
The Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, has reinforced controversial claims by the kingdom's royal family of a link between "Zionists" and recent al-Qaeda terror attacks in the country, speaking in a television interview broadcast Sunday of "an attack on the kingdom...from Zionist circles." His comments were condemned by Lord Janner, the former Labour MP, who called them "highly offensive."  [Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, June 29, 2004]

A Saudi Opportunity - Editorial, Washington Post
The Saudi rulers have yet to acknowledge the ways in which Islamic radicals have been bred by the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi strain of Islam and the state-financed religious establishment. Rather than tackle the hidebound religious establishment or promote alternatives to the strict Wahhabi creed, the government has rounded up and jailed reformers who call for religious and political liberalization. The U.S. can no longer afford to support the Saudi status quo. [Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, July 1, 2004]

Al-Qaeda Support Foils Saudi Security Pledges - (London Times)
Saudi Arabia's intelligence services are so infiltrated by al-Qaeda sympathizers that the kingdom's counter-terrorist campaign is failing and militant operations are spreading into neighboring states, according to senior Arab and Western officials. The main Saudi intelligence organization responsible for combating al-Qaeda at the Ministry of Interior "is 80% sympathetic to al-Qaeda," said one senior Arab source. "All Saudi intelligence agencies are compromised."

The Jordanians have intercepted several al-Qaeda teams who have infiltrated from Saudi Arabia, intending to whip up opposition to the country's leadership among the southern clans, who have tribal links across the border. Two Saudi nationals and a Yemeni were reportedly intercepted after entering southern Jordan with arms to attack a camp where Iraq's police forces are being trained by Jordanian and British instructors.  [Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, July 5, 2004]

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