Our own (well, actually we share him) Dan Darling has a masterful analysis of this weekend's Riyadh attacks up on Winds of Change. If you haven't read it, go do it now. Dan notes that The financial side of al-Qaeda, best personified in a report submitted to the United Nations Security Council that documents the top seven financiers of al-Qaeda: Khalid bin Mahfouz, Saleh Abdullah Kamel, Abdullah Suleiman al-Rajhi, Adel Abdul Jalil Batterjee, Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, Wael Hamza Julaidan, and Yasin al-Qadi, remains largely untouched. All of these men are extremely wealthy Saudi business magnates and all of them have been allowed to operate freely within the Kingdom even after the Riyadh bombings. Nor are these individuals the only major Saudi al-Qaeda financiers, according to al-Qaeda documents recovered from Bosnia, the organization's financiers also at least thirteen additional Saudi magnates, including members of the Bin Laden Group.
Then there's the case of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Bin Laden's brother-in-law. Khalifa financed and helped to establish the al-Qaeda infrastructure in the Philippines that enabled the organization to plot Oplan Bojinka, the prototype for 9/11. Khalifa was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks but subsequently released by Saudi authorities. As of this date, he remains a free man in the Kingdom.
... The ultimate test of whether or not the Saudis are prepared to fully sever their ties to al-Qaeda will be whether or not the Kingdom is willing to cut the financial umbilical chord for international terrorism once and for all. Until that occurs in some fashion or another, everything that happens in the Kingdom should be the subject of intense skepticism, particularly claims to the press or even by public figures that the Saudis are no longer turning a blind eye to terrorism. The royal family has known about the activities of these individuals for well over a year at this point, and to date have done absolutely nothing to hinder them.
The money boyz are the canary in the coal mine in Soddy Arabia. We'll know for sure they've decided to fight seriously against al-Qaeda when the money men start having "unfortunate accidents." It's doubtful they'll be jugged — too many secrets that could come trickling out, even in a closed society, though some of them might "retire."
We probably won't notice it, since they're not princes. Their demises probably won't make Arab News or Arab Times or Riyadh Daily. (A few of the higher echelons of the Council of Boskone Learned Elders of Islam might, though, if they're prominent holy men.) Intel will probably be able to track the diminution of funding, but we won't hear about that, either.
Damn. I hate being in the dark. But if Saturday's bombing doesn't jolt them into taking it seriously, they're not going to take it seriously. They're still differentiating between Hamas and Qaeda at this moment, so I have my doubts. |
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