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| Middle East |
| Osama’s Saudi moles (Note: Commentary) |
| 2003-08-17 |
| EFL I know this is commentary, but the info is fascinating - and clarifies both OBL’s rise (or fall) and the House of Saud situation. It also corrects a bad guess of mine as to how many Royals there are. Worth the read if the House of Saud seems a muddle. By Arnaud de Borchgrave To get a clear fix on the degree of Saudi involvement with transnational terrorism one has to understand that Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist, became a hero in the kingdom 20 years ago. In his mid-20s, he was raising money and recruits to join the mujahideen in their guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The scion of one of the country’s most successful nonroyal business families, Osama had easy access to people of great wealth. His late father, Mohammed, had exclusive rights as the contractor for all royal palaces and buildings. In those days, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were splitting the $1 billion-a-year tab of the anti-Soviet war. Bin Laden was also collecting donations from the hard-line anti-communist royals who dipped into their numbered accounts abroad. This helped bankroll the transfer of thousands of volunteers from all over the Arab world — and the Muslim world beyond. When the last Soviet unit left Afghanistan Feb. 15, 1989, Osama came home to much adulation. It was, after all, the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire — and bin Laden, as his countrymen read the embroidered saga, had starred in the denouement. While bin Laden, hardened by his experiences with the "Afghan Arabs" in Afghanistan, did not approve of the extravagant excesses of the House of Saud, he held his fire. That is, until Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait Aug. 2, 1990. Talk of U.S. intervention to drive the Iraqis out prompted bin Laden to ask for an appointment with an old friend who was a key Saudi official — Prince Turki al Faisal, the man who had been head of intelligence for 25 years and oversaw the Afghan war effort. As Prince Turki, now the Saudi ambassador in London, recalled the encounter to this reporter, bin Laden said there was no need to call in the U.S. cavalry because his own Afghan Arabs could do the job, just as the mujahideen had defeated the mighty Soviet Union. Prince Turki thought the idea was so preposterous he laughed and told bin Laden there was no way lightly armed guerrillas could defeat the Iraqi army. That turned out to be an expensive chuckle. Because bin Laden there and then decided the House of Saud was capitulating to the U.S. and that Washington would now use the pretext of Kuwait to occupy the Gulf and control its oil resources. More... The fact that these "fears" didn’t materialize is, of course, lost in the rush to jihad by OBL’s believers. Yesterday, quite late, a very interesting story was posted regards the Saudi Clerics’ recent conversion to the Royal POV. It’s a load of shit, of course, and contradicts everything they’ve been saying since 9/11. That the Royals put the pressure on high, is apparent. The veracity of the Clerics is not. Check it out, too. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #2 To the Saudis, anyone who sits in the back lines, hands out cash, and occasionally torturns a captive is a hero. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-8-17 7:13:36 PM |
| #1 A hero? Ossama kept himself faaaaaaar away of the closest Russian soldier. Apparently a national tradition since except for a few irregulars in 1948 the Saudis have never dared to go fight Israel. Another point: from my readings Afghans had a poor opinion of the Arab Jihadis and weren't keen on sending them to the front. Their most noticeable contribution were atrocities toward the prisonners (both Russian and Afghans). |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-8-17 9:23:58 AM |