NewsMax.com
Thursday, July 31, 2001

Prince Nayef, the Saudi Interior Minister, said most of the suspects “received their military training in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan,” acknowledging, however, “a small number perhaps were trained on farms and the like inside the country.”

Nayef’s candor about the al-Qaeda infiltration in his country appeared part of a general public relations offensive led by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Faisal, who appealed this week to President Bush in Washington to open up all censored references to Saudi Arabia in the public 9/11 report.

Faisal said Tuesday afternoon after meeting with the president: “We have nothing to hide. And we do not seek, nor do we want to be, shielded.”

Nayef’s comments, published in the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, come on the heels of the kingdom’s latest raid on a farm where suspected militants were believed to be hiding. An ensuing firefight left six suspects and two officers dead.

The venue of the clash was al-Qassim, a farming town 220 miles northwest of the capital, Riyadh – the scene of the May 12 carnage that killed 25 Saudis and Westerners and nine attackers. The attack was attributed to al-Qaida.

No Extradition

“We have confirmed that they definitely belong to al-Qaeda and bin Laden and they will be tried on this basis when investigations are over,” Prince Nayef said of the detainees. However, he qualified in a later statement to the London-based Al-Hayat, Saudi Arabia would not extradite any Saudi terrorism suspects to America.

Although much has been made recently of the supposed references to Saudi financial entanglements with terrorists in the 9/11 report, experts see the Saudi PR gap as springing from other broader perceptions held by Americans and other Westerners.

Included are allegations that al-Qaida has long infiltrated Saudi security, intelligence and other government agencies.

Another perception is Saudi Arabia’s too-tolerant attitude toward Islamist extremism, partially spawned by the regime’s embracing as its official ideology the radical form of Islam known as “Wahhabism.”

Wahhabism, which preaches intolerance for other belief systems, reportedly inspired Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11.

Reportedly, both Saudi officials and private citizens used Saudi oil wealth to promote Wahhabism all over the world, sponsoring the schools that taught the leaders of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and funding mosques in Western Europe where al-Qaeda operatives were recruited.

Perhaps most damaging is the fact that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi.

The unemployment rate in the kingdom stands at about 30 percent, adding to the volatile mix and the resulting terror recruiting pool.

“Al-Qaeda has infiltrated Saudi Arabia more than we imagined because extremist ideas, like those of bin Laden, have roots here,” said Qenan al-Ghamdi, a columnist and former editor-in-chief of al-Watan newspaper, according to an Associated Press report.

“When bin Laden calls for jihad or recruits, his ideas find many takers here, because these same extremist ideas have a base here and are widespread in the kingdom,” he added. “We need to admit this. These are not unique cases.”

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Al-Qaeda

War on Terrorism