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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62129-2004Jan29.html?nav=hptop_ts
General Warns of Pakistani, Saudi Extremists
(Washington Post) While much of the U.S. military is currently focused on stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan, extremists in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia pose a longer-term strategic challenge to American interests, the senior U.S. military commander in the region, Gen. John Abizaid, said Thursday. For a high-ranking U.S. official to voice such worries about Saudi Arabia was unusual. Abizaid's remarks reflect a quiet concern in the Bush administration about the strength of Saudi rule and the future stability of the desert kingdom. The country is battling a rise in deadly violence linked to al-Qaeda, whose leader, Osama bin Laden, is a Saudi exile. Abizaid, an expert in Arab affairs, dismissed reports of large numbers of Islamic militants flowing into Iraq from outside the country. "The foreign fighter flow is almost always overestimated," he said, describing the number killed or captured in Iraq as "in the hundreds."