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Inside the Kingdom

(TIME) Lisa Beyer with Scott MacLeod - One of the administration's top counterterrorism officials says the Saudis still appear to be protecting charities associated with the royal family and its friends. The Saudis have offered only "selective cooperation" on the financial front. The bank records of a charity suspected of being an al-Qaeda front mysteriously disappeared, he says. The official also says the Saudis have denied U.S. officials access to several suspects in custody, including a Saudi in detention who had knowledge of extensive plans to inject poison gas in the New York City subway system. Saudi spokesmen claim they have fired hundreds of clerics for being too extreme and are re-educating thousands more, but some wonder how long the imams will stay in line. "We have noticed lately in influential mosques the imam has condemned terrorism and preached in favor of tolerance, then closed the sermon with 'O God, please destroy the Jews, the infidels, and all who support them,'" says Robert Jordan, U.S. ambassador to Riyadh. Apart from channeling money to foundations that have assisted terrorist groups, Saudis have for years supported institutions abroad that propagate Wahhabism. According to Mohammed al-Khilewi, a Saudi diplomat who defected to the U.S. in the mid-1990s, "The Saudi government spends billions of dollars to establish cultural centers in the U.S. and all over the world." "They use these centers to recruit individuals and to establish extreme organizations," he said. In March 2002, Ain al-Yaqeen, an official Saudi magazine, wrote that the royal family wholly or partly funded some 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges, and 2,000 schools in countries without Muslim majorities. According to Khalid Duran, president of a Washington-based Muslim cultural association, virtually every Muslim child in the U.S. receiving religious instruction in Arabic is using Saudi textbooks.
2003-09-08 00:00:00
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