'Moderate' Islamic Terrorism

AFP

Saudi Arabia is the key source of funding for radical Islamist groups,
according to US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks. Other Gulf
states are also important to militant fundraising for al-Qa'ida, the
Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hamas. "Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,'' said the document, an assessment from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dated December 30, 2009.

"Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa'ida,
the Taliban, LeT (Lashkar-e-Toiba), and other terrorist groups,
including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually
from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan,'' the cable said.
(Islamic terrorists use religion to cover their bloody business and
Muslim states, friends of the US, are co-operating and assisting them
by inaction and complacency! Just recently the United States made an
historic sale, US$60 billion worth, of combat planes and helicopters
to Saudi Arabia. Who will the arms be used against? Fifteen out of 19
al-Quida terrorists, who attacked the US on 9/11, were Saudis!)
There was no accusation of official Saudi government support of militants.

The memo credited the Saudis with "significant progress'' under US pressure to deal with the issue, especially disrupting al-Qa'ida's finance channels.

However, it said, "Riyadh has taken only limited action'' to interrupt the flow of money to Taliban and LeT-associated groups which have launched attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

It said other Gulf states also remain important sources of financing for Islamist militants, singling out Qatar as "the worst in the region'' in its cooperation with Washington.

Qatar's approach on militant financing is "largely passive'', and its security services "have been hesitant to act against known terrorists'' because they fear being seen too close to the United States, it said.

The same document said Kuwait has been "less inclined to take action'' on local financiers and facilitators plotting attacks outside the country.

Documents released by WikiLeaks showed the strong push Washington has made on Gulf allies to crack down on money going to the Taliban and LeT in addition to al-Qa'ida.

They revealed Washington thinks private donations from the Gulf are the main source of Taliban funds, and not the narcotics trade.

But the documents suggest Gulf governments had not paid much attention to the Taliban issue, and were heavily dependent on US intelligence.

The documents depict US officials handing over data on suspected Taliban fund-raisers to Gulf counterparts, who were not aware of the names provided.

The Saudi interior ministry "remains almost completely dependent on the CIA to provide analytic support and direction for its counterterrorism operations,'' said a February cable from the US embassy in Riyadh.

"As such, our success against terrorist financing in the kingdom remains directly tied to our ability to provide actionable intelligence to our Saudi counterparts.''

But US documents praised the Saudis for their cooperation, including arresting "more than 40 individuals'' from the Al-Haramain Foundation, a sprawling charity Washington has alleged supports al-Qa'ida.

In the past two years, Riyadh has passed a law and issued an official fatwa, or religious edict, against donating to designated terror groups.

But speaking about militant financing, Saudi officials themselves admit that the annual hajj pilgrimage is "a vacuum in our security'', one 2009 document noted.

Likewise, the Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported on Saturday, citing Saudi security sources, that militants recently arrested in Saudi Arabia had used the cover of raising funds for flood relief in Pakistan in recent months to get money for al-Qa'ida.

Meanwhile Yemen's government had intentionally identified a crashed unmanned spy plane as Iranian while knowing it belonged to the United States, according to a WikiLeaks release of a US memo.

The April 2007 memo from the US embassy in Sanaa reported that a US surveillance drone had washed up on the coast of Hadramawt province on the Arabian Sea on March 27 of that year.

After a protest from the government that the Americans were spying on Yemen, the US embassy informed President Ali Abdullah Saleh that the aircraft had been doing routine reconnaissance near a US naval vessel far offshore, outside Yemen's territory, the document said.

Saleh didn't completely believe the US explanation, but told the embassy he would not make an issue of it, the memo said.

Instead, on March 29, official and pro-government media reported that the Yemeni military had shot down an Iranian spy plane off the coast of Hadramawt, the cable said.

Saleh "could have taken the opportunity to score political points by appearing tough in public against the United States, but chose instead to blame Iran,'' the memo said.

He "decided he would benefit more from painting Iran as the bad guy in this case,'' it said.

AFP