The Two Faces of Saudi Arabia

EARLIER THIS MONTH, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency announced new rules governing Saudi charities and welfare agencies. From now on, each charity must consolidate its funds in a single bank account licensed by the government, from which cash withdrawals are banned. Explaining the new rules in Washington, Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan declared with finality, "We have closed the door on the possibility for charitable giving to be misappropriated for illegal purposes."

Perhaps al Qaeda's four coordinated suicide bombings in Riyadh on May 12 really did deliver "a massive jolt" to the regime, as one Saudi insisted. The official rhetoric, at least, expressed resolve. The day after the bombings, Crown Prince Abdullah called the attackers "vicious animals whose only concern is to shed blood and bring terror to those innocents." Days later, his foreign policy adviser Adel al Jubeir reiterated that the government will do everything necessary "to confront and destroy the organization and the people who did this." Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal went so far as to say that combating terror requires "standing up to whoever feeds it and sympathizes with it."

Not only that, but the Chicago Tribune reported on June 20 that Saudi authorities were about to arrest at least one "prominent Saudi businessman" and seize his assets for financing the al Qaeda cells behind the May 12 attacks. It seems the plotters had plans to assassinate members of the royal family. Can it be, then, that the Saudis have turned a corner on the financing of extremism? Will they now really become full partners in the war on terror, assisting international investigations, following the money trail, and curbing incitement?

Not likely. Even as Saudi security forces crack down hard on terrorists who threaten the kingdom, the government's efforts fall far short of full-fledged cooperation in the effort to stop this global scourge.

To be sure, the Saudis reacted swiftly to the May 12 bombings, which took 34 lives. They conducted sweeps of apartment complexes, arrested terrorists, even detained some radical preachers. Similar crackdowns, however, followed the 1995 attack on the Saudi National Guard office and the 1996 Khobar Towers attack. Since September 11, the Saudis have provided intelligence that has helped prevent attacks on U.S. forces stationed in the region. Saudi agents reportedly infiltrated two domestic al Qaeda cells, leading to the arrest last summer of over 75 al Qaeda members, of various nationalities. Saudi security services also thwarted several plots targeting Western interests in the kingdom. But these were merely tactical operations. The royal family has a history of cutting off investigations whenever the trail leads anywhere near Saudi elites and so threatens to expose fault lines in Saudi society.

Thus, Saudi officials spoke of the men behind the Riyadh attacks as a "small group" of "criminals"--refusing to recognize them as part of the international matrix of terrorism. The Riyadh cells were originally commanded by Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a senior al Qaeda figure, tied to the bombing of the USS Cole, who was captured in the United Arab Emirates in November 2002. His deputy, Khaled Jehani, took over the cells' operations, with the help of Ali Abdel Rahman al Ghamdi, Abdurahman Mansour Jabarah, and other well-known al Qaeda operatives.

Far from being a transformative event, the Riyadh bombings elicited the standard Saudi response to such unpleasant developments. Every few months, the Saudis announce new restrictions on charities or launch another PR campaign in the United States--but they change their behavior only in response to insistent demands from outside.

Thus, shortly after the last tightening of financial regulations, Sheikh Aqeel al-Aqeel, head of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, denied funding terrorist groups and proudly asserted that the decision to close several foreign branch offices had nothing to do with U.S. pressure. In reality, the offices were shut because the Saudi government had frozen their funds--after German officials had linked the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation to terrorist activity in Berlin, and two senior U.S. officials had gone to Saudi Arabia armed with U.S. intelligence tying the foundation to current terrorist activity. Similarly, the Saudis extradited the German Islamist Christian Ganczarski--described by French officials as "a high-ranking member of al Qaeda who has been in contact with Osama bin Laden himself"--to France on June 3 only after international pressure was applied.

Meanwhile, an abundance of evidence confirms that financial and moral support for terrorism are still flowing from the kingdom.