Saudi Arabia has failed to provide its intelligence
agencies with sufficient assets and instruction to help the United States in
its war against terrorism, a new report says.
The report by the Washington-based Center for Strategy and International
Studies said Saudi Arabia has succeeded in protecting the kingdom from
internal threats. But Saudi intelligence agencies have failed to stop the
funding of groups listed on the State Department list of terrorist
organizations or links between Pakistani religious seminaries that produced
Islamic insurgents and Saudi sponsors.
"Saudi intelligence activity has been far weaker in dealing with the
financial aspects of intelligence and internal security, and has done
comparatively little to monitor the role of Saudi charities, religious
organizations, and individuals in financing extremist groups Ñ other than
those that posed a direct threat to the rule of the Saudi royal family," the
report, authored by senior fellow Anthony Cordesman, said.
"Saudi Arabia does not have a sophisticated intelligence gathering and analysis capability
or that the Ministry of Interior does not have ties to Saudi embassies and
consulates that allow it to monitor the activities of Saudis abroad, the
activities of foreign businessmen in Saudi Arabia, and individuals and
elements hostile to Saudi Arabia."
Cordesman, a former senior Pentagon official, said Saudi intelligence
agencies have been effective in monitoring opposition groups overseas and
pressuring foreign governments to curb insurgency activities. The report
said the kingdom has often been far more effective in using such non-violent
means than more violent and aggressive governments like those of Iran and
Iraq.
"There was an equal tendency to turn a blind eye towards the flow of
Saudi money to Palestinian groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad and other hardline or violent Islamic elements in countries like
Egypt," the report said. "Furthermore, there was often feeling that Saudi
support and financing of the Taliban and other governments acted as a way of
containing Saudi extremists overseas with the somewhat naive expectation
that such governments would really reign in their activity or stay 'bought.'
It may be argued with considerable justification that the West often ignored
such groups and activities or underestimated the risk they posed."
The report said the task of monitoring Saudi financing of terrorist
groups is huge. Saudi organizations and individuals are said to have have
hundreds of billions of dollars in deposits in Western and other foreign
banks.
Saudi Arabia has several intelligence services. The General Intelligence
Directorate is responsible for security, anti-terrorism, and foreign
liaison functions and its chief reports directly to King Fahd.
The Defense Ministry operates an intelligence agency that monitors
unrest in the military. The agency cooperates with the CIA and other U.S.
intelligence groups.
The report said Saudi Arabia has opposed U.S. efforts to ensure law
enforcement cooperation. This included Washington's request for FBI
coordination with the investigation of the 1996 bombing of the U.S. military
barracks at Al Khobar.
"In retrospect, the General Intelligence Directorate and other
intelligence and security services do seem to have failed to come to grips
with the problems of Islamic extremism although the Foreign Ministry and
Office of the Crown Prince may have to accept equal or greater blame," the
report said.
The report said Saudi Arabia has launched an effort to understand the
extent of Islamic financing of terrorist groups since the suicide attacks on
New York and Washington last September. Cordesman cites the appointment of
GID chief Prince Nawaf Bin Abdul Aziz, who replaced the longtime chief
Prince Turki Al Faisal.
"It has begun to make significant changes in its approach to these
problems since September 11," the report said. "It is making far more of an
effort to understand the nature of Saudi activity in extremist groups and
the flow of money outside of the kingdom."
