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Saudis continue to fund Hamas

Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Friday, March 22, 2002

The United States has quietly urged Saudi Arabia to end funding for the Palestinian Hamas insurgency group.

U.S. officials said Saudi Arabia is believed to provide about $50 million a year to Hamas. They said the Saudi funding was not reduced amid the current U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Officials said the State Department and Treasury Department have raised the issue with the kingdom in recent weeks. They said the Bush administration asserted that Hamas is a terrorist group that can no longer be supported.

"The issue of funding for groups in the Middle East has been an ongoing subject of discussion with a great variety of countries," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Wednesday. "We have worked very closely with Saudi Arabia on various financing of terrorism questions, too. And so, yes, all these things get discussed from time to time, and we work on them."

Boucher would not elaborate. But other officials said Saudi Arabia has disputed U.S. assertions that Riyad finances Hamas insurgency activities.

Saudi officials said the kingdom provides financing to Palestinian charities.

Earlier this month, the administration said Riyad has cooperated with a U.S. request to freeze the assets of two branches of a Saudi charity. But the director of the Al Haramein Foundation said he has not been informed of any move against his organization, which distributes about $55 million a year.

Boucher said the United States has also raised the issue of anti-Semitism in the Saudi media. The discussions were prompted by an article in the Saudi Al Riyad daily that accused Jews of using the blood of Gentiles for ritual purposes.

"We do continue to press the Saudi government on this at the highest levels and the clearest terms possible," Boucher said. "Saudi officials have promised to address the issue, and we will continue to follow up on it."

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