U.S. Officials Voice Frustrations With Saudis’ Role in Iraq

King Abdullah


U.S. Officials Voice Frustrations With Saudis’ Role in Iraq

By HELENE COOPER
Published: July 27, 2007

This article was reported by Helene Cooper, Mark Mazzetti and Jim Rutenberg, and written by Ms. Cooper.

WASHINGTON, July 26 — During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq’s prime minister could not be trusted.
One purported to be an early alert from the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr warning him to lie low during the coming American troop increase, which was aimed in part at Mr. Sadr’s militia. Another document purported to offer proof that Mr. Maliki was an agent of Iran.
The American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, immediately protested to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, contending that the documents were forged. But, said administration officials who provided an account of the exchange, the Saudis remained skeptical, adding to the deep rift between America’s most powerful Sunni Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, and its Shiite-run neighbor, Iraq.
Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.
One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.”
Senior Bush administration officials said the American concerns would be raised next week when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates make a rare joint visit to Jidda, Saudi Arabia.
Officials in Washington have long resisted blaming Saudi Arabia for the chaos and sectarian strife in Iraq, choosing instead to pin blame on Iran and Syria. Even now, military officials rarely talk publicly about the role of Saudi fighters among the insurgents in Iraq.
The accounts of American concerns came from interviews with several senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they believed that openly criticizing Saudi Arabia would further alienate the Saudi royal family at a time when the United States is still trying to enlist Saudi support for Mr. Maliki and the Iraqi government, and for other American foreign policy goals in the Middle East, including an Arab-Israeli peace plan.
In agreeing to interviews in advance of the joint trip to Saudi Arabia, the officials were nevertheless clearly intent on sending a pointed signal to a top American ally. They expressed deep frustration that more private American appeals to the Saudis had failed to produce a change in course.
The American officials said they had no doubt that the documents shown to Mr. Khalilzad were forgeries, though the Saudis said they had obtained them from sources in Iraq. “Maliki wouldn’t be stupid enough to put that on a piece of paper,” one senior Bush administration official said. He said Mr. Maliki later assured American officials that the documents were forgeries.
The Bush administration’s frustration with the Saudi government has increased in recent months because it appears that Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to undermine the Maliki government and to pursue a different course in Iraq from what the administration has charted. Saudi Arabia has also stymied a number of other American foreign policy initiatives, including a hoped-for Saudi embrace of Israel.
Of course, the Saudi government has hardly masked its intention to prop up Sunni groups in Iraq and has for the past two years explicitly told senior Bush administration officials of the need to counterbalance the influence Iran has there. Last fall, King Abdullah warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulled its troops out of Iraq, American and Arab diplomats said.
Several officials interviewed for this article said they believed that Saudi Arabia’s direct support to Sunni tribesmen increased this year as the Saudis lost faith in the Maliki government and felt they must bolster Sunni groups in the eventuality of a widespread civil war.
Saudi Arabia months ago made a pitch to enlist other Persian Gulf countries to take a direct role in supporting Sunni tribal groups in Iraq, said one former American ambassador with close ties to officials in the Middle East. The former ambassador, Edward W. Gnehm, who has served in Kuwait and Jordan, said that during a recent trip to the region he was told that Saudi Arabia had pressed other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — which includes Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — to give financial support to Sunnis in Iraq. The Saudis made this effort last December, Mr. Gnehm said.
The closest the administration has come to public criticism was an Op-Ed page article about Iraq in The New York Times last week by Mr. Khalilzad, now the United States ambassador to the United Nations. “Several of Iraq’s neighbors — not only Syria and Iran but also some friends of the United States — are pursuing destabilizing policies,” Mr. Khalilzad wrote. Administration officials said Mr. Khalilzad was referring specifically to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Ms. Rice and Mr. Gates, as well as Mr. Cheney and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, have in recent months pressed their Arab counterparts to do more to encourage Iraq’s Sunni leaders to support Mr. Maliki, senior administration officials said.
“This message certainly has been made very clear in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi,” a senior administration official said. “But there is a deep reserve directed both at the person of the Maliki government but more broadly at the concept” that Iraq’s Shiites are “surrogates of Iran.” Saudi Arabia has grown increasingly concerned about the rising influence of Iran in the region.
A spokesman at the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not return telephone calls on Thursday. But one adviser to the royal family said that Saudi officials were aware of the American accusations. “As you know by now, we in Saudi Arabia have been active in having a united Arab front to, first, avoid further inter-Arab conflict, and at the same time building consensus to move toward a peace settlement between the Arabs and Israel,” he said. “How others judge our motives is their problem.”
Even as American frustration at Saudi Arabia grows, American military officials are still cautious about publicly detailing the extent of the flow of foreign fighters going to Iraq from Saudi Arabia. Earlier this month, for instance, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the top American military spokesman in Iraq, detailed the odyssey of a foreign fighter recently captured in Ramadi.
In his public account, General Bergner told reporters that the man had arrived in Syria on a chartered bus, was smuggled into Iraq by a Syrian facilitator, and was given instructions to carry out a suicide truck bombing on a bridge in Ramadi. He did not identify the man’s nationality, but American officials in Iraq say he was a Saudi.
The American officials in Iraq also say that the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia and that about 40 percent of all foreign fighters are Saudi. Officials said that while most of the foreign fighters came to Iraq to become suicide bombers, others arrived as bomb makers, snipers, logisticians and financiers.
American military and intelligence officials have been critical of Saudi efforts to stanch the flow of fighters into Iraq, although they stress that the Saudi government does not endorse the idea of fighters from Saudi Arabia going to Iraq.
On the contrary, they said, Saudi Arabia is concerned that these young men could acquire insurgency training in Iraq and then return home to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia — similar to the Saudis who turned against their homeland after fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The Bush administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has deteriorated steadily since the United States invasion of Iraq, culminating in April when, bitingly, King Abdullah, during a speech before Arab heads of state in Riyadh, condemned the American invasion of Iraq as “an illegal foreign occupation.”
A month before that, King Abdullah effectively torpedoed a high-profile meeting between Israelis and Palestinians, planned by Ms. Rice, by brokering a power-sharing agreement between the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the militant Islamist group Hamas that did not require Hamas to recognize Israel. While that agreement eventually fell apart, the Bush administration, on both occasions, was caught off guard and became infuriated.
But Saudi officials have not been too happy with President Bush, either, and the plummeting of America’s image in the Muslim world has led King Abdullah to strive to set a more independent course.
The administration “thinks the Saudis are no longer behaving the role of the good vassal,” said Steve Clemons, senior fellow and director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The Saudis, in turn, “see weakness, they see a void, and they’re going to fill the void and call their own shots.”

Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from Baghdad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/world/middleeast/27saudi.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

U.S. Tracks Saudi Bank Favored by Extremists

U.S. Tracks Saudi Bank Favored by Extremists
Officials Debated What To Do About Al Rajhi, Intelligence Files Show
By GLENN R. SIMPSON
July 26, 2007; Page A1

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia -- In the 1940s, two Bedouin farm boys from the desert began changing money for the trickle of traders and religious pilgrims in this then-remote and barren kingdom. It was a business built on faith and trust, Sulaiman Al Rajhi once told an interviewer, and for many years he would hand gold bars to strangers boarding flights in Jidda and ask them to give the gold to his brother on their arrival in Riyadh.
Today, Mr. Al Rajhi is a reclusive octogenarian whose fortune is estimated at $12 billion. And Al Rajhi Bank grew into the kingdom's largest Islamic bank, with 500 branches in Saudi Arabia and more spread across the Muslim world.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the bank also set off an intense debate within the U.S. government over whether to take strong action against its alleged role in extremist finance. Confidential reports by the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. agencies, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, detail for the first time how much the U.S. learned about the use of Al Rajhi Bank by alleged extremists, and how U.S. officials agonized over what to do about it.

After 9/11, the Saudi monarchy pledged its full support in the fight against global terrorism. And following violent attacks inside the kingdom in the next two years, the Saudis did launch major strikes against militants operating on their soil. But the Saudi government has been far been less willing to tackle the financial infrastructure essential to terrorism. U.S. intelligence reports state that Islamic banks, while mostly doing ordinary commerce, also are institutions that extremism relies upon in its global spread.

As a result, the Bush administration repeatedly debated proposals for taking strong action itself against Al Rajhi Bank, in particular, according to former U.S. officials and previously undisclosed government documents. Ultimately, the U.S. always chose instead to lobby Saudi officialdom quietly about its concerns.

The U.S. intelligence reports, heretofore secret, describe how Al Rajhi Bank has maintained accounts and accepted donations for Saudi charities that the U.S. and other nations have formally designated as fronts for al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

In addition, Mr. Al Rajhi and family members have been major donors to Islamic charities that are suspected by Western intelligence agencies of funding terrorism, according to CIA reports and federal-court filings by the Justice Department.

A 2003 CIA report claims that a year after Sept. 11, with a spotlight on Islamic charities, Mr. Al Rajhi ordered Al Rajhi Bank's board "to explore financial instruments that would allow the bank's charitable contributions to avoid official Saudi scrutiny."

A few weeks earlier, the report says, Mr. Al Rajhi "transferred $1.1 billion to offshore accounts -- using commodity swaps and two Lebanese banks -- citing a concern that U.S. and Saudi authorities might freeze his assets." The report was titled "Al Rajhi Bank: Conduit for Extremist Finance."

Al Rajhi Bank and the Al Rajhi family deny any role in financing extremists. They have denounced terrorist acts as un-Islamic. The bank declined to address specific allegations made in American intelligence and law-enforcement records, citing client confidentiality.
In 2002, the bank sued The Wall Street Journal Europe after an article said Saudi authorities were monitoring some Al Rajhi Bank accounts at U.S. request, in a bid to prevent them from being used, wittingly or unwittingly, for funneling money to terrorist groups. The bank dropped the suit in 2005 and the Journal published a statement saying its article hadn't reported any allegation that the bank supported or financed terrorism.

Also in 2005, a U.S. judge dismissed Al Rajhi Bank from a lawsuit filed by relatives of Sept. 11 victims. The ruling said banks couldn't be held liable for providing routine services to people who turned out to be terrorists. In a statement in response to questions about suspected terrorists among its clients, the bank noted that "Al Rajhi Bank has a very large branch network, and a very large retail customer base."

U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies acknowledge it is possible that extremists use the bank's far-flung branches and money-transfer services without bank officials' knowledge. The U.S. has never obtained proof that the bank or its owners knowingly facilitate terrorism, according to documents and former officials, despite what they describe as extensive circumstantial evidence that some executives are aware the bank is used by extremists. The 2003 CIA report concluded: "Senior Al Rajhi family members have long supported Islamic extremists and probably know that terrorists use their bank."

Most major banks around the world are bound by a patchwork of treaties and agreements that, in effect, require them to know their customers and report any suspicious activities to regulators. The rules are designed to fight terrorism, money laundering and narcotics trafficking. It's generally acknowledged that Saudi banks are bound by these rules, although experts differ on when compliance became mandatory.

The top counterterrorism official at the U.S. Treasury Department, while declining to comment on Al Rajhi Bank specifically, says Saudi officials haven't met a promise to create a commission to oversee Saudi charities, many of which bank with Al Rajhi. "They are also not holding people responsible for sending money abroad for jihad," says the Treasury official, Stuart Levey. "It just doesn't happen."

The Saudi government maintains it has been working diligently with the U.S. and others to counter terrorism. It cites its arrests of several alleged terrorist fund-raisers in recent years. The Saudis didn't respond to specific questions about their efforts to counter terrorist finance or oversee banks.

A White House statement said that "the Saudis continue to be a strong partner in the War on Terror....We have made significant progress on numerous fronts -- including the freezing of assets and the shutdown of known conduits of [terrorist] funding." A CIA spokesman said "publishing details of how our government seeks to track extremist financing" could undermine those efforts.

For the ruling Saud family, any confrontation with the Al Rajhis could be politically treacherous. To stay in power, the Sauds rely on the tolerance of clerical and business elites, many of whom view the royal family as corrupt. The wealthy Al Rajhis are a clan long at odds with the royal family. And U.S. intelligence files show the Al Rajhis also have close ties to another group critical of the royals: Saudi Arabia's conservative clerics.

The Al Rajhi empire includes hotels, housing developments, commodities trading, shipping, aviation leasing and poultry. Its core is the bank, with more than 500 branches in Saudi Arabia and other offices abroad, from Pakistan to Malaysia. For 2006, the publicly held institution reported $1.9 billion in profit and $28 billion in assets.

Sulaiman Al Rajhi grew up in the Nejd desert, the birthplace of a severe form of Islam, called Wahhabism, that forbids birthday parties, musical instruments and photographing people. In the 1940s, he and a brother, Saleh, went to the Saudi capital city. "From literally nothing -- making change on what were then the dirt streets of Riyadh -- Sulaiman and Saleh al Rajhi built the Al Rajhi Bank," Sulaiman's lawyers told a U.S. court in New York in 2005.

Sulaiman described the business in a rare interview with Euromoney magazine in 1983. With two other brothers, he and Saleh began changing money for pilgrims taking camel caravans across the desert to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. When throngs of migrant workers came to Saudi Arabia during the 1970s oil boom, the Al Rajhis helped them send their earnings home to places like Indonesia and Pakistan.

In 1983, the brothers won permission to open Saudi Arabia's first Islamic bank, one that would observe religious tenets such as a ban on interest.

But relations with the ruling family frayed. The government-controlled press in 1992 publicized Al Rajhi Bank's tangential role in an international scandal of that era, that of the bank called BCCI, U.S. diplomats reported. Then in 1994, an infant relative of the Al Rajhis died in a kidnapping. Official press accounts said the kidnappers slit the child's throat, but Saudi dissidents claimed police shot the child. Mr. Al Rajhi blamed the royal family, the CIA report says.

Although Al Rajhi Bank continued to make a show of support for the Sauds -- annual reports had flowery tributes to the royal family -- the bank began refusing to make loans to the Sauds or to finance their projects, U.S. diplomats said at the time.

With its Islamic procedures, the bank was a magnet for the clerical establishment, which grew rich from alms amid the oil boom. As the clerics' charities spread, they became entwined with Al Rajhi Bank and the conservative Al Rajhi family's own extensive financial support for Islamic causes.

There is no reliable estimate of how much the Al Rajhis have given to promote Islam over the years, but an endowment holding much of Saleh Al Rajhi's wealth gives an indication of the scale. Its Web site details nearly $50 million in direct donations within the kingdom to Islamic causes and at least $12 million in donations abroad. The overseas money went to aid embattled Muslims in Kosovo, Chechnya and the Palestinian territories and to finance Islamic instruction.

There are indications not all the giving was for such purposes. The Al Rajhi name appeared on a list of regular financial contributors to al Qaeda that was discovered in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in 2002. The list was authenticated for the Federal Bureau of Investigation that year by America's top judicial witness against al Qaeda, a onetime al Qaeda business manager named Jamal Al Fadl, who is in the federal witness-protection program. He called the contributor list the "golden chain."

A 2003 German police report said Sulaiman Al Rajhi and other family members had contributed more than $200,000 in 1993 to a charity that financed weapons for Islamic militants in Bosnia, in addition to providing humanitarian aid.

The 2003 CIA report tells of efforts by two Al Rajhi brothers to keep some giving secret. It says that Sulaiman and Saleh transferred $4 million to parties in Germany and Pakistan in December 1998 using "a unique computer code to send funds at regular intervals to unspecified recipients, suggesting they were trying to conceal the transactions and that the money may have been intended for illegitimate ends."

The report says extremists "ordered operatives in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Yemen" to use Al Rajhi Bank. Mamduh Mahmud Salim, convicted mastermind of the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was carrying records of an Al Rajhi account (number 001424/4) when arrested in Germany in 1998, German police found.

In 2000, the CIA report says, Al Rajhi Bank couriers "delivered money to the Indonesian insurgent group Kompak to fund weapons purchases and bomb-making activities."

A U.S. intelligence memo dated Nov. 16, 2001, says a money courier for Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, traveled on a visa that the bank had obtained for him. The memo adds, however: "Reporting does not indicate whether bank management was witting" of the courier's terrorist connections.

Al Rajhi Bank maintained at least 24 accounts and handled unusual transactions for Al-Haramain foundation -- a charity that Treasury officials say has acted as a front for al Qaeda in 13 countries -- until the Saudi government ordered the charity shut down in late 2004, according to intelligence and law-enforcement reports. The United Nations has designated top officials of Al-Haramain foundation as terrorists, and most of its offices now are closed.

According to a federal indictment in Oregon, a top Al-Haramain official in 2000 carried $130,000 in $1,000 traveler's checks from Portland to Riyadh and deposited them with Al Rajhi -- funds the indictment says were for the ultimate benefit of al Qaeda fighters in Chechnya. The indicted official, Soliman Al-Buthe, now works for the city of Riyadh. In an interview, he confirmed carrying the checks and depositing them with Al Rajhi Bank but said that they weren't for al Qaeda and that he did nothing wrong.
[Adnan Khalil Basha]

A Jidda-based charity called the International Islamic Relief Organization, or IIRO, arranges for donors to send their donations directly to the Al Rajhi Bank. The IIRO's chairman, Adnan Khalil Basha, says the charity is "absolutely apolitical" and has elaborate spending controls to prevent illicit diversions. The charity says it works with Al Rajhi Bank simply because its fees are low and its service is best.

However, the U.N. has labeled two of the IIRO's branches and some of its officials as al Qaeda supporters. In 2004, the IIRO solicited donations through Al Rajhi Bank for the Iraqi city of Fallujah, then largely under the control of insurgents and the base of the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who led al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The IIRO's workers oversaw construction of a trauma clinic in an insurgent-controlled area of Fallujah. The U.S. saw the clinic as a haven for insurgent fighters, and Marines destroyed it in November 2004. That was "a big tragedy for us," says the IIRO's chairman, Mr. Basha.

He denies the charity had any involvement with the Iraqi insurgency. Charity officials complain that the U.S. has produced no evidence of their alleged ties to terrorism.

Two years earlier, federal agents raided the Virginia offices of a network of charities funded by Sulaiman Al Rajhi that worked closely with the IIRO and that -- according to Justice Department court filings -- provided funds to Palestinian terrorists. No charges have been filed.

A year after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. authorities began to lament the lack of Saudi action in taking down terrorists' financial infrastructure. A November 2002 CIA report said the Saudi government "has made little independent effort to uncover terrorist financiers, investigate individual donors, and tighten the regulation of Islamic charities," largely because of "domestic political considerations."

The report advised against a noisy confrontation: "A key factor for continued successful counterterrorism initiatives with the Saudis, whose society is by tradition private, closed, and conservative, will be to ensure that their cooperation with the United States is handled discreetly and kept as much as possible out of the public eye."

The U.S. began to rethink that approach after an al Qaeda attack in Riyadh in May 2003 that killed 26 people, including nine Americans. Deputies from the National Security Council, CIA, Treasury and State departments debated a proposal for legal and political action against Al Rajhi Bank, including the possibility of covert operations such as interfering with the bank's internal operations, according to Bush administration documents and former U.S. officials.

One idea kicked around was "listing or threatening to list" Al Rajhi Bank as a supporter of terrorism. Such a listing can be done if recommended by a committee representing the Treasury, State and Defense departments and the CIA and NSC, and signed by the president. The designation bars U.S. companies from doing business with the named entity. A U.S. designation also normally is forwarded to the U.N., and if that body puts the name on its own terrorist-supporter list, all member states are obliged to freeze the entity's assets.

Other ideas U.S. officials discussed included enlisting friendly countries to step up scrutiny and regulatory action against the Al Rajhis. The CIA report said that "a successful effort against the Al Rajhis would encourage efforts against other donors, or at a minimum, would discourage private funding of Al Qaeda."

Ultimately, the Bush administration again chose merely to continue privately exerting pressure on the Saudis to stiffen their oversight.

Write to Glenn R. Simpson at glenn.simpson@wsj.com


EXTREMISTS' ACCOUNTS

The News: U.S. intelligence reports say Islamic extremists often use Saudi Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank to move money. The bank has denounced terrorism and denies any role in financing extremists.
The Issue: A confrontation with Al Rajhi would be politically difficult for Saudi monarchy, and U.S. isn't satisfied with its efforts to curb the financial infrastructure essential to terrorism.
Result: U.S. has periodically debated taking action on its own against the bank, but chosen instead to lobby the Saudis quietly about its concerns.

RELATED DOCUMENTS

Al-Rajhi bank became a target for U.S. terrorism sanctions less than two months after Sept. 11, 2001.

No action was taken, but in mid-2003, the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that the Al-Rajhi family and their bank were financing terrorists, probably knowingly. This is the summary page from the agency's report.

The bank sued The Wall Street Journal Europe for libel in 2002 over a report that it was under scrutiny in connection with terrorism funding, but dropped the case in 2004 and The Wall Street Journal published the bank's statement.

The CIA's report and other U.S. intelligence on Al-Rajhi remained secret, and in 2005 a federal judge threw out a lawsuit against the bank by victims of Al Qaeda, saying there was no evidence Al-Rajhi provided anything but routine banking services to terrorists. Read the order.

The Al-Rajhi family and the ruling Al-Saud family of Saudi Arabia have been at odds for decades, in part because of the accidental death of an infant Al-Rajhi family member in a botched police rescue attempt during a kidnapping. Saudi dissidents in London issued a communiqué recounting the incident that was highly critical of Saudi authorities. The document was made available by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a Washington-based nonprofit group.

This 1992 State Department cable from the U.S. ambassador in Riyadh discusses the Saudi press coverage of the Al Rajhi bank's purported role in the BCCI scandal.

One of the Al Rajhi bank's major longtime clients is the International Islamic Relief Organization of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a powerful charity backed by some of the country's wealthiest businessmen. This fundraising solicitation is from the IIRO's March 2007 newsletter. The group strongly denounces terrorism on its Web site.

U.S. intelligence has alleged connections between al Qaeda and the IIRO since 1996, and the Treasury Department now alleges the IIRO has been deeply penetrated by al Qaeda. The group denies supporting terrorism in this statement from its most recent newsletter. The group also claims it no longer sends money overseas, and that its accounts are frozen by Saudi banks. Yet its most recent fundraising letter solicits donations to Al Rajhi bank and touts a variety of ongoing projects in overseas conflict zones.

In 2004, IIRO funded a medical facility in Fallujah while that central Iraqi town was under the control of Iraqi insurgents. The U.S. Marine Corps blew up the clinic, and says all three of the city's hospitals were being used by insurgents as fighting positions. See the PowerPoint slides.

Loose Saudi cannons in Lebanon

Former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri


Loose Saudi cannons in Lebanon
By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS - More than 10 years ago, Lebanese comedian Wassim Tabbara staged a brilliant satire called Sleep on My Silk about Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. He showed Hariri having just returned to Lebanon in the 1990s from a fruitful career in Saudi Arabia (where he had made billions). Hariri was known at the time as Saudi Arabia's No 1 man in Beirut.
He is shown telling a wealthy Saudi sheikh about the terrible economic conditions in Lebanon, but tales of the economic misery were not enough to get the sheikh to donate to Lebanon. Hariri adds that if Lebanon falls, "Then there is no longer Bhamdoun or Aley for you!"
This was a reference to the two summer resorts that wealthy Saudis have frequented over the years for gambling and pleasure in Lebanon. Stunned by the reality, the sheikh begins to weep. "No more nightclubs for you!" More sobs. "No more casinos for you!" The sheikh falls apart in tears and starts writing out blank checks to the Lebanese prime minister.
Much has changed since then, yet much remains the same. Lebanon is still strongly allied to Saudi Arabia, thanks to Hariri's son and political successor, Saad. The Saudis invested heavily in the elder Hariri's Lebanon in the 1990s and have worked relentlessly since his assassination in 2005 to prevent the country's disintegration.
Nowadays, however, Saudi Arabia is exporting more than gamblers, tourists and investors to Lebanon. It is - unwillingly - sending terrorists and suicide bombers to Lebanon, particularly to the formerly sleepy city of Tripoli, where a radical Islamic fanatic group called Fatah al-Islam is waging war against the Lebanese Army.
Last week, Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz released his latest report on the assassination of Rafik Hariri. He confirmed that the suicide bomber who murdered the premier was not Lebanese - nor Syrian. Rather, he came from a "hot district", which probably is a reference to Saudi Arabia.
Most terrorists in radical Islamic groups from the Persian Gulf region come from Saudi Arabia. We find fewer suicide bombers from Kuwait, or any from Oman, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar.
The bomber, according to Brammertz, had spent only about four months of his life in Lebanon and nearly 10 years in a "rural area", possibly the mountains of Afghanistan. After all, hundreds of Saudis lived there when working with the United States to combat the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. This sheds light once more on Saudi jihadis in Lebanon.
Coinciding with the Brammertz report were other stories from the Naher al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Saudi journalist Faris bin Khuzam, writing for the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, put the number of Saudi jihadis in Lebanon operating from Naher al-Bared at 300. He claims they were "lured" into a battlefield "other than the one they wanted", saying that they had plans to fight the Americans in Iraq, and ended up in Tripoli.
The reason, he explained, is tight security on the Syrian border (in addition to the Saudi one) preventing them from making a breakthrough into war-torn Iraq. Instead, they found their way into Lebanon and stayed for what initially seemed to be a temporary transit period. "Gradually the pendulum shifted," Khuzam wrote, adding that "they were told that the road to Jerusalem runs through here [Naher al-Bared]". He concluded, "They chose the Saudi dream that Osama bin Laden could not fulfill."
The secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Beirut, Sultan Abu al-Aynein, confirmed this tale, saying that 23 Saudi jihadis had been killed in Naher al-Bared, all members of Fatah al-Islam. They are buried in a collective grave in the battered refugee camp.
Other members of Fatah al-Islam who have surrendered to Lebanese authorities confirmed that 43 Saudi jihadis were in Naher al-Bared. The Lebanese weekly Al-Kifah al-Arabi said more than 50 people (mostly Saudis) were arrested by Lebanese authorities, while another 45 were still fighting.
Government authorities believe that more Saudis can be found in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. Still some claim that Saudis in Lebanon can be divided into two groups: Fatah al-Islam and al-Qaeda. The first are found strictly within the Naher al-Bared camp and have almost been exterminated by the Lebanese Army, after two months of heavy combat. The Saudis in al-Qaeda are in silent cells, however, scattered all over Lebanon. They are a time-bomb that could explode at any moment.
In May, investigative US reporter Seymour Hersh gave a groundbreaking interview to CNN International's Your World Today, discussing the combat in Naher al-Bared. Hersh's comments caused an uproar in the US, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon because he blamed the US administration, the Saudis and the cabinet of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora of creating and arming Sunni fundamentalist groups such as Fatah al-Islam.
The purpose was to use them against the Iran-backed all-Shi'ite group Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Shi'ites have an armed wing, the reasoning went, so why shouldn't the Sunnis as well? In March, Hersh penned an exceptionally detailed essay in The New Yorker called "The redirection", saying that the US was supporting Sunni fanatic groups to counterbalance the spread of Shi'ite Islam - and the power of Iran - in the Arab world.
Part of the strategy was increased US-Saudi planning to undermine Hezbollah in Lebanon. Another way was to encourage Sunni extremists in the region, who, although anti-American, are equally anti-Shi'ite. Hersh pointed out that this was identical to the Saudi-US strategy of the 1980s, when they armed and supported bin Laden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The architects of this policy are US Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, and former ambassador and current Saudi National Security Adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan. They are responsible for the "redirection" toward fostering Sunni fanatics, and more recently for the creation of Fatah al-Islam to combat Hezbollah.
Hersh said, "The idea [is] that the Saudis promised they could control the jihadis, so we [US] spent a lot of money and time ... using and supporting the jihadis to help us beat the Russians in Afghanistan, and they turned on us. And we have the same pattern, not as if there's any lessons learned. The same pattern, using the Saudis again to support jihadis."
Fatah al-Islam, and the Saudis within it, rebelled against Siniora and the US, just as bin Laden did after US troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia in 1991. The Saudis, Hersh said, were telling the Americans, "We've created this movement, we can control it. It's not that we don't want the Salafis to throw bombs, it's who they throw them at - Hezbollah, [Iraqi Shi'ite cleric] Muqtada al-Sadr and the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran."
In his CNN interview, Hersh added, "The enemy of our enemy is our friend, just as the jihadi groups in Lebanon were also there to go after [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah. We're in the business of creating in some places, Lebanon in particular, sectarian violence."
All of this was dismissed as something of Hersh's imagination in March, but today, with the increasing number of Saudis showing up in Lebanon - and Iraq - it seems Hersh was not so wrong after all.
In Iraq, it was revealed by US officials that 45% of all foreign militants fighting the Americans come from Saudi Arabia. Contrary to what has been said in the past, only 15% come from Syria and Lebanon combined, and a relatively high 10% from North Africa. This was revealed in the Los Angeles Times, quoting a senior US official whose name remained anonymous.
He stressed that 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq arrive as ready-to-explode, indoctrinated suicide bombers, claiming that in the past six months, 4,000 people have been killed or injured in Iraq by these Saudi jihadis.
These words were echoed by Sami al-Askari, a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. He said, "The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on," claiming that clerics at Saudi mosques were encouraging citizens to wage a holy war in Iraq against Shi'ites.
The Saudi government acknowledges some of these realities. General Mansour Turki, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, commented: "Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq. Someone is helping them inside Iraq. Someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are. We aren't getting any formal information from the Iraqi government. If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help."
It is a pity indeed for all those familiar with contemporary Saudi history that the terrorists in Lebanon and Iraq carry the name "Saudi". This means that they are named after the founder of the oil-rich kingdom, King Abdul-Aziz al-Saud, a heroic Arabian Bedouin who was anything but a terrorist, described often as a gentleman who wanted to develop his country at any cost.
He toyed with the idea of working with the Nazis during World War II, then shifted to the Americans during the era of president Franklin Roosevelt. Since then, Saudi Arabia and the US have worked together to combat a variety of enemies: communism, Nasserism, Khomeinism and terrorism. Hersh insists on portraying them as silent partners once again in combating Nassrallahism in Lebanon.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Iraqi Withdrawal: Seven Scenarios

Iraqi Withdrawal: Seven Scenarios

by Austin Bay
July 18, 2007

What happens if the United States and coalition forces withdraw rapidly from Iraq? The U.S. and the Iraqi governments have their own scenarios. Iran, al-Qaida, Syria and Turkey have also analyzed potential outcomes.

Business and government make plans. Every plan anticipates a future outcome. Since the future can't be predicted, the best plans acknowledge uncertainty. Acknowledging uncertainty means accepting risk -- the risk of being wrong. The art of leadership is being "less wrong."

Here are seven "scenarios" sketching "potential outcomes" of a quick withdrawal from Iraq. These scenarios are not mutually exclusive. You will find bits and pieces in all seven:

1) Three New Countries: Kurdistan in the north becomes an independent country -- and immediately starts to wrestle with Turkey over the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is waging a secessionist struggle in southeastern Turkey. Kurdistan has oil. Southern Iraq -- a predominantly Shia area -- becomes a Shia state, also with oil. Parts of Anbar province become a Sunni state (Iraqi Sunnistan) -- which has few oil fields.

But what becomes of Baghdad? Does it divide like a desert Berlin into Shia and Sunni sectors? Baghdad remains a source of continuing conflict.

2) Regional Shia-Sunni War: Iran sees an opportunity to recover not only the Shaat al Arab region -- the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates -- but a chance to extend its border into the economically productive areas of southern Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait immediately react to Iran's drive into southern Iraq. Iraq has served as a "buffer" between Sunni Arabs and Shia Iranians, and the buffer is dissolving. Jordan and Egypt prepare for action. The War Over Mesopotamia could last for weeks, or it could grind on for years.

3) Turkey Expands: Turkey takes control of northern Iraq to the city of Kirkuk. The Ottoman Empire once controlled Mesopotamia. Turkey has a lingering claim to areas of northern Iraq. For almost two decades, Turkey has fought with the Kurdistan Workers Party -- a Kurdish secessionist group in Turkey that has bases in northern Iraq. Turkey could conclude the way to end the war with the PKK would be to absorb Iraqi Kurdistan.

Turkey would pay a huge political price, however. It would lose all chance of joining the European Union. As ties with the West deteriorate, Turkey might become less secular and more Islamic in both identity and in political orientation.

4) Shia Dictatorship: Shia Arabs win the chaotic battle of neighborhoods, forcing Sunni Arabs to flee. Call it "de facto" ethnic cleansing, as the Sunnis flee to Sunni states, or move to the United States. Al-Qaida, however, retains a presence. A hard-line Shia regime takes power in Baghdad with the mission of eradicating al-Qaida. The Kurds retain a high degree of autonomy with just enough connection to Baghdad to keep the Turks away.

5) "Gang Up": A calculated version of Scenario 4 -- Rwanda in the desert. Shia Arabs and Kurds launch a coordinated campaign to eliminate Iraq's Sunni Arab community. The threat of Iranian intervention prevents Sunni Arab nations from protecting Iraqi Sunnis.

6) Chaos: Iraq shatters into ethnic enclaves, with a few "new Mesopotamian city states" managing to control oil fields. Iran and Turkey exert "regional influence" over eastern and northern Iraq, respectively, but concerned about confrontation between themselves or provoking sanctions from Europe and the United States, neither sends its military forces in large numbers beyond current borders.

Terror attacks and intermittent fighting afflict neighborhoods throughout Iraq. Local warlords rule by fear and make money by either smuggling oil, drugs or arms. This tribal hell is a perfect disaster -- the kind of disaster that allows al-Qaida to build training facilities and base camps for operations throughout the Middle East and Europe.

7) The Iraqi Center Holds: The democratic government proves to be resilient. The assumption behind this scenario is that Iraq's government is just responsive enough and its security forces are just strong enough to withstand attacks by extremists and give Iran pause. After several months of brutal warfare, the Iraqi Army destroys insurgent groups.

Out of seven "rapid withdrawal" scenarios only one -- number seven -- clearly benefits the majority of Iraqis.

Nuclear Lab Employee Arrested for Allegedly Attempting to Sell Secrets

Oak Ridge National Laboratory complex, Tennessee (AP Photo)



Nuclear Lab Employee Arrested for Allegedly Attempting to Sell Secrets
Contract Worker Is Accused of Trying to Sell Information to Undercover Agent


By PIERRE THOMAS, JACK DATE, AARON KATERSKY and THERESA COOK
July 19, 2007 —
A contract worker at the Oak Ridge Reservation nuclear research facility has been arrested and charged with trying to sell highly classified information about how to enrich uranium.
The two count federal indictment, unsealed Thursday afternoon, alleges Roy Lynn Oakley, 67, had possession of materials associated with uranium enrichment, and "having reason to believe that such data would be utilized to injure the United States and secure and advantage to a foreign nation, did communicate, transmit, and disclose such data to another person."
Federal sources told ABC News the Oakley, a former employee of contract firm Bechtel Jacobs, thought he was selling the information to a foreign operative, but they said he was actually selling it to U.S. undercover agent. Bechtel Jacobs declined comment for this story.
Federal sources told ABC News that Oakley, an employee of contract firm Bechtel Jacobs, thought he was selling the information to a foreign agent, but was actually selling it to a U.S. undercover agent. Bechtel Jacobs declined comment for this story.
Local media reports said Oakley was an escort who brought visitors around East Tennessee Technology Park, on the other side of the Oak Ridge complex's nuclear weapons research facilities.
Sources emphasize that the public was never in danger, but acknowledge that the case represents a major breach and raises serious questions about the security at some of the nation's most sensitive nuclear installations.
"The FBI should be congratulated for their role in thwarting this situation. However, a series of troubling security breaches show that the nuclear weapons complex simply does not take security as seriously as it should," said Peter Stockton, an investigator for the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, who served as an advisor to then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.
This latest incident comes on the heels of a security breach at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory in the fall.
In that case, a contract employee at the lab took classified documents and computer files home with her. The materials were discovered only after authorities searched her home on a separate matter  a domestic disturbance-call-turned-methamphetamine-lab raid.
The former employee at the center of the Los Alamos breakdown pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified information from the national security research laboratory in May.
Nuclear lab security has been scrutinized after several embarrassing breaches at other government-run nuclear facilities.
Also at the Los Alamos National Lab, a weapons scientist was accused of stealing nuclear weapons secrets in 1999. He later pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information.
The next year, at the same facility, the FBI began an investigation into missing nuclear emergency search team hard drives. The drives were found days later behind a photocopy machine.
In 2004, when an administrative error at Los Alamos led security officials to believe that computer disks containing nuclear secrets had been misplaced, operations at the lab were ordered to essentially shut down. An FBI investigation concluded the disks had never existed.
After that incident, the Department of Energy instituted policies to reduce the amount of files and materials that could be placed on a computer disk.
Other security breaches at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Y-12 nuclear weapons production facility and storage site  near the Oak Ridge complex  revealed a series of lost security keys at both sites.
The series of breaches lead to the ouster of National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Linton Brooks in January. Brooks had held the position since 2002, and was officially confirmed in 2003.
In announcing the resignation, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman referenced the "serious security breach" a few months earlier at Los Alamos and other management issues that had plagued the National Nuclear Security Administration.
"While I believe that the current NNSA management has done its best to address these concerns, I do not believe that progress in correcting these issues has been adequate," Bodman's statement said.
"I repeatedly have told DOE [the Department of Energy] and laboratory employees, and, in particular, senior managers, we must be accountable to the president and the American people, not just for efforts, but for results," he said.
William Ostendorff took the helm at the NNSA in April.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures


Guilty Plea in Los Alamos Security Breach
Meth Lab Search Turned Up Classified Nuclear Weapons Documents
By PIERRE THOMAS, JASON RYAN and THERESA COOK

May 15, 2007 —
A meth lab search-turned-FBI-counterintelligence investigation  one that worried top nuclear security officials in Washington, D.C., about security at the nation's nuclear labs  has come to an end for the contract government employee at the center of the inquiry.
Tuesday, Jessica Lynn Quintana, 23, a former worker at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, pleaded guilty in federal court to knowingly removing classified information from the national security research laboratory, after she took home sensitive documents and data from the lab last year.
Quintana had been granted a "Q clearance," which provided her with top secret restricted data and national security information, as well as access to some restricted areas at the lab. The government has rescinded her clearance status, and she faces a maximum sentence of up to one year in jail, a $100,000 fine, and a year of supervised release, and possible probation of up to five years.
The case against Quintana started Oct. 17, 2006, when police in Los Alamos, N.M., responded to a domestic disturbance at a trailer park, in which they stumbled across a small methamphetamine lab. After a few twists and turns, investigators found themselves smack in the middle of a counterintelligence inquiry.
From Drugs to Documents
According to the search warrant in the case, police found drug paraphernalia, several glass pipes and a small propane torch at the scene. Officers obtained a search warrant and arrested Justin Stone, Quintana's boyfriend, on a previous bench warrant.
But police also found several pieces of computer hardware containing information they believed to be from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory.
According to a police statement issued last fall, "During the course of the search, officers realized some of the items seized appeared to belong to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Los Alamos Laboratory security division was contacted for analysis and confirmation."
Upon this discovery, the FBI dispatched a team of more than a dozen agents to determine how the files wound up in the trailer park.
In the plea agreement filed Tuesday, Quintana admitted that she "knowingly removed documents and computer files containing classified information of the United States from a vault-type room at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and stored such documents and files at places outside Los Alamos National Laboratory, including a backpack in which she transported such documents and materials to her residence, and a computer desk drawer inside her bedroom at her residence."
Quintana was employed by Information Assets Management, Inc. and was under contract to archive classified information at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Officals told ABC News there is no evidence that she passed or sold the information to a third party or foreign government.
Sensitive Nuclear Weapons Information
Documents obtained by ABC News show a police search recovered three computer memory sticks and a compact disc containing photographs. Quintana had apparently taken the materials out of the lab so she could work on archiving the documents at her home.
In a written statement after the discovery last October, Los Alamos director Michael Anastasio said, "I regard this matter as one of utmost concern to all of us."
"There is no question this should have been taken far more seriously a long time ago by Los Alamos. The fact that this could still be happening is just absurd," said Danielle Brian, at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group based in Washington.
Scrutinizing Security at Los Alamos
Security at Los Alamos has been scrutinized in recent years after several security breaches:
In 1999, a weapons scientist was accused of stealing nuclear weapons secrets. He eventually pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information.
In 2000, the FBI investigated missing hard drives at the lab. The drives, which belonged to a nuclear emergency search team, were found days later behind a photocopy machine.
In 2004, an administrative error led security officials to believe that computer disks containing nuclear secrets had been misplaced, and operations at the lab were ordered to essentially shut down. An FBI investigation concluded the disks never existed.
After that incident, the Department of Energy instituted policies to reduce the amount of files and materials that can be placed on a computer disk.
Other security breaches at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Y-12 nuclear weapons production facility and storage site exposed a series of lost security keys at both sites.
'Serious Problems With Security Management'
In congressional testimony in 2005, Linton Brooks, then administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said the 2004 incident "revealed serious problems with security management at Los Alamos."
After the October 2006 breach, Brooks said, "I have directed NNSA's chief of defense nuclear security to personally investigate the facts at Los Alamos, and I have sent a headquarters cyber security team to ensure that there is full compliance with current departmental directives." The Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration also proceeded to launch internal investigations into the apparent security breach.
But the system's flaws didn't seem to be repaired fast enough to save Brooks' job.
Brooks was forced out of his NNSA post in January. In announcing the resignation, energy secretary Samuel Bodman referenced the "serious security breach" a few months earlier at Los Alamos, and other management issues that have plagued the National Nuclear Security Administration.
"While I believe that the current NNSA management has done its best to address these concerns, I do not believe that progress in correcting these issues has been adequate," Bodman's statement said.
"I repeatedly have told DOE and laboratory employees, and, in particular, senior managers, we must be accountable to the president and the American people, not just for efforts, but for results," he said.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

The Crisis of the Wahhabi Regime in Saudi Arabia

matawwa


The Crisis of the Wahhabi Regime: Surprising developments in Saudi Arabia.
by Stephen Schwartz and Irfan al-Alawi
07/16/2007, Volume 012, Issue 41


Long accustomed to abusing their power with impunity, the Saudi mutawiyin or "religious police" (more on that misleading translation in a moment) suddenly find themselves on the defensive. Increasingly challenged by critics, they felt compelled early this year to go through the motions of announcing a "modernization": Warrants would be required for searches, the use of force for moral violations would be banned. In practice, however, nothing changed. And when, this spring, two Saudi men died in custody, events took an unprecedented turn: Controversy erupted in the Saudi media; several mutawiyin members were dragged into court; and the boldest reformers called for dismantling altogether this hated institution.

But to make the story intelligible, it is necessary to begin at the beginning--with the uniqueness of Saudi Arabia. In addition to being the only state named after its rulers, and having no constitution except the Koran, this is the homeland of the radical Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam. Wahhabism, the official sect of the kingdom, is a patched-together, relatively recent expression of the faith of Muhammad, and the Wahhabi institutions that support the Saudi order often seem amorphous and opaque. Given the general absence of transparency in the kingdom, this should come as no surprise.

But there is no Wahhabi institution more difficult to define than the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Founded in the 1920s, when the Saudi state came into being, as an enforcer of collective morals, this body of at least 10,000 individuals is known to Saudi and other Muslims as the mutawiyin, or "devotees." Although often described in Western media as the "religious police," the mutawiyin have little in common with a police force--they wear no uniform and receive no salary--and are better described as an Islamofascist militia, something akin to the Nazi and Communist rank-and-file party members in lands ruled by those movements. Their mission includes ideological indoctrination in the dangers of "imitating the West" (such as watching television), but they mainly enforce Wahhabi standards of behavior in public. Their constant and degrading interference with ordinary people has brought about growing discontent. If judicial scrutiny is imposed on the mutawiyin, Saudi Arabia will undergo a profound change in its social life.

A kind of adjunct to the tens of thousands of state-subsidized clerics, the mutawiyin are a pillar of Wahhabism in the kingdom. They prowl the streets of the main Saudi cities day and night. Jeddah, the commercial capital on the Red Sea, is the notable exception: Local residents claim to have run the mutawiyin out of town. Elsewhere, however, they seek out people they suspect of violating the Wahhabi code of conduct. If a woman walks outside her home in the full body covering known as the abaya but allows a fold of cloth to slip, exposing her ankle or face, the mutawiyin may scold her or strike her. If they suspect that an unrelated man and woman are meeting in public places, the patrollers may detain and harass them, insulting the female for alleged lewdness, and beating the male. If people keep walking when the call to prayer is heard and do not rush into the nearest mosque, the mutawiyin may swarm and assault them for impiety. Given the Islamic ban on intoxication, if the militia are informed that alcoholic drinks or drugs are being used in a private home, they may raid the house and beat and even kill people. If Muslim pilgrims violate the Wahhabi understanding of monotheism by praying at the shrine of Muhammad in Medina, they are likely to be taken aside and roughed up and, if they are foreign, deported.

Until now, the mutawiyin have not been called to account for their sometimes drastic deeds. They have no professional standards or training. They are free to assault people and then shove them on their way, making no record of the encounter, having carried out no official arrest, and making no provision for any hearing or further punishment, although offenses deemed particularly grave--alleged adultery, say--may land the suspect before a sharia court.

Members enter the mutawiyin from the kingdom's strictest schools and mosques. They are not paid, but are assigned to regular patrols. They wear no identifying uniform except a red-checkered headscarf. They travel in unmarked cars. Instead of a firearm, they carry an asaa, a long stick resembling a riding crop. But they have offices and detention centers, and both the chief Islamic cleric in the kingdom, grand mufti Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheik, and interior minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz (notorious for asserting that 9/11 was the handiwork of Israel), say the mutawiyin are supported by the state. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has a chief, Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, and has lately appointed public-relations representatives, still unpaid.

The mutawiyin have benefited from the secrecy surrounding their internal functioning, and their "surprise" tactics help them maintain an atmosphere of intimidation. Their defenders claim the mutawiyin follow a prece dent in the strictest school of Sunni sharia, identified with the 9th-century jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal, whose followers organized patrols for "prevention of sin." But such patrols remained a marginal phenomenon in Islamic history, often condemned, until the emergence of the Saudi state in the 20th century.

The Mutawiyin in Court

On July 1, three Saudi judges began a court inquiry into the death last month of a Saudi citizen, Ahmed Al-Bulawi, 50, who had been detained by the mutawiyin in the northwestern town of Tabuk. On July 2, however, four members of the religious militia accused of responsibility for the death, and whose trial had already been postponed once, were released on bail; the previous Friday, mosques in Tabuk had broadcast sermons calling on local Muslims to defend the accused.

Al-Bulawi's case represents a microcosm of the mutawiyin's history. His alleged crime consisted of inviting a Moroccan woman who was not his relative and was unchaperoned by another male into his car. His relatives demand that those who caused his death be executed. Local authorities claim that Al-Bulawi died of natural causes, although the lawyer for his family told the media that the victim's remains showed he had been beaten in the face and head. The official medical report has not been released. For what it's worth, the unnamed Moroccan woman has revealed that Al-Bulawi formerly worked as her driver.

A little before Al-Bulawi's death, in May, Salman Al-Huraisi, aged 28, died in mutawiyin hands in Riyadh. His home had been raided by militia members looking for alcohol and drugs. The Saudi daily al-Watan (The Nation) reported on June 28 that a lawyer for Al-Huraisi's family had been denied access to a medical report on the fatality, but that Al-Huraisi had died after blows to the eye and head.

Some 18 mutawiyin participated in the raid on Al-Huraisi's home, and one of them is now due for trial. Local authorities initially sought to absolve the mutawiyin in the case by throwing a blanket of equivocation over them. Representatives of the governor of Riyadh claimed that the as-yet-unidentified individual accused of the killing was not on patrol when the victim died. The pro-al-Qaeda media enterprise Al-Sahat (The Battlefields) praised this attempt to deflect blame from the mutawiyin as appropriately protecting the militia's status. But some Arabic media insist Al-Huraisi's assailant was a leader of the mutawiyin. As in the past, vagueness about how the mutawiyin operate enables their alleged misconduct.

Finally, a 50-year-old Saudi woman known as Umm Faisal ("mother of Faisal"--her full name is undisclosed) has filed suit against the mutawiyin for an incident in 2003 when she, her daughter, and a foreign maid were verbally and physically harassed while waiting in a car for her two sons. The three women were charged with public immorality, in line with Wahhabi teaching that the presence of women in cars amounts to solicitation of prostitution. On July 3, the complaint of Umm Faisal became the first ever civil action in which a representative of the mutawiyin was summoned to court, although, again, the trial was postponed, this time until September.

With all this, the kingdom is atwitter about the mutawiyin. It is proof of the entrenched totalitarianism of Saudi society that such small steps as the charging of four militia members for Al-Bulawi's death and the court appearance of a militia member in the Umm Faisal matter are seen by ordinary Saudis as significant developments, potentially heralding a new epoch in the kingdom's life.

Naturally, the defenders of the Wahhabi order are intent on the mutawiyin's survival. Prince Nayef has publicly reaffirmed his support, though not loudly enough for Al-Sahat, which complains that the all-male Shura Council appointed by the king has failed to open more mutawiyin centers and authorize payment of members. The Shura Council seems to walk a fine line between popular disaffection with the mutawiyin and extremist pressure; it also rejected reform proposals that the mutawiyin wear uniforms and include female personnel.

Predictably protective of the institution is the Wahhabi establishment. On June 21, the newspaper Al-Madina reported that the grand mufti had denounced "unfair" media criticism of the religious militia and called for repression of the critics. The grand mufti is a descendant of Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (1703-1792), originator of the Wahhabi sect. His position has been hereditary since the Al-Wahhab family contracted a permanent alliance with the Saud clan, who leave religious affairs to the Wahhabi offspring while keeping the reins of state power for themselves.

Amid these investigations and declamations, other sporadic and confusing measures have been proposed to ameliorate public dissatisfaction with the mutawiyin. When the case of Al-Bulawi first came to light, it was announced that 380 members of the militia would be trained in "interpersonal skills," surely one of the most bizarre statements yet from the Saudi authorities. The mutawiyin further promised to create a review process for their members' practices. At the same time, however, they rejected questions about their activities put forward by Saudi human rights activists.

Moreover, recent examples of outrageous behavior by the mutawiyin abound. At the beginning of June, a certain Fahd Al-Bishi of Riyadh complained to the media that the militia had crashed their vehicle into his family car and harassed him on his daughter's wedding day because they suspected his son of drinking or traveling in the company of women unrelated to him. In March, the mutawiyin burst into Prince Salman Hospital in Riyadh and fought with security personnel while ostensibly chasing a drug dealer. A few days before that, the mutawiyin had been taught a lesson in the restive Eastern Province, whose large Shia Muslim population is subject to continual discrimination. A patrol detained a man who was listening to music, a prime offense in Wahhabi eyes. After the individual was released, he returned with several friends and beat up the mutawiyin.

Indeed, by early this year, criticism of the institution had become so frequent that the militia refrained from its usual practice of violently interrupting the Riyadh International Book Fair, which opened in February, to search for banned literature. Many Saudis saw this as another small, positive step by the circle around King Abdullah, who is at odds with Prince Nayef, and is widely believed to seek a break with the past.

Throughout this chronicle one sees the contradictory symptoms of a deepening, as yet hidden crisis of the Saudi regime. The state defends the mutawiyin while promising change, but not too much change. People speak out more candidly, but a primitive institution like the mutawiyin continues to get away with shocking acts. Trials are promised, and begin, and then are put off, under the sinister gaze of Nayef. Precisely how events will unfold is impossible to foretell, but it is not too much to say that if the mutawiyin are ever finally held to answer for their long career of oppression, the entire Wahhabi establishment may begin to crumble.

Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Irfan al-Alawi is a close observer of Saudi affairs based in the United Kingdom.

© Copyright 2007, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

Vietnam experiences a "quiet" sexual revolution

A couple embrace on Thanh Nien street by the West Lake in Hanoi June 25, 2007. A 'quiet' sexual revolution is unfolding in Vietnam, an intensely family-oriented society that holds strong traditions of women being married by their mid-20s and having children. In the heart of the capital, Hanoi, a tree-lined boulevard aptly named Thanh Nien (Young People) runs between two lakes and is known as a 'lover's lane' for romantic trysts. (Kham/Reuters)


Vietnam experiences a "quiet" sexual revolution

By Grant McCoolWed Jul 11, 9:55 AM ET

A young woman lives with her boyfriend but hides it from her family, girls write blogs about love and relationships and couples seeking privacy cuddle in public parks at nightfall.
A "quiet" sexual revolution is unfolding in Vietnam, an intensely family-oriented society that holds strong traditions of women being married by their mid-20s and having children.
Huyen, a 30-year-old public relations executive, came to work in Ho Chi Minh City two years ago from Hanoi. After first staying with an aunt, she secretly moved into her boyfriend's apartment.
"I didn't tell my aunt," she said. "It is quite popular to move in together. Besides, Saigon is big and many couples who have moved together from other provinces live together."
Young people are dating more before marriage, having pre-marital sex, and have more outlets through the Internet to talk about the joys and problems of relationships than previous generations.
Parks in the city still called Saigon are popular at night among canoodling couples for whom privacy is a premium. Although economic change has altered the model of three generations living under one roof, it is still the norm for most.
Sitting on motorcycles with their backs to the road and oblivious to the surroundings, these couples are usually in their 20s, the age group that makes up more than half of Vietnam's 85 million population.
In the heart of the capital, Hanoi, a tree-lined boulevard aptly named Thanh Nien (Young People) runs between two lakes and is known as a "lover's lane" for romantic trysts. Couples cuddle and kiss on their bikes under the trees or in swan-shaped paddle boats out on the water.

LIGHTS OUT

The tradition dates back to the early 1980s when assignations were tacitly permitted by the straight-laced authorities, recalled sociologist Le Bach Duong.
"I still remember they would turn off the lights on Thanh Nien street at 7.30 or 8 at night so it was like an unwritten agreement between the electricity authority and the youth," said Duong, director of the Institute for Social Development Studies.
"At midnight, they turned the lights back on again."
Nowadays, the lights stay on.
It is all part of the socio-economic transformation in the communist-run country that was relatively isolated only 15 years ago after decades of war and economic failure.
"Somebody said it is a time of sexual revolution in Vietnam but it is a bit quieter than that, than what happened say in America in the 1960s and 1970s, but it's growing," said psychologist Khuat Thu Hong.
"It's difficult to explain such a rapid change."
The changes are especially sharp for single women, whose job opportunities and mobility have become equal to those of men in recent years of high economic growth and increased incomes as agrarian Vietnam moves toward industrialization.
Living arrangements are changing, especially for migrants who left home villages to study at university or work in offices and factories around the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.
Internet chat rooms, web sites, blogs and columns in the state-run "mass media" have become forums for young people to discuss love and sex and sexual orientation.
Vietnamese say attitudes toward sex and relationships have become much more open. However, most preferred not to use their full names in interviews, a telling sign that traditional family values still hold sway.
One outspoken woman is Nhu Khue, a petite 30-year-old who writes her own blog and is an active member of a web site for women www.traicasau.com/forum.
"In Vietnam, old people still want girls to be virgins but times are changing," she said.
Khue and others said that there is a perception that only Vietnamese women who date foreign men have pre-marital sex.

EXTRA-MARITAL AFFAIRS

In general, Westerners living in Vietnam view Vietnamese as abiding by traditional norms, but it is not a prudish society.
"Rice six days a week and pho (noodle soup) on the seventh," is a comment some Vietnamese make to indicate an extra-marital affair or liaisons with a prostitute.
Sharp beeps or vibrations on a married man's mobile phone can elicit quips about "the cat" (lover) calling.
Research on youth by a variety of organizations show that young people are sexually active at the same age as their parents, but the difference is that their parents were married and they are not.
These and other phenomena indicate that sex is no longer seen just for reproduction of children or an heir to work the farm, but more than that, experts said.
"Through our counseling we hear a lot of young people both girls and boys, talk about their pleasure," said Hoang Tu Anh, a medical doctor with the Consultation of Investment in Health Promotion non-governmental organization.
"In the last two or three years, there has been an upsurge in short stories or novels written by female writers on female sexuality," Tu Anh said.
The group runs a web site www.tamsubantre.com that provides a forum for people to chat under the auspices of a moderator about marriage, relationships and reproductive and sexual health.
Donors such as the United Nations Population Fund and others back a Sunday evening call-in show on Voice of Vietnam radio called "Windows of Love," a forum for people of all ages.
"It is quite remarkable that at least outwardly, all this change has not resulted in a break-up of social cohesion," said Ian Howie, UNFPA representative in Vietnam. "The rapidity of change seems to have been accommodated."

Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.