Time for Real TF “Arrests” in Saudi Arabia

By Matthew Levitt

The short-lived excitement over recent reports that Saudi officials arrested 10 individuals said to be involved in financing terrorism outside the Kingdom quickly dissipated when the defendant’s lawyers identified them as political dissidents and human rights groups questioned the arrests. The fact that the Saudis have provided no further information on the individuals, their activities, or the terrorist groups they are purported to have been affiliated with, suggests to many that such information may simply not exist. (See Andrew Cochran’s blogs below for more details).

The episode itself has produced more questions than answers, but what it has not produced is a renewed discussion about the need for the Saudis to actually hold individuals engaged in terror financing accountable for their actions. Senior U.S. officials have been calling for just such action for years now. Consider, for example, the following from an article I wrote for the Weekly Standard three years ago:

“Since June [2004], intermittent reports have suggested Riyadh was on the verge of taking firm action against terror financiers among the Saudi elite. After a series of unexplained delays, a U.S. delegation visiting the Saudi capital in December finally secured Saudi agreement to shut the offices of the al Haramain Foundation in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Pakistan, and take action against senior al Haramain officials in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the Saudis were expected to announce criminal proceedings against the foundation's recently fired director of 13 years, Sheikh Aqel al Aqel, who according to well-informed sources was caught transporting millions of dollars out of the country via couriers. This week, when the much anticipated press conference was finally held, the closure of a few more al Haramain branches proved anticlimactic in the glaring absence of any action against al Aqel or any of the other prominent Saudis bankrolling terror.”

Nor is al Aqel by any means the only prominent candidate.

Indeed, it stands to reason that some of the more prominent Saudi financiers bankrolling terrorism outside the kingdom remain unknown to the general public. How many newspapers, for example, carried stories about Abd Al Hamid Sulaiman Al-Mujil, Executive Director of the Eastern Province Branch of IIRO in the kingdom, until the U.S. Treasury Department designated him in August 2006 for bankrolling al Qaeda activities in Southeast Asia? As Treasury officials informed at the time, “Al-Mujil has a long record of supporting Islamic militant groups, and he has maintained a cell of regular financial donors in the Middle East who support extremist causes.” Mujil was even known by some as the "million dollar man" for his support of Islamic militant groups. Still, Mujil was not a publicly identified terror financier until his designation. It therefore stands to reason that there are other major donors within the kingdom financing terrorism abroad. (Nor, for the record, is there any indication the Saudis have charged Mujil with a crime or taken other action to hold Mujil himself accountable).

Meanwhile, even as the Saudis brokered a high profile truce between Fatah and Hamas, Jeddah reportedly remains the headquarters for the Hamas finance committee. In September 2005, Israeli authorities announced the arrest of an Israeli-Arab Hamas activist who played central militant, political, and financing roles for the group in coordination with what Israeli authorities described as a “Hamas command in Saudi Arabia.” Individuals in Jeddah like Abd al-Rahim Nasrallah, who reportedly arranged the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas in cooperation with Zayd Mahmoud Zakarna, the head of Hamas’s Jenin charity committee, are still believed to be active. (For more details see “A Hamas Headquarters in Saudi Arabia?”)

As I wrote back in 2004, the bottom line is this: “The crucial test of Saudi efforts to curb terror financing is the willingness to hold elites accountable. Will the Saudis crack down on the terror financing conducted by prominent members of their business class, elites tied to the royal family, charities, and banks?”

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