Word: harbi
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Sheik Khaled al-Harbi got his first few minutes of fame in an hourlong video that aired around the world in December 2001. In it, the radical Saudi imam praised Osama bin Laden for the spectacular success of the Sept. 11 attacks. "Hundreds of people used to doubt you," he burbled, "... until this huge event." The imam was on camera again last week, but he was singing a remarkably different tune. In a video released by Saudi authorities, al-Harbi announced from his wheelchair that he was taking an offer of leniency issued in June by Saudi King Fahd...
...Harbi was only the third man to take the King's offer, which expires this week. A Saudi official tells TIME that al-Harbi contacted the Saudi embassy in Tehran two weeks ago from a hideout along the Afghan-Iranian border and negotiated his surrender over three days. U.S. officials doubt al-Harbi has a great deal of useful information. "He was a confidant and spiritual sounding board for bin Laden," says one, but no al-Qaeda operative. The Saudis are more optimistic. Saudi security analyst Nawaf Obaid tells TIME that al-Harbi, who is cooperating, was a "very successful...
...such certainty about the identity of bin Laden's mysterious guest. He was first identified by Saudi officials as Sheik al-Ghamdi, a militant Saudi cleric and former professor of Islamic theology known for making firebrand anti-Western speeches. Later, senior Saudi officials said the guest was Khaled al-Harbi, a legless veteran of combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, according to the New York Times and U.S. officials. In the video, the shadowy guest relays the prayers and support of several militant Saudi clerics, which suggested to some that he was a religious figure himself. The guest tells...
After his own countrymen repudiated him by voting for De Gaulle's constitution, Harbi was in danger of being removed from office. He fell back on the favorite strategy of desperate Somali politicians-exploiting the bloody rivalry between the Somalis and the nomadic Dana-kils who make up nearly half the population. When a Somali or a Danakil decides to do an enemy in, he usually seals his victory by castrating his victim...
Should he be thrown out of office, cried Harbi, all power would fall into the hands of the hated Danakils. The Somalis rallied to the cry, voted as a bloc to keep him on as vice president of the Cabinet. Last week street fighting broke out between the feuding tribes in the capital city of Djibouti. Among those arrested by police who broke up the battle was none other than Vice President Harbi himself, who had just been banged over the head with a stone. On the grounds that street fighting is no way for a public official to behave...