Word: harbi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...