Word: kingdoms
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...with the Saudis. Counterterrorism investigators have tracked members of active al-Qaeda cells in Yemen who have slipped across the border to set up operations in Saudi Arabia. U.S. intelligence officials told TIME that the CIA is showing the Saudis evidence that al-Qaeda is planning attacks inside the kingdom. High on the list of potential targets are petroleum facilities and oil-pumping stations that, if struck, would disrupt Saudi oil output; the CIA thinks al-Qaeda may also target housing compounds and shopping malls frequented by Westerners. --Reported by Perry Bacon Jr., Massimo Calabresi and Douglas Waller/Washington
...Tensions between the longtime allies were obvious even before 9/11, as the Saudis sought desperately to persuade the Bush Administration to more actively pursue a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But when 15 Saudis were among the 19 hijackers on September 11, American public discussion of the kingdom began to change. Skeptics in Congress and the media began drawing uncomfortable attention to the Saudis' role not only in backing Afghanistan's Taliban regime, but in propagating a similarly stark worldview among the world's Muslims. Saudi opposition to a U.S. invasion of Iraq - for fear of consequences more dangerous...
...Saudi Arabia's harshest critics in the media and on Capitol Hill have sought to portray the kingdom's rulers as intimately involved with al-Qaeda terrorism, although some of the evidence offered to support these claims is far from convincing - the suggestion that Princess Haifa, the wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington sent money to 9/11 hijackers, for example, turns out to be based on a charitable check she wrote to a woman who, unbeknownst to the princess, had signed it over to a man who made brief loan to two of the hijackers without knowing their terrorist...
...Princess Haifa story may be the least of Al-Jubeir's problems. The absence of democracy, freedom of speech, women's equality and religious diversity in the Kingdom don't endear it to Americans as a lovable ally. The fact that the Saudis, mindful of their own restive public opinion, can't simply be seen to be doing the U.S. bidding doesn't help either. And, of course, there are profoundly different views on how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which translate into sharp differences between Washington and Riyadh over whether to categorize groupings such as Hamas as terrorists...
...will be cemented. But failure will suggest he's just another local hero whose work couldn't transcend its parochial appeal. Through it all, he's struggling to sustain the punk/anarchist/anti-war/anti-mass media/manic image that makes him the icon of every angst-ridden teenager and 20-something in the chrysanthemum kingdom. "Life is beauty," says Takahashi with a smile that vacillates between gangster-like snicker and angelic beam. "But it's pain as well...