Word: saudi
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...After staying in Kuala Lumpur from Jan. 5 2000 to Jan. 8, 2001, Al Midhar and Al Hazmi traveled to Southeast Asia with Walid Ba'Attash, aka Khallad, a Yemeni ethnic with Saudi citizenship who has been identified as the organizer of the USS Cole bombing in October 2000. Then Al Midhar and Al Hazmi flew to Los Angeles, arriving Jan. 15, 2001, and made their way to San Diego, where they settled into an apartment and began studying aviation and English. Al Midhar flew to Saudi Arabia on June 10, 2000, where, according to FBI officials, he organized...
...Saudi Arabia has long been a paradox. Although the country is a primary oil supplier to the U.S., many Americans cannot find it on a map. It is still governed by medieval political institutions and Wahhabism, an obscurantist and often anti-Western doctrine of Islam. Yet American military support remains crucial to the survival of the Saudi dynasty...
...soon-to-be-released congressional report on 9/11 is expected to detail U.S. knowledge of Saudi financial backing for terrorists. The fact that Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens has focused attention on the kingdom's role as a breeding ground for religious extremism. So former CIA agent Robert Baer's new book, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (Crown; 226 pages), is nothing if not timely. It offers a picture of the Saudi royal family as degenerate, dangerous and doomed...
...Baer, the clan is "as violent and vengeful as any Mafia family," and the monarchy is "hanging on by a thread." There are alleged kickbacks by bin Laden family businesses to Saudi overlords and princes living large as the kingdom's 23 million people endure a steady decline in their living standard. Baer cites data indicating that the Saudis funneled half a billion dollars to al-Qaeda over a decade, while Wahhabi-controlled religious schools indoctrinated a new generation of fanatics...
...which routinely reviews books written by former employees (and feels no great love for Baer, whose best seller, See No Evil, excoriated the agency), says the author has violated his secrecy oath by revealing such pieces of information as the alleged attempt by the Saudi Interior Minister to have a prominent dissident assassinated...