Posted on 06/12/2004 5:30:05 PM PDT by FairOpinion
RIYADH: A leading Saudi-owned newspaper reported Saturday that four Libyan-recruited would-be assassins of Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz were members of Al Qaeda, the network blamed for the terror that has hit Saudi Arabia in the past 13 months.
Saudi officials have not commented on the alleged plot to murder Abdullah or spoken of retaliatory measures, but Asharq Al-Awsat’s claim came as other Saudi newspapers assailed Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi for the second day in a row.
The daily Okaz also sought to link Libya to the wave of bombings and shootings which began in Saudi Arabia in May 2003, quoting unspecified sources as “not ruling out the involvement of Libyan intelligence in some of the recent bombings and killings.”
The New York Times reported on Thursday that two people involved in a plot to fire rockets at Abdullah’s motorcade had been detained in the United States and Saudi Arabia and that the plot was being investigated by Washington, Riyadh and London.
The two were named as Abdurahman Almoudi, an American arrested in October for violating a US ban on travel to Libya, and Colonel Mohammed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence officer captured by Egyptian police in November after he fled Saudi Arabia where he tried to pay four Saudi militants. Libya has denied the allegations.
Reporting from Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat said Ismael fled from the Rea Sea port city to Cairo last November after he saw Saudi security forces besieging a hotel in nearby Mecca in which the four Saudis affiliated to Al Qaeda, and who were supposed to carry out the assassination, were staying.
The four were to use shoulder-held or armor-piercing missiles in the assassination, it said, adding that the hotel was located opposite the palace where Abdullah was due to stay.
The plot was uncovered thanks to the measures Saudi Arabia has introduced to monitor the flow of money into the country, the paper quoted reliable sources as saying in a reference to the tighter controls meant to prevent terror financing which began after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
An employee in a branch of Al-Rajhi Bank in Mecca became suspicious of a one-million-dollar transfer to Ismael, who said it was meant to cover the expenses of Gaddafi ‘s wife during a pilgrimage trip to the Muslim holy city.
Saudi authorities put Ismael under surveillance and eventually raided a hotel apartment where the four Saudi Al Qaeda recruits were staying and arrested them, prompting the Libyan intelligence officer to flee to Egypt.
Security authorities immediately contacted their Egyptian counterparts, who arrested Ismael as soon as he landed in Cairo and put him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia, the paper said.
The daily Al-Watan gave a slightly different account of the run-up to Ismael’s flight to Egypt but named a second Libyan security agent — Abdul Fattah al-Ghosh — who accompanied him and was sent back to Saudi Arabia. afp
10-1 when all is said and done, they will explain how the Jews did it.
If the Saudi populace won't fall for the "Zionists did it" I don't see why they'd fall for the Libyans.
Seems the House of Saud getting desperate, using a possible Libyan plot arising from a personal dispute to explain all their troubles.
Pakistan Daily News???????????
No Comment.
Might as well grab the National Enquirer.
The New York Times, or Washington Post, on the other hand, are such really reliable papers... Is that your point?
No Comment.
Might as well grab the National Enquirer.
To: Bismarck The New York Times, or Washington Post, on the other hand, are such really reliable papers... Is that your point?
The NATIONAL ENQUIRER is more reliable and factual than either rag you mention...
Are you happier to read it on a US paper?
Here it is, from AP:
Saudi Report Links al-Qaida to Slay Plot
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/93-06122004-315575.html
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Government-owned newspapers Saturday condemned an alleged Libyan plot to kill Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and one paper said four al-Qaida militants recruited to carry out the assassination had been arrested.
===
As I said before, this makes a lot more sense.
If Kaddafi had been planning such attack, he wouldn't have given up his WMD and cooperated with the US, or once he cooperated with us, he revealed a lot of stuff, and if there was anything planned, he would have told us about that too.
The Libyan intelligence probably has ties to Al Qaeda, same as the Pakistani intel services, and so on. Finding the moles are not easy.
Quite likely that Kaddaffi may have worked with Al Qaeda too -- I presonally think that some attack warnings we had, and presumably some very serious attacks that were foiled right around the time Kaddafi was cooperating with us, was based on info we got from him, but nobody wanted to say that in the open.
The Associated Press reported it by now too -- see my post 7.
Foreign newspapers frequently report factual news before US papers do.
"It makes more sense that Al Qaeda infiltrated the Libyan intel services, than that Kadaffi was involved."
Yeah, he is such a good guy. He is our friend now and we can trust him. /Sarcasm
I don't read the NYT or the Washington Post. It's either the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times. Lately I am reading more the Financial Times because that's the newspaper I get for free at work.
Qadaffi is quite a character. Does he have ties with Al Qaida? I don't know. As far as I know, Islamic fundamentalist define him as an "apostate" for his secularism.
It isn't the question of Kaddafi being a "good guy" -- he is obviously not stupid and has strong survival instincts. It would be incredibly stupid on his part to work with Al Qaeda now.
Did it occur to anyone, that Al Qaeda may be setting him up, as punishment for his cooperation with the US, to drive a wedge between the US and Libya? Again, to me this would make much more sense.
Can anyone explain the DOWNSIDE to Lybian success in killing the Prince?
Semper Fi
The prince is a moderate -- if he is killed, the Irani style Mullahs will take over.
They would probably elect Bin Laden as Prime Minister.
That's a definite downside.
Dear Fair Opinion,
You wrote, "Did it occur to anyone, that Al Qaeda may be setting him up, as punishment for his cooperation with the US, to drive a wedge between the US and Libya? Again, to me this would make much more sense."
That is a good point except that the guy the US caught, Alamoudi, is telling all this. Do you think he is making up his confession to embarrass Kadafi? The Brits caught him with a bag of money and then put him on the plane to the US and told us to grab him when the plane landed.
He lives in Falls Church. Me too. The Falls Church Imam for our local mosque was tied to 9-11 and lived around the corner from my old house.
Up the street is a building with the office of Aziz Al Taee, the man who sold crack for the Russian mafia in Philadelphia and then went into business with Nick Berg.
All these terrorists are right here where I live. A lot of Muslims here do have sympathies with terrorists. The Imam was like Aldouri, the man who was allegedly conspiring with Qadaffi. The Imam pretended to be a moderate but was really a wold in sheep's clothing.
The mosque here is full of terrorist groups. Alamoudi's lawyer Nawash (sp?) ran for public office in the district near the mosque. They are getting into politics. Alamoudi was worming his way into the Clinton administration. Aziz supported regime change in his organization and presented himself as close to Bush.
Really I think Aziz was a criminal whose organization, the American Iraqi Council, was holding workshops to help Americans do business in Iraq. Nick Berg contacted Aziz and went into business with him in Iraq. I think this "political" emigre organization was really a criminal front. Aziz had been involved with the Russian mafia in Philadelphia selling crack. He also sold pirated CDs. He was going to be deported. I think there are some ties here with Al Qaeda and criminals--perhaps the Russian mafia. The terrorists probably get weapons from them. Anyway, the Falls Church/Annandale area is full of terrorists and their con-men friends. I went to the police and told them that this American Iraqi Council had this criminal in it and that Aziz had been in business with Berg. The policewoman treated me like I was crazy and said not to worry because if I read it in the paper the Feds would be on it. Well, it would be nice if the cops would keep their eyes peeled too. She told me they don't get into that. Still, they are right here where the terrorists are living and have their front companies. Get this. The American Iraqi Council was in the same building as the Annandale Chamber of Commerce. It's time to get out the Raid.
Gee, whatever happened to the so-called Muslim Brotherhood solidarity??
/sarcasm off.
If that became the case .....then the "enemy" would have a "State" that could be attacked and destroyed..
Saudi Arabian Wahhabism is the enemy's heart and soul and pocketbook..
What a wonderful opportunity to kill the beast...
Now, give me another "down side"..
Semper Fi
The story broke in the NY Times and was in the Washington Post. Alamoudi is locked up in Alexandria and will probably have his trial in the court there. It is called the "rocket docket" and is where we try spies and terrorists. Both Alamoudi and his Lybian accomplice seem to be telling the same story.
Here is the Washington Post account and below that the NYT account. I hope it is ok to paste these since it is for educational purposes. What are the rules about this?
U.S., Others Probe Alleged Gaddafi Plot Against Saudi Ruler
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 10, 2004; Page A12
The U.S., British and Saudi governments are investigating allegations that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi launched a plot to assassinate the ruler of Saudi Arabia and to destabilize the desert kingdom with the help of a prominent Muslim activist from Falls Church, according to an account in the New York Times that was backed up by an informed source with knowledge of the case.
Late last year Gaddafi renounced his program to develop Libyan weapons of mass destruction, in an apparent abandonment of years of pariah status, only after the alleged plot to kill Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah was exposed by a Libyan intelligence official and the Virginia-based activist, who were both alleged participants in the plot, said the Times and the informed source.
U.S., British and Saudi officials are investigating accounts of Gaddafi's supposed role in the plot that were given by Col. Mohamed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence official, and Abdurahman Alamoudi, a longtime Muslim activist who is facing federal charges of violating U.S. sanctions against doing business with Libya. Alamoudi allegedly received $340,000 in cash from Libyan officials, the source said.
Alamoudi offered his account of the alleged plot to U.S. prosecutors during plea negotiations over pending charges against him, the source said.
A source who had detailed knowledge of the events confirmed the Times account.
If the allegations of a Libyan plot to kill a foreign leader were confirmed, it would almost certainly cause the United Nations to reinstate sanctions against Libya that were lifted last year after Gaddafi renounced terrorism and acknowledged responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Alamoudi told U.S. officials he met twice with Gaddafi last year to talk about the plot, said the Times and the informed source. According to Alamoudi, Gaddafi said in the first meeting, "I want the crown prince killed either through assassination or through a coup." At another session a few months later, Gaddafi asked why he had not yet seen "heads flying" in the Saudi royal family, the Times and the source said.
Gaddafi and Abdullah feuded publicly at an Arab summit meeting in early 2003 -- shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- with Gaddafi telling the Saudi ruler at one point, "Your lies precede you, and your grave is in front of you."
Ismael was arrested in Egypt after a trip to Saudi Arabia during which, he said, he arranged for a group of Saudi men to look into attacking Abdullah, the Times and the source said. He confessed to the plot and was later transferred to Saudi Arabia, where he gave a full statement.
Last year Ismael and Alamoudi traveled to London and tried to recruit Saudi dissidents to join in the plot by distributing cash, the Times and the source said in summarizing the two men's statements.
Phone calls to attorneys for Alamoudi were not returned late last night. Alamoudi, founder of the American Muslim Council and other prominent Islamic groups, has denied the pending criminal charges.
NYT---June 10, 2004
Two Are Said to Tell of Libyan Plot to Kill Saudi Ruler
By PATRICK E. TYLER
ASHINGTON, June 9 — While the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was renouncing terrorism and negotiating the lifting of sanctions last year, his intelligence chiefs ordered a covert operation to assassinate the ruler of Saudi Arabia and destabilize the oil-rich kingdom, according to statements by two participants in the conspiracy.
Those participants, Abdurahman Alamoudi, an American Muslim leader now in jail in Alexandria, Va., and Col. Mohamed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence officer in Saudi custody, have given separate statements to American and Saudi officials outlining the plot.
Mr. Alamoudi, has told Federal Bureau of Investigation officials and federal prosecutors that Colonel Qaddafi approved the assassination plan. Mr. Qaddafi's son, in an interview in London, called the accusation "nonsense."
American officials confirm that Mr. Alamoudi and Mr. Ismael have offered detailed accounts of a Libyan plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah and that they appear to be credible enough to have launched an American investigation. But the officials said they are still examining the scope of the plot, how far it advanced and whether Colonel Qaddafi was involved. They said the accusations were one reason the United States had not removed Libya from the State Department's list of nations that support terrorism.
On Wednesday, a senior administration official said: "We are fully aware of Libya's significant past involvement with terrorism. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has pledged to end Libya's ties with terrorism and cooperate with the United States and our allies in the war on terrorism. We continue to monitor closely Libya's adherence to this pledge."
As a revolutionary who overthrew a monarchy, Colonel Qaddafi has long regarded the Saudi royal family with a degree of contempt. The feeling was often mutual as he charted an erratic course in the Middle East. In recent years, however, Saudi and British diplomats worked behind the scenes to help Libya negotiate an end to sanctions resulting from the Libyan terrorist operation that downed Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.
Mr. Alamoudi's statements were offered in plea negotiations with federal prosecutors that are not complete. He was indicted last October in the United States District Court in Alexandria accused of violating United States sanctions by traveling to Libya and receiving money from Libyan officials.
Under federal guidelines, prosecutors could urge a judge to reduce his prison term in exchange for his statements, criminal lawyers said.
The statements of the two conspirators were described by three people with extensive official knowledge of the case who insisted that they not be identified because information about it remains classified in intelligence and law enforcement channels. Senior officials in the American, British and Saudi governments have been aware of the investigation of the assassination plot for several months.
Colonel Qaddafi and Crown Prince Abdullah clashed at the Arab summit meeting that immediately preceded the war in Iraq. The two leaders exchanged insults in open session, accusing each other of selling out to colonial powers. An indignant Prince Abdullah glared at Colonel Qaddafi and said, "Your lies precede you and your grave is in front of you."
A Libyan terrorist plot, if verified by American, British and Saudi governments who are working in close coordination to investigate it, would undermine Colonel Qaddafi's public pledges that his government has abandoned terrorism. It could also trigger a reinstatement of international sanctions on Libya that were lifted by the United Nations Security Council last September after Colonel Qaddafi's government renounced terrorism, admitted responsibility for the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing and agreed to pay $10 million compensation to the families.
A senior Bush administration official said that the emergence of convincing evidence that Colonel Qaddafi ordered or condoned an assassination and terror campaign could cause a "180 degree" change of American policy toward Libya.
President Bush has conveyed to the Saudi royal family that he is going to find out what happened in the alleged conspiracy, according to a diplomat.
Mr. Alamoudi has told prosecutors that he twice met with Colonel Qaddafi, in June and August of 2003, to discuss details of the assassination plan, according to people with official access to his statements. In June, Mr. Alamoudi said, Colonel Qaddafi told him, "I want the Crown Prince killed either through assassination or through a coup." By August, according to Mr. Alamoudi's account, Colonel Qaddafi asked why he had not yet seen "heads flying" in the Saudi royal family.
Mr. Alamoudi's account is critical for federal prosecutors because it ties the terrorist plot that has been said to exist to a head of state. For that reason, Mr. Alamoudi has been questioned in great detail about his two meetings with Colonel Qaddafi, including descriptions of the Libyan leader's farm in Sidra, where they reportedly met in June, and of Colonel Qaddafi's office in Tripoli, where they reportedly met in August.
F.B.I. investigators from the Washington field office are trying to arrange meetings with two of Mr. Alamoudi's associates to whom he confided details of the plot as further corroboration.
The first person to provide Saudi, the British and American authorities with an account of a plot was Colonel Ismael, 36, who was captured by Egyptian police after he fled Saudi Arabia last November in an aborted "drop" of $1 million to a team of four Saudi militants who were prepared to attack Prince Abdullah's motorcade with shoulder-fired missiles or grenade launchers, according to his statements.
Colonel Ismael has said that his orders to be operational commander of the plot came from Libyan intelligence chiefs, Abdullah Senoussi and Musa Kussa, both of whom report directly to Colonel Qaddafi, according to the people who described the statements.
F.B.I. and Central Intelligence Agency officers have twice traveled to Saudi Arabia to interview Colonel Ismael. Investigators are said to believe that the account matches that of Mr. Alamoudi and that, taken together, the accounts could form the basis of a criminal indictment against Colonel Qaddafi on charges of leading a conspiracy that included an American citizen, Mr. Alamoudi.
Mr. Kussa played a leading role last fall with American and British intelligence teams to work out a surrender of Libya's illicit weapons programs.
F.B.I. officials have yet to interview the four Saudis who were to carry out the assassination attempt, but Saudi officials said that they would agree to make them available upon receiving a request.
The Saudis were arrested Nov. 27 as they prepared to receive $1 million in cash from Colonel Ismael and a team of Libyan intelligence officers at the Hilton Hotel in Mecca. The hotel overlooks the holiest shrine in Islam. Though two people with access to the statements of Mr. Alamoudi and Colonel Ismael said that the plan to attack Prince Abdullah was to strike his motorcade with armor-piercing missiles or rocket-propelled grenades, a third person said there was a suspicion that the four Saudis arrested in Mecca were going to fire their weapons at Prince Abdullah's apartment, also overlooking the shrine.
In the reported conspiracy, Mr. Alamoudi and Colonel Ismael traveled to London seeking to make contacts among Saudi dissidents through whom they could recruit militants in the kingdom willing to participate in the plot. They distributed more than $2 million in cash in this recruitment drive in London, according to the account of their statements.
Colonel Qaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, described the reported plot as "nonsense" in an interview in London, though he acknowledged that the Libyan intelligence officer, Colonel Ismael, was missing and presumed by Libya to be in Saudi custody.
"I don't know exactly what he is saying in custody, but I can guarantee that nobody asked him to create cells and assassinate people," the young Mr. Qaddafi said.
Mr. Qaddafi said he could not say whether Colonel Ismael was an intelligence officer. "I don't know in fact, but maybe yes and maybe no," he said.
Colonel Qaddafi also indicated that there may have been a "misunderstanding" over Libyan support for what he called "reform" in Saudi Arabia.
"If we support the people who want to reform Saudi Arabia, if doesn't mean we are working against the government," he said.
Mr. Alamoudi, an American citizen living in Falls Church, Va., has been a longtime spokesman for Muslim views in America as founder of the American Muslim Council.
The State Department paid him as a consultant to travel overseas and advocate tolerance and reconciliation among Jews, Christians and Muslims, but was thereafter accused of making statements in support of terrorism.
A person close to Mr. Alamoudi said he believed that Mr. Alamoudi entered into the reported conspiracy because he badly needed money and did not believe that Colonel Qaddafi would carry out the plan to kill Prince Abdullah.
The accusations present a difficult problem for Saudi Arabia, which has suffered a series of major terrorist attacks in the last year, the most recent of which left 22 people dead during a shooting spree by militants in Khobar on the Persian Gulf coast.
Crown Prince Abdullah is said by two officials to be convinced that Colonel Qaddafi was out to kill him and decapitate the Saudi government. But the Saudi leader is also concerned about playing into the hands of American hardliners who might use the case to call for leadership change in Libya, a step that Saudi Arabia would oppose, officials said.
"We are going to really jam Qaddafi over this, but there is no pretext for regime change," the Saudi official said. "What is in our interest is to keep the caged animal in his cage."
Within weeks of the confrontation between Mr. Qaddafi and Crown Prince Abdullah at the Arab summit meeting last March, Mr. Senoussi, one of the Libyan intelligence chiefs, convened the first meeting to plan a campaign against the Saudis, the two participants said.
Present at the meeting was Mr. Alamoudi, who had been summoned from the United States by Mr. Senoussi. Mr. Alamoudi was paired with Colonel Ismael to start making money "drops" in London as part of what was generally described as a "destabilization" campaign, according to persons with access to Mr. Alamoudi's statement.
Mr. Senoussi's instruction remained vague during the initial phase, but when Mr. Alamoudi arrived at Colonel Qaddafi's farm at Sidra in June, the dimensions of the plot escalated greatly, according the people familiar with the statements.
Colonel Qaddafi asked Mr. Senoussi and a Libyan ambassador to leave the room so he could talk privately with Mr. Alamoudi.
"Why do you cooperate with us against the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia?" Colonel Qaddafi said, according to persons with access to Mr. Alamoudi's statement.
"Because I disapprove of what the Crown Prince said to you," Mr. Alamoudi was reported to reply.
After a number of large cash transfers, Mr. Alamoudi traveled to Tripoli in August and stated that, while there, he met again with Colonel Qaddafi.
"How come I haven't seen anything? How come I have not seen heads flying?" Colonel Qaddafi reportedly demanded?
Mr. Alamoudi briefed him on how plans were progressing.
In early August, Mr. Alamoudi was arrested at Heathrow Airport carrying $340,000 in cash that he later said he had received from a Libyan intelligence officer. British officials confiscated the cash and interrogated Mr. Alamoudi, who said he had accepted the money from the World Islamic Call Society, a Libyan-backed charity.
Mr. Alamoudi boarded a flight from London to Washington Dulles airport in late September, he was arrested upon landing.
He was later indicted accused of violating United States sanctions by traveling to Libya and by receiving funds from Libyan officials.
Colonel Ismael has freely spoken about the plot, according to persons familiar with his statement. During one F.B.I. interrogation, he was asked whether he had been tortured or abused in detention. He replied that he had been treated well and that he wanted to apply for political asylum, because he assumed that if he returns to Libya, he will be killed, the people said.
Qadaffi is actually considered unbalanced and somewhat senile right now. Several world leaders have hinted at this. The press out of the middle east won't discuss it. He apparently runs the country...but his son and a small group of politicans make all the moves and they know their position. My guess is that he probably bankrolled the operation...while no one else in Libya knew what was going on. Most Libyans are sick and tired of the embargo, and won't Libya to become part of the money-making machine that they see in Egypt. Tourism and oil could easily put Libya back on the map. They were never much dedicated to Muslim values and its been a bumpy road over the past 20 years with Qadaffi.
Khaddafi is a lying, two-faced snake.
I said it before and say it again, at least some, or maybe ALL of the WMD he surrendered to the U.S. were probably from Iraq.
He's lying again as most of these people lie since their religion foes not require them to treat non-Muslims in the same civil fashion as they are expected to treat other Muslims.
Watch Khaddafi. Watch Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iran. Theuy are a pack of circling wolves seeking an opening, a school of blood thirsty sharks wating to fall upon the bleeding west.
They should ALL be utterly destroyed.
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