Cleric With Links to 9-11, Bin Laden and Madrid Made Secret Deal with Saudi Regime

Intelligence Online and varia | 3 October 2004 | headland

[Wallaby]

The Associated Press reported this week that a Saudi cleric, Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, funneled money to an Egyptian, Rabei Osman Ahmed, who is said to be the mastermind of the Madrid train bombings last March. Al-Awdah's name has been repeatedly linked to al-Qaeda and bin Laden, yet since 9-11, he has tempered his rhetoric. The disparity between his public and his covert activity can be explained by a secret agreement between the Saudi regime and al-Adwah's Movement for Islamic Resurgence.

Osman Ahmed's Milan apartment was reportedly wiretapped by Italian anti-terrorism police. In one taped conversation he is reported to say that "The Madrid attack is my project." He is also recorded saying that al-Awdah is "everything, everything."

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To avoid tarnishing the country's image even more, Bin Laden's friends agreed to keep a low profile and the regime promised to tolerate their presence.

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In a May 26 conversation with a potential recruit, Osman Ahmed describes his relationship with al-Awdah: "I worked for him in Spain. I did really well in that period, in which I earned 2,000 euros ($2,400) a month. There were days I earned 1,000 euros ($1,200)."

Al-Awdah was last heard from on Wednesday when he insisted on Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television that he did not encourage violence by Muslims. Yet, Al-Awdah's biography paints a very different picture.

It is well known that many of the September 11 hijackers were Saudis. It is not well known that thirteen of the 19 suicide attackers on 9-11 came from villages in the southern part of the kingdom. Six family names were of particular interest to investigators: Al Shehri, Ahmed, Al Suquami, Al Ghamdi, Al Omari and Al Hanzi. All of these were from the Assir region and a part of two influential clans, the Hamedi and the Sharahni. These clans are breeding grounds for radical Wahhabite groups, part of the Salafiyya movement (from al-salaf al-salih, the "virtuous forefathers") in opposition to the monarchy because it did not practice a pure form of Islam. The two clans were the impetus behind the rise of the Islamic Resurgence Movement that was headed by two young ulamas (religious men), Safar al-Hawali, a teacher at the Oum Al Qora university in Mecca, and Salman al-Awdah, a cleric who was practicing in the town of Buraida.¹

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NOTES
¹"Saudi Regime's Underpinnings are Shaken," Intelligence Online, October 18, 2001.

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