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News of Sheikh Omar abd al-Rahman’s illness has raised concerns of an upcoming terror attack. While it has not been reported as such, Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki’s sudden resignation and return to Saudi Arabia is another – very different (and potentially more serious) – indicator that something may be in the works. The Blind Sheikh is Sick Sixty-eight years old, blind, and a life-long diabetes sufferer, Rahman is serving a life sentence in Supermax for his role in a mid-1990s plot to attack NYC landmarks. Rumor has it that he was eating chocolate to exacerbate his health problems – thereby...

Saudi Arabia’s new ambassador to the United States has urged people of all faiths to stand united in the fight against terrorism. Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former Saudi envoy to the UK, said Al-Qaeda’s terrorism was based on a perverted cult ideology. He also emphasized that the uneven handling of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute by the West had played a big role in damaging Western-Islamic relations. In a major speech to the Oxford Philosophy, Politics and Economics Society on the eve of leaving London to take up his new assignment in Washington, D.C., Prince Turki said Al-Qaeda’s terrorism had changed the world...

Mohammed al-Fassi, who died in Cairo on Christmas Eve aged 50, was an Arab sheikh notorious for his wild behaviour and extravagant lifestyle.Al-Fassi’s father had been a supplier of goods to the Saudi royal family; and his sister was married to the Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz, a brother of King Fahd. As a result of his various connections, al-Fassi was a fabulously rich man.He had homes in Beverly Hills and Miami Beach, as well as in London, Spain and Saudi Arabia; he owned two Boeing 707 jets, 36 cars, a $15 million yacht, 26 horses, a zoo in...

More military forces and equipment should be deployed in the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabia's next ambassador to Washington said. Prince Turki al-Faisal's comments to CNN's Late Edition came after groups saying they were linked with al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the bombings in Egypt and London. "We know that he (bin Laden) is in an area that is very difficult to pursue him in and, therefore, more assets and people and equipment are required," said Turki, slated to replace Prince Bandar bin Sultan as Saudi envoy to Washington after Bandar's resignation last week. During the 2004...

The Talk Shows Sunday, July 24th, 2005 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): > U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., adviser to Supreme Court nominee John Roberts; Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; former Army Capt. Stefanie Pelkey.LATE EDITION (CNN) : Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Saudi ambassador-designate to...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia's long serving ambassador to Washington has been replaced, a foreign ministry official said Wednesday. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a Washington insider who has held the post for 20 years, asked to be relieved of his post a month ago, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, because an official announcement has not yet been made. The official said the new ambassador is Prince Turk al-Faisal, another member of the Saudi royal family who had served as the kingdom's ambassador to Britain. Al-Faisal also served as the head of the Saudi...

Good Riddance . . . But Not Much Improvement Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, is out. Prince Turki is in. by Stephen Schwartz 07/20/2005 3:45:00 PM AS ANNOUNCED ON Wednesday, July 20, Saudi Arabia's long-serving ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, is leaving town. Allegedly, he resigned. The dean of the foreign diplomatic corps in Washington will be replaced by Prince Turki al Faisal, the former intelligence chief of the kingdom. Seeing the last of the unctuous Bandar will be viscerally pleasing to many Americans and to Saudi liberal dissidents. The...

Speaking at a meeting of Saudi leaders in preparation for the kingdom's international conference on counterterrorism, Defense Minister Prince Sultan referred to Osama bin Laden as being "sent by the Jews." The prince was quoting a poet who said, "Long live security - may its men hold their heads high on every corner. [Bin Laden], whose ideology is sick, who was sent by the Jews, who is the architect of theft, was treacherous and sent us the criminals. This traitor of the nation tried to harm us, but his efforts boomeranged back upon him." The prince's remarks can by viewed,...

PARIS (Reuters) - The CIA rejected as fantasy claims in a new book that it tried to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Osama bin Laden just two months before the September 11, 2001 airliner attacks against the United States. Richard Labeviere, author of "The Corridors of Terror," released on Thursday, says the CIA's Dubai station chief approached bin Laden while the al Qaeda leader was being treated for a serious kidney complaint in the United Arab Emirates. He said the meeting took place in the American Hospital in Dubai on July 12, barely eight weeks before al Qaeda militants slammed...

In an exclusive interview, Prince Turki al-Faisal (Saudi Arabian ambassador to the UK) tells Con Coughlin why the US film-maker is so wrong The Saudi royal family has launched a bitter attack on the American film-maker Michael Moore over his claims that the Bush administration secretly smuggled a number of high-ranking Saudi nationals out of the US in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Prince Turki said these claims have now been completely refuted in the report compiled by the US commission of inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, which was published at the end of last month. In...

DUBLIN (Reuters) -- The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a colonial war and there were some in the United States who saw it as a means of getting their hands on Iraqi oil, a senior Saudi ambassador was quoted as saying on Monday. Prince Turki al-Faisal, ambassador to Britain and Ireland, told the Irish Independent newspaper Washington's stated aims in going to war in Iraq masked a more cynical reality. "No matter how exalted the aims of the U.S. in that war, in the final analysis it was a colonial war very similar to the wars conducted by the ex-colonial...

After the price of oil quadrupled in 1973, Syria and other Arab states put pressure on Saudi Arabia to use its new wealth against Israel. Part of the Saudi government's response was to lead a campaign against support for Israel in the U.S. On their own, however, the Saudis lacked the connections and savvy to affect American-Israeli ties. To make up for this, the Saudi state recruited help. In "The American House of Saud" (Franklin Watts, 448 pages, $18.95), Steven Emerson, a journalist and former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chronicles anti-Israeli activities undertaken in recent years...

NEW YORK (AFP) - A top aide to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) told CIA (news - web sites) agents in a drug-induced confession about secret connections between the al-Qaeda leader and top officials in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to a new book. Excerpts from the book published in Time magazine reveal that Abu Zubaydah, captured last year in Pakistan, told US interrogators that longtime Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz had secretly agreed to pay bin Laden as long as al-Qaeda refrained from promoting its political aims in the kingdom. He also said...

A tale of spies, sex and a bizarre Saudi princess A rogue Canadian envoy was on a mysterious quest for details of a royal couple's trysts, JEFF SALLOT writes OTTAWA -- Intrigue, money, sex and violence. A royal couple in self-imposed exile on the banks of the Nile. All are key ingredients in an espionage tale with a rogue Canadian diplomat on a mysterious mission at its centre. Gary Ogaick, a first secretary at the Canadian embassy in Riyadh, conducted an unauthorized spying operation in the Middle East to gather personal information about a wealthy Saudi Arabian prince and his...

Ben Laden is alive, according to the former head of the information saoudien Sunday December 22, 2002 - 22h31 GMT WASHINGTON, 22 déc (AFP) - Oussama Ben Laden is always alive and continuous to direct terrorist network Al-Qaïda, affirmed the former head of the secret service saoudiens, prince Turki Al-Faiçal Al-Saoud, in a maintenance diffused Sunday by the chain of American television CNN. "I think that it is in life, that it is in Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan", declared the prince, by adding that he probably continued to be in contact with his network thanks to...

Ryad defends the appointment of prince Turki as ambassador in London Wednesday December 04, 2002 - 0h16 GMT WASHINGTON, 3 déc (AFP) - Saudi Arabia defended Tuesday the appointment of prince Turki Al-Faiçal Al-Saoud as ambassador of the kingdom at Great Britain, by denying that this measurement was taken to enable him to escape American justice. "With regard to its nomination as ambassador in England, it is to be put at the credit Saudi Arabia. It is the validation of its competence and of its experiment (...) That has nothing to do with the fact of giving him the...