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SAUDI 'SOLDIER' BY STEPHEN SCHWARTZ IN Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday, a 23-year-old Northern Virginia man of Saudi Arabian background named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was charged with conspiring to assassinate President Bush. Abu Ali and his accomplices are accused of plotting to kill the president by gunfire or a car bomb. The indictment also spells out such criminal activities as assisting and receiving support from Osama bin Laden's band of murderers. Abu Ali was extradited to Virginia after many months in a Saudi jail. What's most remarkable about this case is the degree to which this would-be assassin is a...

Concerned about Saudi Arabian influence on American religious life, a Washington-based international watchdog group visited 15 American mosques to check for Saudi-published tracts, magazines and books. The researchers found the literature in all 15 mosques, including the Muslim Community Center on the North Side. In all, they documented more than 200 pieces of literature promoting Wahhabism, a puritanical Muslim movement that dominates Saudi Arabia, denounces democracy and criticizes other faiths, including moderate forms of Islam. The Freedom House Center for Religious Freedom conducted the study to examine one way by which the Saudi kingdom promulgates its unique brand of religious...

WASHINGTON - When a believing Muslim is summoned to the United States due to life's circumstances, Saudi Arabian authorities disseminate through a network of major American mosques, like other religious directives, clear ways as to how one should act in his new surroundings. Take, for example, a document signed by the cultural attache at the Saudi embassy in Washington that instructs Muslims arriving in the United States not to initiate a greeting when meeting Christians or Jews, and never to convey good wishes marking a Christian or Jewish holiday. In general, the attache recommends that the Muslim believer avoid friendships...

The basic ideology of political Islam - which was adopted later by all radical groups - finds its origin within Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. During the 1940s the Muslim Brotherhood turned into a powerful extra-political force, leading a campaign of violence and assassinations that eventually brought about the Free Officers revolution in 1952, thus ending the sole liberal experience in Egypt's history. Later it also turned against Nasser and tried to kill him in 1954 but failed. Nasser declared the organization illegal and arrested 60,000 people, condemning its leaders to death. President Sadat released the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in...

Muslims in the United States should "behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines." Not the admonition of a crank or a freak from the lunatic fringe, but Saudi-funded religious pamphlets distributed to mosques throughout America. Says who? Says Freedom House, one of the oldest human rights groups in the U.S. and headed by James Woolsey, CIA director in the first Clinton administration. The organization did a one-year study of the kind of "hate propaganda" the Saudi government has paid to print and distribute to U.S. mosques. The 89-page report, based on 200 Saudi documents, released by Freedom...

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- A powerful Saudi charity under scrutiny for alleged terrorist financing is expanding operations in tsunami-ravaged areas of Indonesia, importing a hard-line religious message that the West fears could spread extremist Islam in the world's most populous Muslim nation. The presence of the International Islamic Relief Organization could complicate relief efforts in Indonesia, which is desperate for help but also under pressure to contain Islamic militants. Attacks have included nightclub bombings in 2002 that killed 202 people. It also offers a high-profile test of Saudi promises to closely monitor its major aid societies. Many have faced probes...

Saudi Hate Ideology Fills US Mosques Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom has completed a year-long study of documents collected from more than a dozen Saudi-funded mosques in the United States—and the study confirms what many of us had long suspected: Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques. (Hat tip: TexasSecurityMom.) Among the key findings of the report: * Various Saudi government publications gathered for this study, most of which are in Arabic, assert that it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews and warn against imitating, befriending, or helping them in any way, or...

Special Dispatch Series - No. 840 January 5, 2005 No.840 Public Debate in Saudi Arabia on Extremism in the School System    Recently, some senior Saudi education officials have called for a ban on the dissemination of extremist views in schools, and launched activities to increase teacher awareness of the issue. At the same time, education ministry officials, editors, columnists and TV critics insist that the Saudi government is not doing enough to eradicate extremism in the schools. The following are excerpts from discussions about the issue: New Guidelines for the Educational System as School BeginsWith the beginning of...

If one were to rely on the mainstream Western media, one would assume that the situation in Iraq represents nothing more than a disaster and a horrible error by the United States. This media spin, which is more pronounced and strident than any in recent memory, is based on two critical flaws in the way Western media work. The first is the most obvious and is known to millions: the bias of Western reporters, and nearly all the experts and other sources on which they depend, against the Bush administration's policy of democratization in the Middle East. For such commentators,...

Counterterrorism efforts got a major boost last week when an American district court found three Muslim organizations and one individual, mostly based in the Chicago area, guilty of funding Hamas and fined them an astonishing US$156 million. The four were found liable for their roles in the murder of an American teenager, David Boim, on May 13, 1996, when he was shot by Hamas operatives as he waited for a bus near Jerusalem. This case is important in itself, providing some measure of justice and relief for the Boim family. Beyond that, it helps fight terrorism in four ways.First, it...

As international attention remains occupied with the terror murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic extremist, and the long-term implications of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism within Europe, Greece continues to be roiled by a debate over the proposed construction of the first state-recognized mosque in the vicinity of Athens in modern times. The Islamic Center in the Athenian suburb of Peania, more than 15 miles northeast of Athens near the new international airport, will be financed directly by the King Fahd Foundation of Saudi Arabia. According to the Arab News, an English-language Saudi daily, some 8.5...

(CNSNews.com) - Authorities in Saudi Arabia vowed anew to crush Islamic terrorists after a brazen attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah Monday that cost the lives of five consular staff. Security forces shot dead three of five gunmen who stormed the heavily-fortified compound and captured the other two after a gunbattle, according to the Interior Ministry, which described the attackers as "a gang affiliated to the deviant group" - a reference to al Qaeda. Four Saudi security personnel were also reported to have been killed. The State Department said no Americans were...

CBN.com – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Islam may be the fastest-growing faith in America today, and it is finding eager converts in prison cellblocks nationwide. But with the increase in jailhouse conversions, some see a sinister threat — growing evidence that extremist Muslim chaplains, hired by the U.S. government, are preaching a hate-filled agenda in the name of Allah, and possibly turning American prisons into breeding grounds for future terrorists. The startling scenario appears more likely with revelations that federal and state governments are hiring radical Muslim chaplains to minister behind bars. The rising concern involves U.S. government-paid clerics who practice...

Well, boys and girls, it seems that in recent weeks, there’s been some stirring in that Middle East land known as Jordan. While our attention has been focused primarily on Iraq and Afganistan, and casting a wary eye at Syria and Iran, and looking back over our shoulder at the developments in North Korea, Jordan has been making some symbolic maneuvers that aren’t fully understood yet, but could wind up having some major implications for the region.

Insurgent Alliance Is Fraying In Fallujah Locals, Fearing Invasion, Turn Against Foreign Arabs By Karl Vick Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, October 13, 2004; Page A01 BAGHDAD, Oct. 12 -- Local insurgents in the city of Fallujah are turning against the foreign fighters who have been their allies in the rebellion that has held the U.S. military at bay in parts of Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, according to Fallujah residents, insurgent leaders and Iraqi and U.S. officials. Relations are deteriorating as local fighters negotiate to avoid a U.S.-led military offensive against Fallujah, while foreign fighters press to attack Americans and...

JEDDAH, 20 September 2004 — A prominent Saudi scholar yesterday blasted the United States for its accusation that Saudi Arabia violated religious freedom, saying Washington has “no right to talk about religious freedom and human rights” while supporting Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people. “Everyday innocent Palestinian men, women and children are killed (at the hands of Israeli forces). Their only sin is they defended their land, life and legitimate rights,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted Sheikh Hassan Al-Saffar as saying. He said the Israeli human rights violations were taking place “with the full knowledge and encouragement of the American...

The IAF struck this night Hamas terrorists, who were concentrating in a building in the Sechiya neighborhood in the Gaza Strip. The attack came close to midnight. IDF helicopters fired a few rockets towards a building, that was being used as a training and instruction facility for the Hamas terror group, under the guise of being a "community center." Al Jazeera reports, that the building is being used as a "community center" for the Iz Adin A Qassam brigade, the military wing of Hamas. The report says the helicopters fired 5 missiles towards the building, causing the casualties. About 30...

On Tuesday the federal authorities struck another serious blow against the toleration of Islamist terrorist activities on American soil, by arresting five former leaders of the so-called Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which, as I have previously argued, would be better called the Holy War Foundation.   HLF is, after all, a front for the Palestinian suicide terror gang Hamas, which is mainly funded by Saudi Arabia. < -snip- > HLF long functioned as the nerve center of the “Wahhabi lobby” in the U.S., headquartered in Texas, with branch offices in Paterson, N.J., Bridgeview, Ill., and San Diego.  Established...

MOSCOW, July 30 (RIA Novosti) - A Wahhabi who had underwent sabotage training in a terrorist camp in Chechnya was detained in Kursk (Central Russia), chief of the Russian Interior Ministry's organized crime department Nikolai Ovchinnikov said at a press conference on Friday. According to him, Marat Baikulov, a 19-year-old medical student who was born in Karachai-Circassia (North Caucasus), was arrested on July 8 in Kursk. Mr. Baikulov is a Wahhabi, he added. In 2003, the detainee studied military tactics, performing terrorist attacks, attacking convoys and methods of demolition and conspiracy in a terrorist camp in Chechen territory, Mr. Ovchinnikov...

Saudi Arabia: A House Divided By Dale HurdCBN News Sr. Reporter July 20, 2004 Many observers believe that Saudi Arabia is in trouble. The religion of hate that the Saudis have protected and nurtured may devour it. Saudi Arabia's economy continues to shrink. Unemployment is 30 percent. Discontent is exploding. CBN.com – WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia seems to be a kingdom at war with itself. And some ways, at war with America. Yes, there's been a long official friendship, and a highly publicized crackdown against Islamic radicals, but Saudi Arabia remains the ideological cradle and the finishing school for most...