Oh, I don't think the Saudis have been funding the Jihadis so much as buying them off. The Jihadis are trying to dump the Saudi royals and take control.
Don't get me wrong, I have as little regard for those bastards as anyone; but we've got a full plate and this approach is more, well, economical.
Not just the saudi royals. Other wealthy Sauds have been funding Al Qaeda. Also, the saudi royal family is not a homogenous entity. There are about 30,000 of them broken relatively evenly into 3 groups:
1. 10,000 or so in power or close to power by being closely related to the Crown. These folks fear Al Qaida and hate them because they know Al Qaeda wants to overthrow them. But their solution in the past was to buy them off.
2. 10,000 or so not in power and not real interested. They are not close enough to the Crown to have real power, but they are happy to have their allowance and stay out of things. These folks tend to travel extensively in the West and frequent nightclubs, strip joints and discos. They act pious only at home, but don't spend much time at home.
3. 10,000 or so who are not in power and pissed off about it. They are radiclaized and they provide funding for Al Qaida and hate their cousins. They want to see Al qaeda overthrow their cousins and hate the West as much as OBL. They have plenty of money because they get their allowances just as the rest do.
But the most definitive evidence I have seen of collusion between Al Qaeda and the Saudi royals is the fact that not one single Saudi royal has ever been targeted anywhere by Al Qaida, despite all the rhetoric from OBL that the saudi royals are corrupt, etc. And it's not like some of these Saudi royals are hard to find. Go to London, Paris, Geneva, NYC, Rodeo Drive, etc and you can find them shopping, whoring and dancing in discos.