Yes, I know. Thank you. Not sure about the Saudi government setting up AQ proper, but certainly sent jihadis to help in Afghanistan during the war with Russia. Elements of the Saudi regime are very sympathetic to AQ...others not so much. AQ was set up,after the Rusian Afghanistan war and one of their missions is to remove the regime in SA.
Oh, they did.
There was a magazine before AQ became AQ, it laid out the name, structure, program - everything. The first issues of the mag were issued in Saudi Arabia (if you go looking, get the *original* pdf’s, not copies). The software used for those is very rarely seen outside govt installations, even in the west, and runs only on large institutional servers.
I did a detail analysis on all the issues way back. It’s here, somewhere. Anyway, the name of the mag was al Tawhid.
They did that with our blessing, and no small number of weapons, for which the Saudis paid us good hard cash. The Saudi "government," whatevaTF that is, didn't exactly send them. It merely allowed them to be sent and to be bankrolled by one prince or faction, or another.
The term "plausible deniability" applies to everything coming out of Saudi ruling circles. E.G., embarrassingly enough to the Wahabbi Saudi, is the fact that much of their oil lies in eastern territory that is populated by Shiite folks. The trick: keep Iran from getting these folks overly excited, yet keep them on a very short leash. The Russkis could undercut Saudi oil prices quite easily. (Oil has an actual value of maybe $2/bbl based on cost of production in these places. The rest my friends, is pure gravy.) The Russkis, OTOH, have always sought influence in Iran.
These Arabs ain't playing checkers. More like 4-dimensional chess.