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A U.N. Security Council committee is removing Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih from the United Nations' al Qaeda sanctions list, despite strong objections from Saudi Arabia, a U.N. diplomat said on Sunday. The London-based Faqih was added to the list in December 2004, days after the U.S. Treasury Department hit him with sanctions for suspected links to the late Osama bin Laden's militant network, which was responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. The decision to de-list Faqih came after the 15-nation Security Council's sanctions committee failed to reach a consensus to override the U.N.'s al...

"U.S. Designated Global Terrorist Sits Down with Stakelbeck on Terror" SNIPPET: "I had come to London to interview men the U.S. government considers extremely dangerous; Islamist ideologues with intimate knowledge of al-Qaeda's inner workings. And according to intelligence sources, al-Faqih surely fits that bill." SNIPPET: "New Attacks "Even Bigger" than 9/11 Coming Al-Faqih closed our lengthy conversation by calling us a taxi. As we got up to leave, I asked him how he saw the conflict between the West and the Muslim world playing out over the next few years. "No matter what Muslim leaders do, there will be more...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration moved Tuesday to block the assets of two Saudi men accused of providing support to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, Adel Batterjee and Saad al-Faqih. Batterjee was instrumental in founding the Benevolence International Foundation, an Islamic charity that the United States has previously deemed a a global terrorist group. Al-Faqih has maintained associations with the al-Qaida network since the mid-1990s, the Treasury Department alleged. The agency submitted the two names to the United Nations for possible inclusion in its list of terrorist financiers. If the names are included, member countries would also have...

July 14, 2005 JS-2632 Treasury Designates MIRA for Support to Al Qaida ******In 2003, MIRA and Faqih received approximately $1 million in funding through Abdulrahman Alamoudi. According to information available to the U.S. Government, the September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to al Qaida, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with al Qaida and had raised money for al Qaida in the United States. In a 2004 plea agreement, Alamoudi admitted to his role in an assassination plot targeting the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and is currently serving a 23 year sentence.******

British Parliament member to face oil-for-food accusers From Phil Hirschkorn CNN Tuesday, May 17, 2005 Posted: 0746 GMT (1546 HKT) Galloway speaks to the media after arriving Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. (CNN) -- British Parliament member George Galloway will face his accusers when he testifies Tuesday before a U.S. Senate panel probing the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq. Galloway is due to appear before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which stated in a report last week that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein granted him vouchers for 20 million barrels of...

LONDON, Oct. 26 — A modest two-story red brick house indistinct from others along a North London street bears no signs of being the headquarters of a campaign challenging royal rule in Saudi Arabia. The marks of the exiles' activity are very noticeable, however, in the streets of Saudi Arabia itself, where hundreds of people have been arrested by antiriot police this month for taking part in a protest demonstration, a rare occurrence in the monarchy's history. Government alarm at the dissidents' influence was reflected Sunday in a Ramadan-eve address in Riyadh from the country's senior religious leader, the grand...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia asked the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to impose sanctions on British-based Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih for allegedly providing financial and material support to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. The United States and Saudi Arabia also asked the council to impose sanctions on Saudi businessman Adel Abdul Jalil Batterjee, who was instrumental in founding the Benevolence International Foundation, an Islamic charity that the United States has previously deemed a global terrorist group. Council diplomats said the two names were circulated among the 15 Security Council members on Tuesday. If...

The head of a British-based Saudi Arabia opposition movement has suffered leg wounds after an assault, it was reported Monday by the British press. Dr. Saad al-Fagih, head of the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), required hospital treatment after the attack, police sources said. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Police and ambulance were called at 10.45pm yesterday to an address in Willesden, north west London, following a report of an altercation in the street. "Ambulance attended and took the victim - a man in his 40s - to a London hospital suffering a leg wound." Fagih's injuries...

U.K. Freezes Assets of Group Linked With Saudi Exile Al-Faqih Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government told its central bank to freeze the assets of an organization it suspects of having links with Saad al-Faqih, a Saudi Arabian dissident living in exile in Britain. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown instructed the Bank of England to direct British financial institutions to immediately freeze funds belonging to the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, the Treasury said in a statement. The Treasury said it has ``reasonable grounds'' for suspecting the organization is acting on behalf of al-Faqih, who was listed...

The U.S. government on Tuesday placed on its official list of terrorist supporters a wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman who established a charity in the Chicago area to help fund Muslim fighters in some of the world's most volatile areas. The Treasury Department said Adel Batterjee "has ranked as one of the world's foremost terrorist financiers" by helping bankroll Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The department froze his U.S. assets and said it would ask the United Nations to require that other countries do the same. "A worldwide asset freeze, including in his home country of Saudi Arabia, will deal...