Saudi Intelligence Linked to Al Qaeda
Two Saudi firms that have been linked to terrorist activities are also connected to the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency and its longtime chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal: 2 firms linked to Al Qaeda, Saudi intelligence agency.
HAMBURG, Germany — Two private Saudi companies linked with suspected Al Qaeda cells here and in Indonesia also have connections to the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency and its longtime chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, according to information assembled by German intelligence analysts.
The Twaik Group and Rawasin Media Productions, both based in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, have served as fronts for the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate, according to an inquiry by Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND.
Twaik, a $100 million-a-year conglomerate, has diverse holdings inside and outside Saudi Arabia. Rawasin reports earnings of about $4 million a year from producing and selling audio and videotapes promoting the Wahhabi version of Islam that is Saudi Arabia’s dominant religion.
The conclusions reached by the BND inquiry were presented to the office of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder late last year and subsequently circulated within the German intelligence community.
The inquiry determined that Twaik, like Rawasin, was what one source described as “an organ of Saudi Arabia intelligence.”
In the late 1990s both Twaik and Rawasin employed Reda Seyam, a 44-year-old Egyptian suspected by Indonesian authorities of having helped finance the Bali nightclub bombing. Germany’s federal prosecutor is investigating Seyam on suspicion of supporting a foreign terrorist organization, namely Al Qaeda.
The German inquiry also discovered that, during 1999 and 2000, Seyam took several flights from Saudi Arabia to destinations in Europe on aircraft operated by the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate, or GID.
The Tribune reported last year that between 1995 and 1998, Twaik deposited more than $250,000 in bank accounts controlled by Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian-born Hamburg businessman and longtime Al Qaeda associate with close ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers during their years in the northern port city of Hamburg.
