WASHINGTON — U.S. and Saudi officials moved Wednesday to block some assets of a major Saudi charity with links to the Riyadh government, saying the group and its former leader had financed Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in at least five countries in recent years.
Saudi officials said the asset freeze was part of a renewed and comprehensive crackdown against the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, which funnels vast sums of Saudi donations to Islamic causes around the world but has also been accused of financing terrorist activities since its inception in the early 1990s.
At a news conference in Washington, Saudi officials said they were also dissolving all charities based in Saudi Arabia that give money overseas -- including Al Haramain -- and folding them into a new government-monitored national commission with tight controls over fund-raising and spending.
The announcement came as Saudi authorities killed two militants in the mountainous western border region, whom they linked to a deadly attack last weekend on the oil hub of Khobar. Twenty-two people, including one American, were killed when suspected Al Qaeda gunmen attacked a housing complex for foreign workers, seized hostages and then escaped during a shootout with security forces.
"As we have seen from the attacks in Al Khobar this past weekend, Al Qaeda is trying to destabilize our economy and our government," said Adel Jubeir, the foreign affairs advisor to Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah. "But their barbaric actions grow more desperate while the resolve of our people to uproot them grows stronger."
Jubeir described the actions taken against the charities as proof of that resolve and said the new controls over charitable giving would force the Al Qaeda terrorist network to seek other avenues of support.
Specifically, the United States and Saudi Arabia designated Al Haramain's branches in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the Netherlands as having provided financial, material and logistical support to Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Separately, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a similar finding against Aqil Abdulaziz Aqil, a Saudi who was until recently the director of Al Haramain worldwide.
In doing so, the two governments blocked the assets of Aqil and the five charity offices, requiring banks to freeze the entities' assets.
