Zacharias Moussaoui, the former Al Qaeda terrorist incarcerated in the Federal SuperMax Prison, has claimed that members of the Saudi royal family contributed money to Al-Qaeda.
Among the claims of Moussaoui was that he discussed the shooting down of Air Force One using a Stinger missile with a member of the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. He also said that he created a digital database of donors at the instruction of al-Qaeda leaders which included Prince Turki al-Faisal, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and Prince al-Waleed bin Talal.
The Saudi government quickly denounced the report.
“Moussaoui is a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent,” a statement from the Saudi embassy read. “His words have no credibility.”
While Moussaoui did receive a mental illness diagnosis by a psychologist on his defense team, he was found competent to stand trial for terrorism charges and sentenced to life in prison.
The statements were released as part of a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia by relatives of the 9/11 attack victims.
A man who was seen as a major stabilizing figure in the turbulent Middle East is dead at the age of 90.
Saudi King Abdullah died early Friday after what palace sources called “a short illness.” Abdullah had ruled Saudi Arabia since 2005 after the death of King Fahd.
Many residents of the nation saw Abdullah as a reformer. He allowed women the right to vote and to compete in the Olympics. He maintained close relationships with the United States and Britain, buying most of the nation’s defense equipment from the two nations.
He also made domestic violence against women a crime for the first time in the nation’s history.
He was also a major opponent to Islamic terrorism and called it not only a threat to the region but also to Islam. He launched education programs that were aimed at stopping Al-Qaeda from gaining a foothold with youth. He also took actions to keep the most extreme parts of Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment from being able to spread their message in the nation.
King Abdullah was found through diplomatic messages published by Wikileaks to have asked the United States to implant microchips on all terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to allow world governments to track their movements. He also privately urged the U.S. to attack Iran to destroy their nuclear program.
Former Crown Prince Salman became King. He appointed officials to new roles within hours of the death of King Abdullah, unusual in the Saudi succession pattern, which usually took months. Reportedly King Salman wanted to “show strength to Islamic extremists” that “Saudi Arabia is united.”
The royal family of Saudi Arabia is taking pro-active steps to fight the Islamic terrorist group ISIS by building a 600-mile long wall to block the Iraq/Saudi border.
The fence will run from Jordan to Kuwait. The fencing system will five layers of barbed wire fencing, a ditch, a patrol road, underground motion sensors, 40 watchtowers, radar, day/night cameras and rapid intervention teams.
The entire system will also be connected through a fiber-optic network.
The royal family had first thought about a wall in 2006 during the U.S. invasion of Iraq but put the plan in motion after ISIS tried to sneak into the country through the border town of Arar.
The Saudi military has already sent 30,000 additional troops to the border to secure it.
ISIS top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has called on Sunnis within Saudi Arabia to being terrorist attacks on the royal family.
Islamic terrorist group ISIS has launched their first attack against Saudi Arabia.
Four terrorists attacked a Saudi border patrol post on the Iraq/Saudi border that left three Saudi border patrol officers dead along with two others injured.
The attack is the first since the Islamists stated their desire in November to take over Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Press Agency said the four terrorists were caught attempting to sneak over the border around 4:30 a.m. by a lone border patrol agent. The terrorists opened fire and killed the agent.
More agents were sent after the terrorists. One killed two agents when he detonated a suicide vest. All four terrorists were killed.
“It is the first attack by Islamic State itself against Saudi Arabia and is a clear message after Saudi Arabia entered the international coalition against it,” an Iraqi security analyst with close ties to the Saudi interior ministry, Mustafa Alani, told Reuters.
The Saudi government has built a 600-mile long fence along their border with Iraq. They have contributed to the U.S. led effort to destroy ISIS.
A new law passed in Saudi Arabia could impose the death sentence on people who bring Bibles into the country and anyone else who distributes information about a religion that is not Islam.
“The new law extends to the importing of all illegal drugs and ‘all publications that have a prejudice to any other religious beliefs other than Islam,’” Paul Washer’s HeartCry Missionary Society outlines in a post on their website. “In other words, anyone who attempts to bring Bibles or gospel literature into the country will have all materials confiscated and be imprisoned and sentenced to death.”
The Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington has been refusing to confirm or deny the new law.
Members of the HeartCry Missionary Society reminded Christian News about the fact Christians in Saudi Arabia are routinely harassed by Muslims with virtual immunity.
“Christians are raped, abducted, murdered, and beaten on a daily basis. Saudis who accept Christ as their Savior are choosing to pick up a cross of ostracism, discrimination, harassment, and even death,” it outlines. “They risk losing their jobs, access to education for their children, or even the right to basic utilities like water and electricity.”
The Open Doors International list of the 100 most dangerous places for a Christian to live has Saudi Arabia at number 6.
The deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) could be more dangerous than scientists had been lead to believe after air samples showed airborne evidence of the virus.
Researchers with King Fahd Medical Research Center in Saudi Arabia released a paper about air samples taken from the barn of a camel that had been infected with the virus. The owner of the camel contracted MERS and died.
The scientists say that a second camel tested positive for the virus after the man’s death and that air samples within the barn showed one strain of MERS RNA.
The virus in the same was identical to the virus in the first camel and the virus in the human victim.
American researchers were quick to say that just because they found the virus in the air it doesn’t mean that it’s automatically transmitted via airborne particle.
“What they say is that virus particles can be airborne, but it’s premature to conclude that MERS is transmitted through aerosols,” Dr. Mark Denison, a professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine told CNN. “I could take billions of particles of dead viruses and could still find the RNA. That doesn’t mean that there are infectious aerosols,” Denison said.
The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed the deadly MERS virus has reached the United States.
The patient was found in Indiana. He had traveled from Saudi Arabia to London and then to Chicago where he entered the country through O’Hare International Airport. The male patient reportedly went to the hospital for treatment after experiencing shortness of breath on April 28th.
“The CDC, IDPH and CDPH do not consider passengers on the flight or bus to be close contacts of the patient and therefore are not at high risk,” CDC Director Dr. LaMar Hasbrouk said in a news release.
The U.S. now the 14th nation in the world to have reported cases of the killer virus.
The CDC is trying to assuage any fears among the public of an outbreak of the virus.
“It is understandable that some may be concerned about this situation, but this first U.S. case of MERS-CoV infection represents a very low risk to the general public,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, assistant surgeon general and director of CDC’s National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases.
The CDC has not yet issued a travel health warning for Saudi Arabia as Egypt has recently done because of the MERS outbreak.
The Muslim Brotherhood is now a terrorist organization in another major Middle Eastern country.
The group, already a terrorist organization in Egypt, is now officially a terrorist organization in Saudi Arabia.
The move is seen as a response by the Kingdom to the possibility that Muslim Brotherhood extremists from Syria will attempt to return to Saudi Arabia after the civil war ends.
In addition to the Brotherhood, Saudi officials also listed the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as terror groups. The two groups are affiliated with al-Qaeda and have been proven to conduct terrorist attacks in Syria and Iraq.
The new Saudi declaration would make adopting their ideaology or promoting them in any way within the Kingdom would result in significant prison terms.
Amnesty International opposed the designation, saying that Saudi Arabia was trying to silence dissent, not stop terrorist groups from conducting actions in their nation.
President Obama and other world leaders were hailing an agreement with Iran to put some controls on that country’s nuclear program but throughout the Middle East the news of the agreement was met with anger and skepticism.
Saudi Arabian officials were furious that American negotiators and those connected to the Obama administration had not briefed them at all regarding the deal with Iran. A senior advisor to the Saudi royal family said they had been lied to and that the Obama administration had hidden information from them. He said Saudi leaders were not necessarily upset with the deal but the way it was handled by Washington.
The Saudi government eventually issued a moderately supportive statement about the deal.
“This agreement could be a first step towards a comprehensive solution for Iran’s nuclear program, if there are good intentions,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, Israel reiterated their opposition to the deal. Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon said that all options are on the table for his nation.
“We are not in a position of making a mistake or to gamble with our future,” Danon said. “That is why I am saying it very clear. All options are still on the table. And if we see that Iran continues with the effort to build a nuclear bomb, we will do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves.”
As world powers meet with Iranian negotiators over that country’s nuclear program, Iran’s supreme leader has made some strong anti-Semitic declarations against the nation of Israel.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran will only make limited concessions during the negotiations and then blasted Israel saying they were “the rabid dog of the region.”
“The Zionist regime is a regime whose pillars are extremely shaky and is doomed to collapse,” Khamenei said to AFP news agency.
French President Francois Hollande said that the comments by Khamenei were “unacceptable” but did not think they would derail the negotiations.
Israel and Saudi Arabia have both expressed concerns that the western nations negotiating with Iran would rush to ease sanctions without actually getting Iran to give up anything of significance.