Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Saudis and Germans

Newsletter 2009/02/11 - Old Allies

RIAD/BERLIN (Own report) - Berlin is trying to engage the feudal elite of Saudi-Arabia in the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. According to the German Ministry of the Interior, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former chief of the Saudi intelligence service, spent several days in Berlin to discuss how to "enhance the cooperation between the two states in the field of security policy". The discussion focused particularly on ways to "improve the security in the Pakistani region bordering Afghanistan." Since the 1980s, Prince Turki al-Faisal has had close contacts in that region, when he organized Saudi support for the West- German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and other western intelligence services in their efforts to end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, with the help of Islamic Jihadists. At the time, Osama Bin Laden was one of Turki al-Faisal's partners. Today, Berlin would like for this former Saudi intelligence chief to once again use his contacts in the war zone on behalf of the West. But this time to crush the former accomplices in the war against the Soviet Union, that he helped take power.

more
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56222

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