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| Arabia |
| A little refresher on our pal al-Harbi |
| 2004-07-13 |
| The Saudi who was seen visiting Osama bin Laden in the videotape released last week is a 38-year-old veteran of conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya who left the kingdom most recently on Sept. 21, a senior Saudi official said Saturday. The official's account was the most authoritative yet in solving the mystery surrounding the dinner guest, who was seen and heard on the tape paying effusive tribute to Bin Laden and flattering him with news of Saudi clerics who, he said, had endorsed the Sept. 11 attacks in their sermons, fatwas and other messages. The official identified the dinner guest as Khaled al-Harbi, a former fighter in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya who was not regarded as a religious scholar. He said earlier accounts by Saudi and U.S. officials naming him as Ali Sayeed al-Ghamdi, a religious scholar, were incorrect. Unlike Al-Ghamdi, who had been banned from preaching by the government in 1994, Al-Harbi has never been arrested by the Saudi government or included on any security watch list, the Saudi official said. The official said Saudi Arabia did not know Al-Harbi's whereabouts between his departure from the kingdom 10 days after the Sept. 11 attacks and his appearance on the videotape, which was released in Washington on Thursday. If Al-Harbi does turn up now, the Saudi official said, he will be detained and questioned because of his association with Bin Laden, who was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994 for calling for the toppling of Saudi rulers, whom he has labeled as apostates. The senior Saudi official said Al-Harbi was among the estimated 15,000 or more volunteers from the kingdom who took part in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s, in what Saudi scholars advocated as a holy war against infidel occupiers. Al-Harbi was believed to have operated from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the Saudi official said, and in that role he could have become acquainted with Bin Laden. The Saudi official said little is known about Al-Harbi's role in Bosnia and Chechnya, except that it took place during the early to mid-1990s and that he lost his legs in one of the conflicts. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |