Author: Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Publication: The Guardian, UK
Date: December 5, 2002
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,2763,854004,00.html
Moscow says theatre hostage takers
were funded from Saudi Arabia
Russian security officials suspect
that the Chechens who seized a Moscow theatre in October had wealthy Arab
sponsors in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and have sought Washington's
support in finding the financiers.
Senior officials say they have traced
a series of telephone calls from the gunmen to their "sponsors" in the
Gulf.
During one call made to an unspecified
Gulf state a financier asked for a video of scenes inside the theatre,
and was told it could be made for a $1m fee.
"Several long telephone conversations
were intercepted to Saudi Arabia, to the Emirates, and to Qatar.
"We can say for sure that the hostage-taking
was financed from abroad, and the terrorists maintained permanent contact
with their sponsors."
He added that the leader of the
hostage-takers, Mosvar Barayev, and several of his fellow Chechens had
planned to flee to the Gulf once the crisis was over.
The Chechen rebels seized the theatre
on October 23.
After a long siege by Russian troops,
129 hostages and 50 gunmen were killed.
The source declined to name the
sponsors and the country from which the video was requested, because the
general prosecutor's office is still investigating the event.
The revelation helps to explain
the pointed comments President Vladimir Putin made after his recent meeting
with George Bush in St Petersburg.
He pointed out that 16 of the 19
hijackers on September 11th were Saudi citizens, saying: "We will remember
this," and adding:"We should not forget those who provide financing to
terrorists."
Russian security officials have
been issuing warnings about the threat posed by Islamist extremists funded
by wealthy Gulf state benefactors since the mid-90s.
The security source said: "According
to [security service] estimates, each month from the Gulf states, including
Saudi Arabia, from £1.3m to £2.5m comes to support terrorism
on the territory of the Russian Federation."
The Russian security services were
constantly exchanging information on the funding organisations with their
American and British counterparts, he said.
Sources in Washington and Moscow
confirmed that there was cooperation.
A senior US state department official
said that all Russia's concerns about links between the theatre siege and
financiers in Gulf, and its fears about the "Saudi connection to international
terrorism" would be "evaluated" by the commission on September 11 led by
the former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
The official said Washington had
offered Russia help in its investigation of the theatre incident, but would
not give details.
He added: "The Saudis have said
they will look more closely at some charity organisations and we cannot
help but believe that this is a direct response to [our] concerns.
"But we are not singling anyone
out and are looking at all avenues."
The official would not confirm a
report that the state department was considering adding groups linked to
Chechen separatists to the treasury blacklist of terrorism financiers,
but said they were "constantly evaluating groups".
Russian security officials say there
are long-standing links between organisations in Saudi Arabia and "terrorist
activity" in Russia.
The official added: "In Saudi Arabia
there is a group of NGOs linked to al-Qaida that form an integral system
feeding terrorism.
"We count about 20 such organisations
there who have accounts and branches in other countries."
He added that the NGOs' purported
purpose, international support for Muslims, was a front for funding terrorism.
"We are cooperating with the Saudi
Arabian special services, and several Saudi delegations have come to Moscow
to discuss this."
But Saudi officials are currently
busy denying that their country has become a haven for financiers of terrorism.
On Monday the Saudi embassy in Washington
released a report describing a series of measures the kingdom had taken
since September 11 against terrorist financiers.
Adel al-Jubeir, a key aide to Crown
Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, conceded that some
of the hundreds of millions of dollars sent abroad by Saudi charities each
year might have gone to al-Qaida .
He added: "We cannot allow our money
to be used to murder people."
He insisted that Saudi investigations
had led to charity accounts being audited, 2,000 people being questioned
and 100 jailed, and 33 accounts, worth £3.5m, being frozen.
He said accusations of terrorism
sponsorship had generated unprecedented "anti-Saudi sentiment" in America.
