Saudi Arabia unveils new plans for combating terrorism at an anti-terrorism international conference in Riyadh, reports Rasheed Abou Al-Samh from Jeddah At the end of a four-day anti- terrorism conference organised by the Saudi government in Jeddah and attended by over 50 nations, a final communiqué on Tuesday backed a Saudi proposal to set up an international centre to combat terrorism in Switzerland. The final communiqué also included 50 other recommendations on how nations can better share intelligence on terrorists, money laundering and arms smuggling. The final communiqué also announced that a special fund would be set up to help the victims of terror using money from frozen bank accounts of terrorists. "Confiscated money from frozen bank accounts, or that from terrorist groups, would be used to finance the fund. The fund will be used to help the victims of terrorism," said Koenraad Dessen, the head of the Belgian delegation at a press conference. Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, called for the establishment of an international anti-terror intelligence centre at the opening of the meetings last Saturday. Most countries supported the idea, stressing that such a centre should not replace bilateral communication as the most effective way of sharing information. "The centre would not end the need for bilateral exchange of information. Nothing would," said Frances Townsend, the head of the United States delegation and homeland security adviser to President George W Bush. The kingdom has been accused by many Western nations of turning a blind eye to home- grown terrorists, especially following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US by mostly Saudi terrorists. But following at least a dozen terrorist attacks on Saudi soil in the past two years, in which both Saudis and foreigners were killed, the kingdom now feels it too is a victim of terror. Although the US says intelligence sharing with Saudi Arabia has vastly improved over the past year and a half, many analysts still say that the kingdom could improve its information- sharing with foreign governments and between its own agencies. But one Saudi official defended the kingdom's record in sharing information, noting that even in the US rival agencies often did not share information before the 11 September attacks. "Intelligence-sharing between agencies is often difficult, as their assets are their bits of information, but they must find a way of sharing information without compromising their security," said Jamal Khashoggi, media adviser to the Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki Al-Faisal. The kingdom has been cracking down on terrorists at home for the past two years on several fronts. Armed clashes with terrorists throughout the country have killed many of them, significantly weakening the Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who have chosen both foreign workers and Saudi security forces as their prime targets. A meticulous overhaul of the financial system has put into place a myriad of safeguards to monitor and stop the movement of money out of Saudi Arabia to terror groups around the globe. "The kingdom has been putting down a first- class infrastructure to deal with terrorism financing," said Kevin Rosser, an analyst with the London-based Control Risks Group. But perhaps most importantly has been a quiet, behind-the-scenes anti-terror propaganda campaign in which government officials have been having a dialogue with extremists. Pro- government Muslim clerics have been using the Qur'an and the hadith (sayings of Prophet Mohamed) to persuade the extremists of the error of their ways. Saudi Islamic Affairs Minister Saleh Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheikh said Sunday that the government had been successful in persuading more than 250 militants to see the error of their ways through a counter-terror campaign waged on the Internet. "We had a dialogue with 800 of them and more than a quarter were convinced. The rest are still continuing contact," Al-Sheikh said. "The Internet is a fertile field. We have used many Islamic and cultural sites to spread this awareness of the dangers of terrorism." This unusual approach to tackling the problem of terrorism is in marked contrast to that of Egypt, where thousands of anti- government Muslim extremists were arrested, imprisoned and tortured in the 1990s. "I think that perhaps Saudi Arabia has learned from the experience of Egypt, where militants were imprisoned, tortured and then released, only to form the backbone of Al-Qaeda a few years later," said Rosser. Despite this progress in the fight against terror, experts warn the kingdom and other countries that the struggle against this scrooge will be extended and could last for years to come. "The Saudis have succeeded in defeating most of the veterans of the Afghan war. These are the Saudis who went abroad and gained paramilitary training. They've been mostly either killed in armed clashes with security forces or captured," explained Rosser. "The real worry is the vigilantes, usually underemployed Saudis who adopt the tactics of well-trained terrorists when angered by a certain incident or influenced by the general atmosphere," he said. "We will see vigilantes stepping in and attacking foreigners, which will continue to make it difficult for foreign companies to operate in the kingdom because of the danger involved and increased security costs."
