The Wall Street Journal reports this week:
Saudi Arabia, a key US ally in the Middle East, had high-level contacts with America’s most deadly adversary in Afghanistan, the Haqqani network, according to purported Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks…
The documents, which couldn’t be independently verified, say the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan met in 2012 with Nasiruddin Haqqani, the chief fundraiser for the jihadist group who has been on a United Nations terrorism watch list since 2010.
In the meeting, Mr. Haqqani requested medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the terrorist organization, the diplomatic correspondence says. The documents indicate the elder Haqqani carries a Saudi passport.
A document dated Feb. 15, 2012, and signed by the then-Saudi envoy to Islamabad, Amb. Abdul Aziz Ibrahim Saleh Al Ghadeer, says the diplomat met with Nasiruddin Haqqani, who asked the ambassador to convey to the Saudi king his father’s wish to be treated in a Saudi hospital. The cable also mentions Jalaluddin Haqqani’s Saudi passport.
In a separate document, dated Feb. 25, 2012, a senior official from Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry recommends treating Jalaluddin Haqqani in a Saudi hospital. It was unclear whether the treatment ever took place.
How bad is this? The Haqqani network is a terrorist organization that is responsible for, among other acts of terror, last week’s attack on the Afghan Parliament, the 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed 54 people, and the September 2011 attack on the US Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul that killed 16 people.
Indeed, it was the Haqqani network that gave Osama bin Laden sanctuary in Afghanistan that allowed him to plan and execute the 9/11 attacks.
As AEI’s Katherine Zimmerman has reported:
Osama bin Laden’s first major alliance was with the Pashtun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, who offered sanctuary to bin Laden’s forces and shared in bin Laden’s vision. There, bin Laden founded al Qaeda and he would return in 1996 to Haqqani’s sanctuary with the Taliban’s approval when he lost favor in Sudan….
Jalaluddin Haqqani has been on the UN Sanctions list since 2001. His son, Nasiruddin, who met with the Saudi ambassador, was placed on the UN list in 2010, and the United States designated the Haqqani network as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” in 2012.
What does it say about our relationship with Saudi Arabia that the Saudi ambassador felt free to meet with a wanted terrorist with American blood on his hands, and forward a request for medical treatment back to Riyadh?
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