{Terror} Al Qaida has $500M budget in Saudi Arabia

[BEER980]

AL QAIDA HAS $500M BUDGET IN SAUDI ARABIA


ABU DHABI [MENL] -- Al Qaida was determined to have a budget of more than $500 million for its insurgency campaign in Saudi Arabia. Saudi security sources said Al Qaida has the assets in cash, property, firearms, munitions and precious metals throughout the kingdom. The sources said Al Qaida has used the budget to recruit and train insurgents in both Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Saudi authorities said Al Qaida network leaders might have raised the money from abroad. They said that neither Abdul Aziz Al Muqrin, killed in a Saudi shootout in June 2004, nor his predecessors were regarded as wealthy. Salah Al Awfi was also not regarded as the source of the funding. The sources said raids on Al Qaida strongholds since May 2003 have turned up huge amounts of cash. In many cases, they said, sums of more than $150,000 were found in the possession of Al Qaida cells.