<A HREF="http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=225087&lang=e&dir=news">Report: members of Saudi royal family paid Osama bin Laden not to attack targets in Kingdom</A> <i> Prominent members of the Saudi royal family paid Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and the Taliban regime at least 200 million pounds (more than US$300 million) not to attack targets in Saudi Arabia, The Sunday Times reported Sunday. The report was based on affidavits and testimonies that were part of a law suit submitted to a U.S. court by the families of victims on the September 11 attack. The agreement between the Saudis and Al Qaeda also indicated that bin Laden would not attempt to overthrow the current Saudi regime in return for a Saudi promise that it would ignore requests to extradite Al Qaeda members and to close the network's training camps in Afghanistan. The Saudis also promised to provide oil to the Taliban regime and to bin Laden. According to the document, some of which have been made public in American media over the past few weeks, the agreement was drafted after two secret meetings between the royal family and Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, attended by bin Laden himself. The documents, based on private investigations carried out by the families' attorneys and on intelligence information, reveal that the money was used by al Qaeda to finance training camps in Afghanistan, where the perpetrators of the September 11 attack have stayed. The documents state the names of the Saudi royals who held the negotiations with al Qaeda, and give details on the way the network raised its funds, including the names of charity funds and businesses that worked for al Qaeda. According to the documents, the Saudi royal family was worried by attacks on U.S. targets within the kingdom, and was afraid that al Qaeda combatant, expelled from Sudan to Afghanistan, would try to overthrow the Saudi regime because it agreed to the presence of U.S. forces in its territory. The first meeting between Saudi princes and businessmen and al Qaeda representatives had been held in Paris in 1996 and another was held in 1998 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the British weekly said. The second meeting was attended by Prince Turki al Faisal al-Saud, Taliban leaders, top Pakistani security officials and bin Laden. Prince al Saud knew bin Laden personally because he was the one who chose bin Laden to organize the Muslim militia that fought to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan, the report said. Meanwhile, a Qatar-based Islamic website reported on Sunday that its correspondent based in Jalababad, in eastern Afghanistan, had obtained a copy of a letter written just weeks ago by Osama bin Laden. According to Reuters, the website, www.islamonline.net, said the handwritten letter had been obtained from an Afghan source and bore similarities to other notes found previously by the American CIA and FBI. The letter, a copy of which was carried on the website, hailed Afghanistan because it had repelled invaders in the past and "because the peaks of the mountains of this blessed land reject stubborn atheists". "We shall soon see -- God the Almighty willing -- the fall of the countries of infidelity headed by the tyrant America, which has trampled on all human values and violated all limits, and which knows no logic apart from that of power and holy struggle (Jihad)," the letter said. The letter, written in Arabic, was not dated and no independent analysis of the handwriting could be obtained. One Arabic linguist said the note contained some elementary mistakes that were unlikely to have been made by someone of bin Laden's background and education.(Albawaba.com) </i>
