(Full Episode) House of Saud | BBC Select

this is a family like no other the house of saoud has Untold wealth and power thousands of Royal princes live lavish Lifestyles and they have unique access to the world's rulers but their kingdom was born out of conflict Saudi Arabia when it was created it was a Jihadi project [Music] for decades there have been allegations of financial support for Terror we started the investigation in all roads led to Saudi Arabia and now it's time that they pay for what they did now evidence is emerging of Saudi money reaching the most brutal extremists the fighters they like the fact that they are being supported by the saies the house of Saud has often promised change but have they done enough Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars supporting what it calls in regards as Freedom Fighters now the new Crown Prince is promising a return to a so-called moderate Islam having the Crown Prince come up and say it in Arabic boldly in public sent a very very strong message but in the face of brutal regional conflict what is the future for Saudi Arabia and the the [Music] [Music] world POS a tiny hamlet in the mountains of Eastern Europe an unlikely place to find the black flag of jihad but men from this Bosnian Village have traveled and fought for the so-called Islamic State in Syria it's the latest chapter in the history of radicalization in the heart of [Music] Europe 50 m away in the Bosnian Capital Saro stands the 450 year-old Al Pasha mosque we are one of the oldest mosques in bosnan heroa we teach and preach here Islam that is open that Islam is human that Islam is altruistic and this Islam we have preserved here for five centuries [Music] just across the city is a very different mosque paid for by Saudi Arabia the king fard mosque is the largest in Bosnia they built this very large mosque the Saudis view is that they were supporting the the spread of Islam since the 199 Saudi Charities have poured money into Bosnia it's claimed they help build 120 new mosques I mean it was complete change in the way Islam was being followed in in the country a leaked intelligence briefing from the US Embassy in Saro warned that there were Radical extremists focused on the new mosques and schools they are employers of ideology they try to hunt people which are poor which are social vulnerable which are unemployed we who are uh uh who are illiterate uneducated they didn't have any chance to Ed educate the arrival of this violent sectarian ideology dates from the 1990s and the bitter war that raged for 4 years between Bosnian Muslims and the largely Orthodox Christian serbs and Catholic [Music] croats the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia backed the Muslim cause Saudi Charities supplied humanitarian Aid Foreign jihadists also answered the call the kingdom has always denied arming them what is the truth this was the mujahedin headquarters in the city of Zena during the war on the wall an Arabic slogan reads whenever it is death is a blessing a secret NATO report from the time claims the Saudi government and some Saudi Charities funded foreign Fighters and even bought weapons for them Saudi Arabia knew exactly what the various Charities were up to money was sent to a charity uh for good purposes and then some of it was creamed off for supporting jadine whoever the report named one charity alak Al islami that was supposedly provided ing Islamic education in fact it was also funding and recruiting foreign Fighters Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars supporting what it calls in regards as Freedom Fighters first in Afghanistan then in Bosnia and of course in Palestine and elsewhere Bruce ryell worked at the CIA for 30 years and advised four American presidents on the Middle East and if you look at the funding of Saudi support for groups like The Afghan mahim or the bosnians one figure turns up over and over again his Royal Highness King Salmon he's the one who had the responsibility to pass the hat if you like among the Royals and collect the money that went to these groups King Salon is at the heart of this whole Enterprise of supporting what Saudis believe to be holy causes fighting for the defense of Muslim lands for decades King Salmon was the house of sa's fundraiser in Chief for those holy causes but now his own son the new Power behind the throne Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has promised to put an end to Saudi extremism it is a bold and remarkable [Music] pledge Saudi Arabia when it was created it was a Jihadi project the AL sa mobilized the tribal groups they armed them and they sent them on a Jihadi Rampage around the Arabian peninsula at the time and that resulted in the creation of Saudi Arabia the modern state of Saudi Arabia owes its existence to an ancient alliance between the house of Saud and the supporters of an ultra conservative brand of Islam it is often called wahabism and it preaches a return to the values of 7th Century Arabia and the time of the Prophet Muhammad the religious esta lishment pledges its allegiance to the king and in return He pledges to defend and spread wahhabi radical Islam around the world the peculiar variant of Islam that Saudi Arabia supports wahabism as we call it is kind of the petri dish in which much more extreme versions of Islam will flourish Al-Qaeda Finds Its spiritual and Theocratic roots in wahabism Islamic State the same thing one needs to be careful and not accuse the kingdom of being the patron State sponsor of groups like an Al-Qaeda Islamic State that's not the case but it is very much a state with a ideology that that is very intolerant of Outsiders and very very much inclined towards sectarianism within Islam and a violent form of [Music] sectarianism the Crown Prince made his bold commitment to destroy extremist ideology in October 2017 the Crown Prince says 30 years was wasted dealing with extremist IDE IDE you're not going to turn the Saudi religious establishment into California liberals but what you want to do is you want to use their Prestige and their stature to fight terrorism and to fight extremist language that is a gradual process but having the Crown Prince come up and say it in Arabic boldly in public sent a very very strong message that the leadership is determined to uh not allow this language and this thinking to spread or to be nurtured by anybody in the country it's certainly an acknowledgment that the ultra conservative form of religion uh that's practiced there has indeed been a bit more accommodating shall we say uh to extremism than the more moderate form that he would like to have Saudi return to in his words I think the real issue is will this be a transition or really again a revolution uh that results in a more moderate form of of Islam that is practiced in the kingdom and then also frankly that is promoted elsewhere the World Trade said that Tower number one is on fire the whole outside almost 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks [Music] 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and the trail LED straight back to Bosnia and the allegations of Saudi funding of extremism watch just sha Carter is a lead lawyer in a historic legal case against the government of Saudi Arabia he spent more than a decade weighing the evidence the 9/11 families bringing the case believe Saudi involvement goes much further than radicalization they allege the alqaeda hijackers were helped by agents of the Saudi State and funded by some of the same Saudi Charities that King Salman had harnessed in Bosnia one thing is immediately apparent uh and there's virtually no disagreement about this point uh Al-Qaeda was unique reliant on funding and support from within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Years leading up to uh 911 um the US government has said that repeatedly uh the US government has also said that uh Charities based in Saudi Arabia were primary conduits for providing that funding uh into al-qaeda's hands we believe that these Charities are components of the government and to the extent that components of a government are involved in providing financing to a terrorist organization the government is accountable for that activity [Music] the 9/11 families have collected a million pages of evidence they met Fierce resistance from the Saudi government and also President Obama's administration I think that it is generally regarded at the highest levels that a full transparency and complete disclosure of all of that evidence would be inconvenient to the US government because it would make it much harder to do business as usual with the Saudis the government of Saudi Arabia denies supporting the attacks the 911 Commission found no evidence they had directly funded alqaeda but Saudi Arabia says it gave a away around $90 billion in two decades before 911 a large portion paid for thousands of mosques and a network of clerics around the world and it admits some of the money was probably misused 9/11 was so painful our families were shattered our lives were shattered and we've had to pick up the pieces Terry Strada lost her husband Tom in the World Trade Center thanks to a long campaign to change the law families of 911 victims are now suing the government of Saudi [Music] Arabia it was an incredible mountain to climb the Saudis lobbied very heavily against the bill I think that they underestimated that the 9/11 families that the widows that you could come to this country and kill our husbands and take away our children's fathers and that we were going to sit around and and cry about it and not do anything we cried plenty we cried a flood of tears but then we stood up and we said why who and how and we got mad and we said we're going to find out all of these answers and we started the investigation and all roads led to Saudi Arabia and now it's time that they pay for what they did after 9/11 the Saudis came under intense pressure to clean up their act but it would take alqaeda attacks on Saudi Arabia itself to make the house of sa take action they actually hit about three or four different sites and wound up at the Oasis compound uh it's where most of the uh the victims were uh probably a few dozen people killed there witnessing the attack was the FBI's man in the country Martin Reen but that was a standoff I was on site there were several hundred Sai Security Forces surrounding that [Music] compound they W up breaking out and got away okay don't don't we're not sure don't more than 20 people were killed terrorism in the heart of the Saudi Kingdom that light finally went on and uh that it got out of hand and they realized they had to do something about [Applause] it in in the face of a threat so close to home the Saudis embarked on the first of several crackdowns targeting Terror groups and their funding and sharing intelligence with foreign governments the Saudis pledged to the International Community that they will change things they will clamp down on Charities they will change their textbooks but it the reforms they did were very very [Music] limited there's mounting evidence that money from Saudi Arabia continued for decades to fund the spread of extremism yet somehow the house of saoud maintained its privileged position in the global corridors of power the West needs their oil and they are a vital Ally in a turbulent region there's another reason the Saudis are fighting their own bitter war against alqaeda and the so-called Islamic State who've sworn to wipe out the house of Saud and they have more intelligence on the militants than anyone the Saudis are very important partners for the United States in the fight against the Islamic State they're one of the m members of the Coalition just as they have been Partners in the fight against Al-Qaeda the last significant attack by Al-Qaeda directed against the United States a plot in 2010 to blow up an airliner over Chicago was thwarted by the assistance of Saudi intelligence prime minister Teresa may has said that hundreds of British citizens are probably alive because of intelligence provided by the Saudi government the house of Saud has bigger priorities than helping allies in the west fight terrorism the king of Saudi Arabia is the custodian of the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina and the kingdom is determined to lead the Muslim world and combat the growing influence of Iran and what they see as its heretical Shia of [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Islam and there's one conflict that tested the Saudi commitment to cut its ties with violent extremism the Syrian Uprising Saudi Arabia thought it saw an opportunity in 2011 to get r of Iran's number one proxy number one [Music] [Music] Ally the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad the assads collectively for decades had been the Arab State most sympathetic to the Iranians [Music] 2011 the Saudis thought we finally got our chance only a little bit of support and the Assad will claps what began as an uprising against an undemocratic authoritarian regime soon turned into a brutal Regional War years of fighting have left an estimated 400,000 people dead more than 11 million have lost their homes in the west the focus has often been on the horrific crimes carried out by the Assad regime there has been less attention paid to the role of the West's Ally Saudi Arabia in funding and arming islamist [Music] groups conflict Armament research is a British organization which investigates the international arms trade other is 37 what we're doing in Iraq and Syria is to document each individual weapon trace it back to its manufacturers and understand in precise detail how that weapon arrived on the field of battle particular in areas of Iraq and Syria once controlled by the so-called Islamic State they made a surprising discovery yeah open okay all right this is Eastern European I need do you like them the cache included a number of rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank Rockets we'll take the weapon apart look at serial numbers which identify weapons uniquely go back to the manufacturer and ask them to whom did you first sell this [Music] weapon the trail took them a, miles north to Bulgaria and the country's largest arms manufacturer a company called Arsenal the authorities confirmed the Soviet designed anti-tank Rockets were made here and further research revealed who bought them the governor of Bulgaria replied to us that this was a transfer which was a legal transfer to Saudi Arabia to the government of Saudi Arabia destined um for the Armed Forces but the Saudi Army uses Western weapons not those from the former Soviet Union the investigators discovered that weapons left the factory and were transported 160 m to Sophia airport the export license was to Saudi Arabia but they may never have arrived there at all what we believe has happened is that the weapons were procured by the government of Saudi Arabia and then transferred through grew to a third party the most likely explanation is that they went through to Jordan and then parties within Jordan transferred them across the border it's not just one shipment Bulgarian government figures show that official armed sales to Saudi Arabia increased massively during the Syrian conflict up from around $3,500 in 2012 to more than $120 million in 201 15 across the Balkans it's thought the Saudis have spent more than a billion dollars on weapons that could not be used by their own Armed [Music] Forces there's no evidence the government of Saudi Arabia has intentionally armed its sworn enemy the so-called Islamic State but there is compelling evidence the government of Saudi Arabia its Charities and Rich Saudis have been secretly funding and arming a number of violent jihadist groups in Syria one eyewitness agreed to talk for the first time about how Saudi Arabia smuggled huge quantities of cash and weapons [Applause] fore sorry foreign spee fore [Music] spee [Applause] [Music] the Saudi government says the army of Islam are moderate but they've paraded caged prisoners as human Shields against air strikes they want to create an Islamic State in Syria under Sharia law [Music] in areas they control Saudi cash has been accompanied by a new and strict Saudi social code by sponsoring these groups Saudi Arabia appeases its local constituency because the wahab in Saudi Arabia will be very pleased that Saudi Arabia had gone out out of its way used a lot of its oil wealth in order to promote messages that correspond to those that we hear in Saudi Arabia the Saudi government was uh still is assisting Rebel groups in Syria that um you could say are extremist the funding was to take the fight to Assad and uh because this the Assad government is a line with Iran and that is the uh for Saudi Arabia that's the number one national security threat for them as the conflict intensified with the arrival of iranian-backed militia Saudis gambled on yet more Hardline groups one with revealed how he smuggled Saudi money and arms to a group who have fought at times alongside an affiliate of alqaeda [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] for it was a deliberate policy to fund those radical groups so they actually derailed the project for democracy in Syria and this is uh in line with Saudi policy that does not want to see any democratic government anywhere in the Arab world in 2014 the most violent Jihadi group of all burst onto the world stage the So-Cal Islamic State group proclaimed a worldwide caliphate now all that Saudi cash and arms risked reaching the most extreme jihadists these are fairly new videos they use them for propaganda to receive support basically saying that you know we are fighting and using a lot of ammunition weapons so we need support AMT yala used to be a chief of counterterrorism in turkey he's found evidence that private Saudi cash ended up with the so-called Islamic State I spent almost 20 years in the field fighting against terrorism I interviewed and interrogated almost over 4,000 terrorists and suspects from different ideologies when I speak to Isis defectors or different terrorist organizations fighting in Syria uh they clearly indicate that they have been receiving um support and funds and Aid uh from Saudi Arabia Qatar and turkey it's not only the Islamic State but different uh radical Jihadi groups in in Syria and [Music] Iraq the fighters they know that Saudi support them very openly and they like the fact that they are being supported by the Saudis the regular fighters on the ground they would tell me Isis were purchasing brand new weapons and the money was coming from Saudi Arabia uh or Qatar the Saudi government has accused the Gulf State of qat of a policy of supporting terrorism and extremism but while the Saudis have pointed the finger at Qatar they have denied any Saudi State involvement they received absolutely no support from the government of Saudi Arabia if they have been receiving support from individuals in Saudi Arabia then this is against the law and any such individuals would be subject to the full strength of the law we have always declared that we supported the Syrian people and we provide the Syrian people with the means necessary to protect themselves uh but that does not include any of the terrorist organizations that have been declared as terrorist by Saudi Arabia or by the International Community in 2015 Muhammad bin Salman became defense minister the Crown Prince has tried to exert tighter control in Syria but that hasn't stopped Saudi funded weapons ending up in the hands of more extreme jihadists it's important not to underestimate the priority that the Saudis attach to fighting Iran in general and Iran's number one proxy the Assad regime in particular and they're willing to take risks they're willing to take a risk that money and arms that flow into the groups that are very close to alqa will somehow backfire against them in the long term there are very few groups operating in Syria which are not highly radical ized so if you supply weapons into this mix you have absolutely no control over where they're going and in that respect Saudi Arabia just like any other provider of weapons into that conflict is really stoking the fire the US government has praised Saudi Arabia for its efforts to counter terrorist funding but despite Saudi promises it appears private Saudi money has continued to reach extremists all around the world in Saudi Arabia you do have still a large part of the population that does support to some extent some of these extremist groups and they are donating money it is against the law but it's not hard to move cash Ron Sandy worked in Dutch Military Intelligence for 11 years and he's continued to investigate islamist extremists I think that many of the donations still come from the same people who funded jihadis in the 1980s I think it's the same people who funded the jihadis in in in Bosnia the same families Rich Saudi private donors are still funding money is still be flowing in in into the pockets of Al-Qaeda we have definitely also that they are funding the Taliban and right now we see a resurging resurging Taliban in Afghanistan Saudi Arabia has been tackling extremism when I was the director of the CIA when I was a commander of Central Command we had these concerns we had them with a number of different countries in that region uh and when we went to virtually all of them and said here's one we can actually identify who has actually moved money uh they took action to shut that down I think it's important to remember here we're talking about individual private Saudis and like any country not all Saudis are of one stripe and there are significant numbers of Saudis including members of the royal family who do believe that the cause is very very important and who find that fighting for the liberation of Kashmir or the liberation of Jerusalem is a cause they really believe in and a cause they want to support but members of the royal family I don't think there's any question that if you're looking at where the sources of significant amounts of money are in Saudi Arabia it's members of the royal family in 2017 newly elected president Trump chose to make his first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia he Ted their new center to combat extremist ideology I want to express our gratitude to King Solomon for his strong demonstration and his absolutely incredible and Powerful leadership president Trump urged the house of sa to make a clean break with the past a better future is only possible if your Nations drive out the terrorists and drive out the extremist drive them out drive them out of your holy land and drive them out of this Earth months later the Crown Prince unveiled Saudi Arabia's latest Crackdown with sweeping new counterterrorism laws funding terrorism is now punishable by death scores of people have been arrested including some prominent cleric Saudi Arabia is sending out the right messages it knows that there was a problem it identified the problem as emerging in the 1980s producing what we knew which was Al-Qaeda Osama Bin Laden the Afghan maahad and Muhammad bin Salan is trying to say hey I know there's a problem I'm leaving Saudi Arabia and I'm doing something about it I'm not just doing counter terrorism work on changing society and I want the West to come with me on this the extremist edges need to be taken off and I think in those in the old days it was ignored this leadership has taken steps that the previous leadership for 50 years was afraid of taking King Salman and Grand Prince Muhammad have taken dozens and dozens of measures to crack down on on on terrorists on terrorist cells on terror financing they have dismissed uh thousands of imams and teachers who espouse extremist views these are these are very very important measures but some say the Crown Prince is also using the new anti-terror laws to silence his opponents it is not clear how this project of ending extremism is going to work we have seen historically that when governments repressed islamist or Islamic groups they had gone violent so his repressive measures now may lead to to be counterproductive they may actually lead to more extremism a lot of what uh Saudi officials and particularly the Crown Prince say about quote moderate Islam is intended more for a western audience than it is for an internal audience Saudi Arabia has tried to curb the excesses of extremism within the wahhabist movement but they're not going to divorce themselves from the kind of ideology which is at the basis of their legitimacy as rulers of the Arabian Peninsula the Crown Prince has raised hopes that he can be a new Force for moderation and security but much depends on the man himself and whether he can re in growing and destructive sectarian forces [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] for the brutal war in Yemen has been personally directed by the Crown Prince his aggressive tactics have led to allegations of targeting civilians Shir Muhammad and family were holding a funeral for his brother killed in the [Music] fighting [Music] [Music] fore [Music] spee that [Music] seven women and one young girl were killed 10 others were badly injured the missile that killed them is thought to have been fired by a fighter jet from the Saudi Le Coalition their military campaign in Yemen has been backed by Britain and America for according to the UN at least 10,000 people have been killed the Saudis say they're supporting the elected government of Yemen and defending themselves against Rebel attacks on Saudi Arabia Sunni Saudi Arabia claims the mainly Shia rebels in Yemen are backed by an expansionist and aggressive Iran but the Saudi Le blockade has put millions of yemenis at risk of starvation and Cera it was a necessary War to enter into now it may have been executed in in in a flawed way at certain times uh the the messaging about it might not have been good but it is a necessary War to defend the security of Saudi Arabia people don't appreciate [Music] that Crown Prince Ben Salman's promise to crack down on extremism has been welcomed in the west but some fear his aggressive foreign policy has opened a new chapter of instability in the Middle East there's no doubt that what we've seen in in Saudi Arabia is is pretty unprecedented it is aggressive it is assertive and it is getting itself self stuck into some real conundrums in the region and all of a sudden we don't quite know where this goes Saudi Arabia's engaged now in the most intense sectarian proxy conflict that we have seen in modern Middle East history neither Saudi Arabia nor Iran anymore is able to keep from just stoking and stoking and stoking it's burning from Syria and Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen to inside the kingdom to Bahrain to Kuwait in places like that thousands if not tens of thousands of people are at risk at a sectarian conflict that has burned out of control I think the danger is that the Arab world in the last 5 years has begun walking into an abyss of [Music] hell [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: BBC Select

Views: 308,340

Keywords: bbc, tv shows, english tv, british tv, documentary, Documentaries, bbc documentaries, bbc documentary

Id: rltzkZz-gdU

Length: 48min 28sec (2908 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2024