Ex-Saudi spymaster lashes out at Muslim Brotherhood
Islamist group is banned in several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt
Cairo: Ex-chief of the Saudi intelligence service Prince Turki Al Faisal has lashed out against the Muslim Brotherhood, accusing them of disloyalty.
"They are untrustworthy. They worked in the kingdom, but their allegiance remained to the [supreme] guide, not to the ruler," he said in an interview with Rotana Khalejia TV aired Monday night.
The royal, who steered the helm of the Saudi intelligence from 1977 to 2001, said that the Muslim Brothers supported Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. "This came despite what Kuwait offered to them. Kuwait was among the biggest supporters of them," he added.
The Islamist group is banned in several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt.
Prince Turki, who also served as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, denied claims that the terrorist Al Qaida organisation was linked to Saudi and US intelligence services.
"There was Saudi, American and Pakistani cooperation, offering support against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan," he said. "Millions of Afghan mujahdeen gathered in the refugee camps in Pakistan. Arab volunteers or mujahdeen provided services for Afghan refugees," he recalled. Arab leaders of Al Qaida gathered along with Afghans in Peshawar. This marked the start of the terrorist Al Qaida organisation, especially with eruption of civil war in Afghanistan. The Saudi and US intelligence services did not play any role at all in this."
The Saudi royal disclosed that the now-ousted Sudanese president Omar Al Bashir offered in 1995 to hand over Osama Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia on condition he should not be put on trial, an offer that the Saudi government rejected.
Bin Laden went to Sudan in the 1990s as an investor. He lived for six years in Sudan where he trained his followers in military activities on farms provided to him by Al Bashir's government.