US: Saudi Arabia and the United States have agreed to set up a joint task force that will station US law enforcement officials in the desert kingdom to target individuals suspected of funnelling millions of dollars to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations, officials from both countries said.
The task force will focus on mining information from bank accounts, computer records and other financial data to track and shut down the money flow, the officials said.
Although several joint task forces have been tried before, none allowed US officials to live in Saudi Arabia or have access to Saudi documents and investigations. US and Saudi officials said the impetus for strengthening co-operation came from al-Qaeda's attacks in Saudi Arabia in May, when suicide car bombings of residential compounds in Riyadh killed 34 people, including nine assailants.
US officials said the creation of the task force was an important step but its effectiveness would depend on how seriously the Saudi government took the issue.
Relations between the two countries have been strained in recent months over allegations in a congressional report and elsewhere that wealthy Saudis have financed terror groups and that Riyadh has not moved aggressively to stem that flow of money. Intelligence experts say that funding to al-Qaeda from wealthy individuals on the Arabian Peninsula, principally Saudi Arabia, still amounts to millions of dollars a year.
Terrorism analysts were cautiously optimistic about the agreement, saying that, with US agents on the ground, it will be difficult for Saudi officials to drag their feet on investigations.