Saudi’s al Yamamah oil deal for Arms With Britain
The ‘Deal’ That Launched 1,000 Attacks
In 1985, Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, entered into a long-term partnership with the British government of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Under the cover of an oil-for-weapons agreement called Al Yamamah (Arabic for “the dove”), the British and Saudi monarchies established an offshore fund which grew to huge proportions, and has been used for conducting global terrorism against targeted nations.
During the more than 30 years since Al Yamamah was launched, the British and Saudi monarchies have amassed well-over $100 billion in a string of offshore secret funds, to finance terrorism, assassinations, coup plots and other crimes like the current Saudi/British/U.S. invasion and bombing of Yemen.
Under Al Yamamah, the British arms manufacturer BAE Systems provided an estimated $40 billion in weapons to the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation, and an additional estimated $20 billion in bribes to Saudi princes and defense officials. In return, the Saudis provided 600,000 barrels of oil per day to the British. Through the Anglo-Dutch oil giants British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell, the oil was sold on the international spot markets, generating hundreds of billions of dollars in profits. An EIR study in 2007 estimated that at minimum, $100 billion in excess funds were amassed and deposited in offshore secret bank accounts for use in joint Anglo-Saudi covert operations.
In an official biography, Prince Bandar boasted of using these covert funds, and of the special nature of the Al Yamamah deal, which could have only been carried out between two absolute monarchies that could act above the law and blur the distinctions between public and private actions.
ISIS, in other words, has definitely NOT been the world’s richest Islamist terrorist operation.
In 2007, when British media conducted a limited expose of the Al Yamamah bribery scandal, Prime Minister Tony Blair shut down the investigation by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), on the grounds that the Anglo-Saudi partnership was essential to British national security. The shut-down order came within hours of a decision by the Swiss government to allow the SFO access to the secret bank accounts of Wafiq Said, a front man for the Al Yamamah funds.
The Al Yamamah deal was a lucrative transaction for Prince Bandar, who received a commission for his role in launching the program of at least $2 billion (US intelligence sources estimate that Bandar received in excess of $10 billion on the deal).
In the Matter of 3,000 Americans Killed
Bandar is directly implicated in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Funds from the personal bank account of Bandar and his wife Princess Haifa (sister of Saudi intelligence longtime director Prince Turki al-Faisal) were passed to two of the original 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, through Saudi intelligence officers Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan. Funds went from the Bank of England accounts of the British Ministry of Defense’s Defense Export Support Office (DESO) to Bandar’s account at Riggs National Banks. In addition, al-Bayoumi and Basnan received funding through a ghost employment with a Saudi defense firm, Dalah Aviation, which was a sole contractor for the Saudi Defense Ministry.
A Federal Judge in Sarasota, Fla. is now reviewing over 80,000 pages of suppressed FBI documents, dealing with a Sarasota cell of the 9/11 hijackers and its links to a prominent Saudi wealthy businessman with strong ties to the Saudi Monarchy. Weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi family residing in a gated community in Sarasota abruptly left the country. They left possessions behind indicating that they were leaving on very short notice. The FBI conducted a lengthy investigation into the family because they hosted three of the 9/11 hijackers, including ring-leader Mohammed Atta on many occasions, according to security logs and video camera footage, showing Atta and the others entering and leaving the compound.
