Another gem from the Arrabob lands. Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi prince!
What is with this Gadha-fi? He can’t stop lovin’ a terrorist or two at any given time. Well this is age old stuff in the Arrab lands.
Pakistanis are better off staying away from the leaderi of such bizarre people. Read the news at the NY times.
Seeing a Plot, Saudis Recall Ambassador From Libya
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: December 23, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/international/middleeast/23saudi.html
AIRO, Dec. 22 - Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, announced Wednesday that his kingdom was expelling the Libyan ambassador and withdrawing its own envoy from Tripoli because of a Libyan plot to assassinate the crown prince.
Speaking at a news conference in Riyadh, Prince Saud said his country was not breaking off relations, but was taking what he called limited measures despite the “ugliness of what happened.”
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The prince said the Libyan Embassy in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Tripoli would remain open. He said he did not want the Libyan people to suffer, particularly with the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca coming in January.
The Saudi action grew out of a bizarre series of events that started with Crown Prince Abdullah and the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, flinging insults at each other during a tense summit meeting of Arab leaders in February 2003.
The meeting failed in its purpose of preventing the American invasion of Iraq. But during the discussions, Colonel Qaddafi said Saudi Arabia had made “a pact with the devil” by inviting American forces in 1990. The prince shot back that the colonel was a liar who should not speak on subjects he knew nothing about.
The mercurial Libyan leader, insulted, returned home and soon began concocting a scheme to pay Saudi dissidents to try to eliminate the prince, according to a prominent Arab-American sentenced in October in the United States to 23 years in prison after confessing to his role in the plot. The plea deal by the dissident, Abdurahman Alamoudi, in federal court in Alexandria, Va., included the details of how he was recruited by Libyan intelligence officers to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to anti-Saudi dissidents in London and elsewhere.
The plot came to light this year during the same period that Washington lifted sanctions against Libya, long vilified for its support of terrorism, as a reward for its giving up its unconventional weapons. Libya has called the terrorism accusations nonsense.
The Saudis were particularly incensed over the matter because they had worked hard to extract Libya from the international sanctions.
Prince Saud gave no details about what new information, if any, the kingdom had developed in the case.
The move on Wednesday seemed to indicate that the Saudis had concluded that the plot was serious. It will undoubtedly open another fissure in inter-Arab affairs, with each side expecting sympathy for its position. “Expelling and withdrawing the ambassadors means that matters have reached the point of certainty in the kingdom that Libya is implicated,” said Hassan Abu Taleb, an analyst of inter-Arab relations at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
That proof would contradict Libya’s claims to have renounced terrorism, he said, adding, “Withdrawing the ambassador, I think, is the least that can happen in such circumstances.”