Saudi Arabia and the War in Afghanistan

Summary: What role does Saudi Arabia play in the war on terrorism? The House of Saud, the country's royal family, is perhaps the world's most powerful absolute monarchy. It draws all of its authority to rule from Islam, but its 4,000 family members are hardly pillars of virtue. Fundamentalists are beginning to protest the moral and financial corruption of the monarchy, whom they accuse of being too Western. In order to deflect attention from their activities, the Saudi monarchy chose to financially sponsor "wahhabism", a strict, puritanical form of Islam practiced and taught in Saudi Arabia. Some believe that Osama bin Laden is a wahhabi and gets money from wahhab sources. The clerics support a jihad against the west and anyone friendly with the west, including the Saudi royal family. The Saudi royals have quietly allowed the anti-American hatred to boil. But the fanaticism now threatens to blow back on the Saudi regime.