Former French Intelligence Chief: KSA Funds Syria, Lebanon Extremists

The former head of French Interior Intelligence, Bernard Squarcini, stressed that the head of Saudi Intelligence Bandar Bin Abd al-Aziz is supporting the extremist groups from Afghanistan to Lebanon and Syria in the Middle East, passing by Egypt in North Africa.

In his new book, entitled “The French Intelligence: New Challenges”, he accused Qatar, France’s main trading partner and senior political ally, of arming the extremist groups fighting in Africa , against the French army .”

According to the writer , Qatar used non-governmental associations , to hide and pass the logistical support, to recruit and train the “jihadists” .

Squarcini stressed that KSA is responsible for funding, training and funding the extremist groups. And in dealing with “the Syrian Jihad”, the Saudis returned to their old recipes old they had used in Afghanistan and Bosnia.
On 22 March 2013, the Dutch, British , Belgian and French intelligence held a meeting in Dublin to launch an alert siren on the dangerous situation . The conferees concluded that the number of their citizens fighting in Syria reached hundreds of whom are among the most radical groups .

According to the author, “From London and Brussels, the same extremist groups that had previously been recruited to Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechen were sent to Syria .”

The concerns of the intelligence emerged from the possible return of those extremists to Europe . In this context, the writer wondered on how to assess the actions of Qatar, Saudi Arabia , and other oil kingdoms, regarding the finance of terrorism.
“Can we name these countries as friends , while they work against the French interests? The French analyst asked.

He added , “Since 20 years ago, we have been aware that the Saudi, Egyptian and Kuwaiti banks funded the “Islamic groups” in Egypt and Algeria. Bags of banknotes passed by Geneva, Lugano and Milan through non- governmental humanitarian and fake commercial companies. However, what we are witnessing today is the restructuring of more complex and accurate financial networks, some of which head from Saudi Arabia and others from the enthusiastic Qatar .”

Squarcini worked on dismantling the French diplomacy towards Syria as well as the wrong bets wrong on the fall of the regime.
One of these bets was resembled by the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’ actions that cut had any diplomatic and security contact with Damascus.

“Since the appointment of Laurent Fabius at the head of French diplomacy, he cut all bridges with Damascus , because Paris was betting on a fast fall of the Syrian regime. However, these were merely risky that not only had left President Bashar al-Assad in his position, but he came out stronger than before.

Source: Al-Ahed news