Word: binning
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...whose influence in the Muslim world is based on its stewardship of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. The al-Saud family has held on to power by placating the kingdom's religious establishment, which is dominated by descendants of the 18th century Muslim cleric Mohammed bin Abdul Wahhab. To defuse the religious leaders' hostility to modernization, the Sauds gave the Wahhabists broad power to dispense their forbidding brand of Islam in the country's mosques and schools and to regulate daily life in the kingdom. During the five daily prayer times, official morality squads roam streets...
...Many Saudis resent Western attempts to blame Wahhabism for Sept. 11; they say the Saudis who ultimately joined bin Laden's brigade learned their trade not in Saudi Arabia but by fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan-a war supported and funded in part by Washington. But some Saudi elites have begun to argue that something is basically rotten in their homeland. Says a Saudi journalist: "Wahhabism breeds extremism. It was building up, and bin Laden used it. The government should have said, 'Enough is enough...
...Washington and Riyadh say they have worked closely together to liquidate al-Qaeda. According to U.S. officials, the Saudis have arrested more than 100 al-Qaeda members inside the kingdom, given American investigators access to interrogations of terrorism suspects and shared reams of intelligence on the Taliban and bin Laden's network...
...incentive to cooperate. Only 16% of Saudis have a favorable view of America, according to a Gallup poll taken this spring. Nothing has done more to fuel the antipathy than the Administration's unwillingness to even try to rein in the Israeli offensive against the Palestinians. Says Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud,who is the biggest foreign investor in the U.S.: "The people see their brothers dying in Palestine, and it makes them hate America." The Israeli reoccupation of West Bank cities has handed religious hard-liners an excuse to go on the offensive. In a televised address, Sheik...
...idea that the U.S. no longer needs to keep 6,000 troops in Saudi Arabia must frighten the royal family. While the princes occasionally grumble about the risks associated with a U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia-namely, bin Laden's demand that the House of Saud be deposed for hosting the infidels-the Saudis know they can't afford to lose the guarantee of U.S. protection. Since the Gulf War, the kingdom has spent $270 billion on high-tech weapons, but its forces still lack the training and skills to make them work. As a result, the regime...