Local Editor(FNA) – Saudi Arabia has vowed to supply fuel for the warships and warplanes of antagonist states during the war on Syria, and it has also undertaken to fund the operation, sources disclosed on Sunday.
“Saudi Arabia has underlined its agreement and support for any military action by the international forces against Syria and stressed that it will support financially those countries which attack Syria”, an informed source in the Saudi mission in Washington said.
“Saudi Arabia has also undetaken to supply fuel for invaders during the operation”, he added.
The source said Riyadh pursues political and ideological goals by supporting the war on Syria. “From the political aspect, it seeks to topple President Bashar al-Assad’s government and from ideological dimensions, Saudi Arabia wants to overthrow the Alawis and provide the ground for the formation of a Wahhabi government dependent on Riyadh and protecting the US interests in the region and Syria”.
The US, Britain, and France as well as the Arab League have accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for carrying out the chemical weapons attack, which mainly targeted civilians. US warships are stationed in the Mediterranean Sea to launch military strikes against Syria in punishment for carrying out a massive chemical weapons attack. The US and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with US Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assad’s guilt was “a judgment… already clear to the world”.
In a recent article for Business Insider, reporter Geoffrey Ingersoll highlighted Saudi Prince Bandar’s role in the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war. Many observers believe Bandar, with his close ties to Washington, has been at the very heart of the push for war by the US against Assad.
Ingersoll referred to an article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks alleging that Bandar offered Russian President Vladimir Putin cheap oil in exchange for dumping Assad.
“Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord”, Ingersoll wrote.
“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us”, Bandar allegedly told the Russians.
“Along with Saudi officials, the US allegedly gave the Saudi intelligence chief the thumbs up to conduct these talks with Russia, which comes as no surprise”, Ingersoll wrote.
“Bandar is American-educated, both military and collegiate, served as a highly influential Saudi Ambassador to the US, and the CIA totally loves this guy”, he added.
According to UK’s Independent newspaper, it was Prince Bandar’s intelligence agency that first brought allegations of the use of sarin gas by the regime to the attention of the Western allies in February.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the CIA realized Saudi Arabia was “serious” about toppling Assad when the Saudi king named Prince Bandar to lead the effort.
“They believed that Prince Bandar, a veteran of the diplomatic intrigues of Washington and the Arab world, could deliver what the CIA couldn’t: planeloads of money and arms, and, as one US diplomat put it, wasta, Arabic for under-the-table clout”, it said.
Bandar has been advancing Saudi Arabia’s top foreign policy goal, WSJ reported, of defeating Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies.
To that aim, Bandar worked Washington to back a program to arm and train rebels out of a planned military base in Jordan.
The newspaper reports that he met with the “uneasy Jordanians about such a base”:
His meetings in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah sometimes ran to eight hours in a single sitting. “The king would joke: ‘Oh, Bandar’s coming again? Let’s clear two days for the meeting’ ”, said a person familiar with the meetings.
Jordan’s financial dependence on Saudi Arabia may have given the Saudis strong leverage. An operations center in Jordan started going online in the summer of 2012, including an airstrip and warehouses for arms. Saudi-procured AK-47s and ammunition arrived, WSJ reported, citing Arab officials.
Although Saudi Arabia has officially maintained that it supported more moderate rebels, the newspaper reported that “funds and arms were being funneled to radicals on the side, simply to counter the influence of rival Islamists backed by Qatar”.
But rebels interviewed said Prince Bandar is referred to as “al-Habib” or ‘the lover’ by al-Qaeda militants fighting in Syria.
