The Wall Street Journal recently reported on new information from the US Government about Al Rajhi Bank.
The article contains references to CIA reports, one of them titled "Al Rajhi Bank: Conduit for Extremist Finance", claiming that one year after 9/11, the Saudi bank was exploring financial instruments "that would allow [its] charitable contributions to avoid official Saudi scrutiny." A report stated that Al Rajhi Bank couriers "delivered money to the Indonesian insurgent group Kompak to fund weapons purchases and bomb-making activities." A U.S. intelligence memo also says a money courier for Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, traveled on a visa that the bank had obtained for him.
One of the reports concluded that "Senior Al Rajhi family members have long supported Islamic extremists and probably know that terrorists use their bank." Al Rajhi Bank, which was dismissed from a civil lawsuit in the US in 2005, reacted to the claims in a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
