Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior, received earlier this week the George J. Tenet, 1996-2004 Medal, by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for his counter-terrorism efforts and intelligence-sharing, thereby contributing to world security. Commenting on this honor extended to the Crown Prince, Dr. David M. Weinberg, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that the Crown Prince was accorded this high recognition for his strong cooperation in the fight against Al-Qaeda, including tips against planned attacks on US soil which had helped save American lives. Weinberg, who was previously Staff Member at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and advisor at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the State Department's Policy Planning Staff during the George W. Bush administration, added that Saudi Arabia and America shared many common interests in the fight against terrorist groups, such as combating Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the Taliban, and the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard. However, on some areas the two governments disagreed – for example, on how much to push back against the atrocities against civilians by the Assad regime in Syria, he said. He pointed out that American officials would like to see Saudi Arabia arrest Abdulmajeed Al-Zindani, who is under UN counterterrorism sanctions, as well as Abdulwahhab Al-Humayqani, who, according to the US, has served as an acting Al-Qaeda head of the Yemeni province of Al-Baydaa and used a charity to funnel donations to al-Qaeda. About the cooperation between the Kingdom and the US in confronting terrorist threats backed by Iran in Yemen and other places, Weinberg said that American officials greatly sympathized with Saudi Arabia on the loss of civilian and military lives at the hands of terrorists. "I think the US will do more to support Saudi Arabia against terrorist attacks, not just by the Islamic State, but also the Houthis and other Iran-backed extremists, such as certain terrorist groups in Iraq. It would make it easier for the US to do more to support the coalition's military intervention in Yemen if the coalition can take new additional steps to reduce civilian deaths as the side-effects of airstrikes or from the humanitarian crises on the ground." One area of cooperation suggested by him is sharing the list of companies that are controlled by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. By knowing the names of these companies, financial institutions in Europe and other regions could be discouraged to deal with the Guard. There is as high level of interest in this approach, he said.
