Bin Laden still commanding attacks - Saudi envoy

LONDON - Osama bin Laden is still giving direct orders for al Qaeda attacks, Saudi Arabia's next ambassador to the United States said.

Outgoing Saudi ambassador to Britain Prince Turki al-Faisal said some of the most recent attacks attributed to al Qaeda in the oil-rich kingdom had been directly ordered by the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

"Some of the events (attacks) that occurred in the kingdom over the past 2-1/2 years were under the immediate directions of the leadership of al Qaeda, particularly bin Laden," Turki said in comments broadcast by Reuters Television on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia has been battling a two-year wave of violence by supporters of Saudi-born bin Laden's al Qaeda network, who are trying to drive Westerners out of the world's biggest oil exporter and destabilise the pro-Western ruling family.

Many top militants have been killed or captured and the pace of attacks has slowed but Western diplomats say the threat remains.

There has been an ongoing debate over how much direct control bin Laden exercises over al Qaeda since a US-led international effort to capture him and his top lieutenants began in 2001 after the attacks on the United States.

Turki said some al Qaeda groups operated autonomously because they were in places where it was difficult to communicate with al Qaeda's central command.

"In such cases, it is left to those in charge of those networks to decide when, how and where to take their measures," Turki said.

Turki's former role as Saudi foreign intelligence chief brought him into contact with bin Laden when both the United States and Saudi Arabia were supporting Arab mujahideen (freedom fighters) fighting Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan.

The prince later tried but failed to persuade Afghanistan's Taleban rulers to hand bin Laden back to Saudi Arabia, a failure diplomats believe led him to leave his job just 10 days before the September 11 attacks.

Turki is due to take over as Saudi ambassador to the United States from Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who enjoyed unrivalled access to the very top of US political power.

Bandar, who resigned in mid-July, is a friend of the Bush family and used his close White House contacts to weather the storm after the 2001 strikes on New York and Washington by mainly Saudi hijackers.

Saudi officials say Turki is no stranger to Washington, is equally influential back in Riyadh, and will follow the same agenda as Bandar - with only minor differences.

Turki said bin Laden and his followers have violated the teachings of Islam, but that anger in the Muslim community over the war in Iraq and the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict made it easy for him to attract people to al Qaeda.

The Saudi prince said bin Laden deliberately chose 15 Saudis to take part in the September 11 attacks in the United States in order to damage US-Saudi ties.

- REUTERS