Saad Al-Fagih, a physician who has lived in Britain for more than a decade, has always had a knack for using cheap modern technologies to subvert the royal regime in his homeland. One of his favorite tools is Paltalk, a program that allows live audio- and videoconferencing for hundreds of people simultaneously. Though Al-Fagih is known as a moderate Islamist in the spectrum of anti-Saud opponents, if you tune into some of these Paltalk chat sessions you’d think you were attending a virtual Qaeda convention.
Dressed in his simple Arab thobe and barefoot in his home office, Al-Fagih spends hours every day in front of his computer, and nobody knows his way around this underground world of Saudi Web-surfing better, or, indeed, seems to have more fun with it. So I asked Al-Fagih about Alsaha.com, a site that U.S. intelligence monitors closely in case Al Qaeda really does put up some not-so-secret calls to action. As NEWSWEEK reported this week, one such posting earlier this month helped push the U.S. threat-o-meter into the Orange zone.
“Alsaha is a VB [a virtual bulletin board] owned by people from the [United Arab] Emirates,” said Al-Fagih, pulling up a chair so I could look over his shoulder at the computer. “But most if not all the contributors are from Saudi Arabia.” He said many Arabic VBs are used almost exclusively by Saudis desperate for uncensored ways to express themselves.
Al-Fagih scrolled down through the postings. “Mostly it’s full of rubbish,” he said, “But if I were an intelligence officer, I would have this watched.” He pointed at the screen. “There, ‘Janno_1.’ He’s very well known to be Saudi intelligence. There, ‘Nimr bin Adwan’ is known to be of or with the royal family.”
Al-Fagih shook his head. He has grown impatient with these overcrowded chat rooms and the cat-and-mouse games with Saudi spies, so he and his supporters started a satellite radio broadcast into Saudi Arabia a few months ago. In mid-May they began beaming text as Islah TV. “You know Bloomberg TV information screen?” he said. “It’s similar.” The operation is not actually run out of Britain. The computer server at its core is somewhere else in Europe, said Al-Fagih. “You could control it from Riyadh itself,” he says. “The only problem for Riyadh is the poor Internet service.”
In Arabia, where movie theaters are banned and television is just about the only form of entertainment, the response to the broadcasts was instantaneous, Al-Fagih said, and 30 times what he’d seen on the Web. In the immediate wake of the Riyadh bombings, the type crawling across the Saudis’ TV screens raised questions about the way the authorities handled the crisis, suggested rivalries between the crown prince and his half brother the minister of interior, asked why senior officers were so late showing up at the scene, and so on. Then without warning the Paris-based satellite company that carries the broadcasts pulled the plug. It claimed there were problems with the Islah licenses.
As we looked at Al-Fagih’s computer screen, he pointed out a posting on Alsaha that said “we thank the French government for cutting off the venom of Saad Al-Fagih.” To which another responded, “When are we going to see Saudi Arabia pressing the French government to stop the porno channels?”
Al-Fagih laughed. I looked out the picture window at the lawn and trees of his backyard where his young son and a friend were playing. Here in England’s green and pleasant land, we were a long way from Arabia’s oppressive physical, political and intellectual desert. Yet a combination of Britain’s hospitality to asylum seekers, traditions of free speech and the wonders of modern technology have made this, as much as any place in the world, the heartland of Islamic revolution.
That’s why French officials talk about “Londonistan.” To hear Arab and Continental spymasters talk, you’d think England should be the next target in the war on terror. The governments of Jordan, Algeria and Egypt, as well as Saudi Arabia, have all complained often and bitterly that the Sceptered Isle protects their most dangerous political enemies. And from personal experience, I can tell you that at least until 1998, the northern suburbs of London were where you went to set up visits with Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri in their Afghan hideouts.
Have the British been very negligent? Or very smart?
On the one hand, they’ve provided an outlet for people like Al-Fagih who give voice to the politically voiceless in their home countries, and may even release some of the pressure in those societies. But it’s not always easy to tell the difference between talkers and bombers these days.
Arab officials, always leery of conspiracy, note that British soil has rarely if ever been the scene of Qaeda-type terrorist attacks. They suggest the bombers are reluctant to strike so close to their ideological refuge. Of course London passionately denies any such thing. But one alleged preacher-recruiter for the organization, Abu Qatada, operated blatantly in Britain for so long that many foreign intelligence services suspected the spooks of MI-5 or MI-6 had cut a deal to protect him in exchange for sensitive information.
Beginning in 1998, when the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked by Al Qaeda, the British began slowly to crack down, arresting the fixers who used to put journalists in touch with bin Laden and Zawahiri. (They’re still in jail fighting extradition to the United States.) After September 11, the British even went so far as to put Abu Qatada under house arrest, but then managed to let him disappear, and then found him again a few months ago, and finally decided at last to hold him in jail.
Meanwhile asylum laws are getting tougher. Loopholes are being closed. Even experienced dissidents like Al-Fagih, who is careful not to embarrass British officials, are looking over their shoulders. If the British ever thought they’d bought some protection by harboring dissidents, clearly they’re thinking again. Last week, concrete barriers were thrown up around the Houses of Parliament to deter suicide bombers.
As Londonistan ceases to exist, it seems, London is becoming a target. But, then, Islamists may not need such a base any more. Ever since it became virtual, their revolution is virtually everywhere.
