After the attacks of September 11, Saudis were forced by the United States to exercise more control over where their money for charity and proselytizing was going—a lot of it was outside state control. There were some three hundred private Saudi charities sending $6 billion a year to Islamic causes around the world. Every day, wealthy Saudi individuals donated an estimated $1.6 million to charity, and some of it ended up in the wrong hands. According to one estimate, almost $60 million donated to legitimate Saudi-based charities went astray, with $2 million per year going into the coffers of
...more
