Ali Al-Ahmed
Encyclopedia
Ali Al-Ahmed is a Saudi scholar and expert on Saudi political affairs including: terrorism
, Islamic movements, Wahhabi Islam, Saudi political history, Saudi-American relations, and the history of the Al-Saud family. He is the founder and director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs
(formerly the Saudi Institute), an independent think tank in Washington, D.C. focused on providing analyses and disseminating information on political issues in the Gulf region and particularly Saudi Arabia, and U.S.-Gulf relations. IGA also convenes conferences, conducts independent research and investigations, and works with the media and policymakers to fosters a deeper understanding of the Gulf countries by providing them with up-to-date and exclusive information and connecting them with reliable analysts.
He has been invited to speak by Princeton University
, Amnesty International
, the Hudson Institute
, American Enterprise Institute
and Meridian International Center.
As a journalist, Al-Ahmed exposed major news stories such as The Pentagon
's botched translation of the 9-11 Bin Laden tape in December 2001. He also discovered the video of Daniel Pearl
's murder.
He has testified before Congress on several occasions on the issue of civil rights and religious freedom in the Middle East.
He has authored reports on Saudi Arabia regarding religious freedom, torture, press freedom, and religious curriculum.
Al-Ahmed grew up in the Eastern Province city of Safwa. His political career began at the age of 14 when he became the Kingdom's youngest political prisoner, after he was arrested in Doha, Qatar and deported to Saudi Arabia while traveling with his parents and six siblings in 1981. Ten years later, he moved to the United States to earn a B.A. in Journalism and Science at Winona State University
in Minnesota
and a M.A. in International Finance at the University of St. Thomas
in St. Paul, MN
, CNN
, PBS
, Fox News, and Al-Jazeera. He has written for, and has been quoted in, the Washington Post, Associated Press
, The Times
, Reuters
, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today
and the Boston Globe, amongst others.
Al-Ahmed has been invited to speak at Princeton University
, Amnesty International
, the Hudson Institute
, American Enterprise Institute
and the Meridian International Center. He has testified before Congress on several occasions on the issue of civil rights and religious freedom in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia.[3][4].
After conducting an analysis of the Osama bin Laden
videotape claiming responsibility for the destruction of Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, Al-Ahmed discovered that the original translation made by Pentagon
missed the fact that bin Laden identified nine hijackers by name, including brothers Nawaf al Hazmi and Salam al Hazmi, four men from the al-Ghamdi tribe, and two individuals named al-Shehri.
Further details identified by Al-Ahmed, and missed by Pentagon translators, were the names of three Saudi clerics who publicly backed the attacks, according to the man speaking with bin Laden on the tape. The government’s version of the tape also failed to mention bin Laden's instruction to his the followers: "When you hear a breaking news announcement on the radio, kneel immediately, and that means they have hit the World Trade Center
."
Daniel Pearl Murder Discovery
In May 2002, after Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, Al-Ahmed found a video of his beheading on an Arabic-language Web site used to recruit jihadi-s to fight the United States. The footage of Pearl’s murder was interspersed with news clips, Arabic subtitles and calls to holy war directed at young people in Saudi Arabia, at least some of whom found the video appealing. "The first place where they had it on most of the people who commented on the tape, they said, 'I wish I was there. I wish I had done it,'" said Al-Ahmed.
CBS’s decision to air parts of the videotape was criticized by Pearl’s family and the State and Justice Departments, both of whom asked the network not to air the video. Anchor Dan Rather
defended CBS’s decision by saying the tape was aired after great deliberation and was carefully edited to omit the most brutal moments. "We believe," said Rather, "it is important for Americans to see it and understand the full impact and danger of the propaganda war being waged against the United States and its allies, and also its effect on the young people of the Arab world."
Saudi Curriculum of Intolerance Exposed
In May 2006, the Institute for Gulf Affairs and Freedom House
’s Center for Religious Freedom released “Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance”, a report analyzing a set of 12 Saudi textbooks currently used in Islamic studies courses for elementary and secondary school students. The analysis showed that the textbooks espoused hatred toward non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi Muslims. IGA collected these textbooks, used in Saudi Arabia and Saudi-run schools outside the Kingdom, from teachers, administrators and families with children in Saudi schools.
The report debunked claims repeated earlier by Saudi officials, including spokesman Adel Al-Jubeir
and Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Turki al-Faisal, that all educational materials have undergone significant revision. In stark contradiction to these claims, the IGA/FH analysis showed that the textbooks commanded Muslims to hate non-Muslims, denigrated the majority of Sunni Muslims as “deviants and descendants of polytheists”, taught conspiracy theories like Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if they were proven facts, and called upon students not to "greet," "befriend," "imitate," "show loyalty to," "be courteous to," or "respect" non-believers.
Saudi Arabia runs academies in 19 world capitals, including the Islamic Saudi Academy
in Fairfax County near Washington, D.C., that use the same textbooks. The IGA/Freedom House study was cited as evidence in the report released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in October 2007 that urged the State Department to shut down the Academy unless it could prove it was not teaching religious intolerance. The panel expressed "significant concerns" that the school is promoting a brand of religious intolerance that could prove a danger to the United States.
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, Islamic movements, Wahhabi Islam, Saudi political history, Saudi-American relations, and the history of the Al-Saud family. He is the founder and director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs
Institute for Gulf Affairs
Institute for Gulf Affairs is Washington, D.C.-based human rights advocacy group and think tank that that monitors politics and education in the Middle East...
(formerly the Saudi Institute), an independent think tank in Washington, D.C. focused on providing analyses and disseminating information on political issues in the Gulf region and particularly Saudi Arabia, and U.S.-Gulf relations. IGA also convenes conferences, conducts independent research and investigations, and works with the media and policymakers to fosters a deeper understanding of the Gulf countries by providing them with up-to-date and exclusive information and connecting them with reliable analysts.
He has been invited to speak by Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, the Hudson Institute
Hudson Institute
The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
, American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
and Meridian International Center.
As a journalist, Al-Ahmed exposed major news stories such as The Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
's botched translation of the 9-11 Bin Laden tape in December 2001. He also discovered the video of Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl was an American journalist who was kidnapped and killed by Al-Qaeda.At the time of his kidnapping, Pearl served as the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, and was based in Mumbai, India. He went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between...
's murder.
He has testified before Congress on several occasions on the issue of civil rights and religious freedom in the Middle East.
He has authored reports on Saudi Arabia regarding religious freedom, torture, press freedom, and religious curriculum.
Family and Early Years
One of nine children, Al-Ahmed was born in 1966 in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, to a politically active Shi’a family. His maternal grandfather, Salman Abdul Hadi Al-Habib, was the ZABAL Safwa in the early to mid twentieth century until his death. His oldest uncle Ali Salman was arrested for his nationalist opposition activities in 1969-1975, and his youngest uncle Adil Salman was imprisoned for 18 months in 1991 for membership in the Socialist Workers Party.Al-Ahmed grew up in the Eastern Province city of Safwa. His political career began at the age of 14 when he became the Kingdom's youngest political prisoner, after he was arrested in Doha, Qatar and deported to Saudi Arabia while traveling with his parents and six siblings in 1981. Ten years later, he moved to the United States to earn a B.A. in Journalism and Science at Winona State University
Winona State University
Winona State University is a comprehensive public university in Winona, Minnesota, United States, a college and river town located in picturesque bluff country on the Mississippi River, with around 8,900 enrolled undergraduate and graduate students...
in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
and a M.A. in International Finance at the University of St. Thomas
University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)
The University of St. Thomas is a private, Catholic, liberal arts, and archdiocesan university located in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States...
in St. Paul, MN
Media and Speaking Appearances
Al-Ahmed is a frequent consultant to major international broadcast media on issues including Saudi political affairs, terrorism, Sunni-Shi’a relations, Wahhabi Islam, political and religious oppression, human and women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi-U.S. relationship. He is a regular guest on CBS NewsCBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, Fox News, and Al-Jazeera. He has written for, and has been quoted in, the Washington Post, Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
and the Boston Globe, amongst others.
Al-Ahmed has been invited to speak at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, the Hudson Institute
Hudson Institute
The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
, American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
and the Meridian International Center. He has testified before Congress on several occasions on the issue of civil rights and religious freedom in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia.[3][4].
Notable Achievements
Bin Laden 9/11 Tape DiscoveryAfter conducting an analysis of the Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
videotape claiming responsibility for the destruction of Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, Al-Ahmed discovered that the original translation made by Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
missed the fact that bin Laden identified nine hijackers by name, including brothers Nawaf al Hazmi and Salam al Hazmi, four men from the al-Ghamdi tribe, and two individuals named al-Shehri.
Further details identified by Al-Ahmed, and missed by Pentagon translators, were the names of three Saudi clerics who publicly backed the attacks, according to the man speaking with bin Laden on the tape. The government’s version of the tape also failed to mention bin Laden's instruction to his the followers: "When you hear a breaking news announcement on the radio, kneel immediately, and that means they have hit the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
."
Daniel Pearl Murder Discovery
In May 2002, after Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl was an American journalist who was kidnapped and killed by Al-Qaeda.At the time of his kidnapping, Pearl served as the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, and was based in Mumbai, India. He went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between...
was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, Al-Ahmed found a video of his beheading on an Arabic-language Web site used to recruit jihadi-s to fight the United States. The footage of Pearl’s murder was interspersed with news clips, Arabic subtitles and calls to holy war directed at young people in Saudi Arabia, at least some of whom found the video appealing. "The first place where they had it on most of the people who commented on the tape, they said, 'I wish I was there. I wish I had done it,'" said Al-Ahmed.
CBS’s decision to air parts of the videotape was criticized by Pearl’s family and the State and Justice Departments, both of whom asked the network not to air the video. Anchor Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
defended CBS’s decision by saying the tape was aired after great deliberation and was carefully edited to omit the most brutal moments. "We believe," said Rather, "it is important for Americans to see it and understand the full impact and danger of the propaganda war being waged against the United States and its allies, and also its effect on the young people of the Arab world."
Saudi Curriculum of Intolerance Exposed
In May 2006, the Institute for Gulf Affairs and Freedom House
Freedom House
Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights...
’s Center for Religious Freedom released “Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance”, a report analyzing a set of 12 Saudi textbooks currently used in Islamic studies courses for elementary and secondary school students. The analysis showed that the textbooks espoused hatred toward non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi Muslims. IGA collected these textbooks, used in Saudi Arabia and Saudi-run schools outside the Kingdom, from teachers, administrators and families with children in Saudi schools.
The report debunked claims repeated earlier by Saudi officials, including spokesman Adel Al-Jubeir
Adel al-Jubeir
Adel A. Al-Jubeir is the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States, and a former foreign policy advisor to King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia. He is a well-known representative of the Saudi kingdom in the West, particularly the United States. Al-Jubeir presented his credentials to...
and Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Turki al-Faisal, that all educational materials have undergone significant revision. In stark contradiction to these claims, the IGA/FH analysis showed that the textbooks commanded Muslims to hate non-Muslims, denigrated the majority of Sunni Muslims as “deviants and descendants of polytheists”, taught conspiracy theories like Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if they were proven facts, and called upon students not to "greet," "befriend," "imitate," "show loyalty to," "be courteous to," or "respect" non-believers.
Saudi Arabia runs academies in 19 world capitals, including the Islamic Saudi Academy
Islamic Saudi Academy
The Islamic Saudi Academy of Washington is an International Baccalaureate World university preparatory school in Virginia, accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and authorized by IB in December 2008. It has classes from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade, and has a...
in Fairfax County near Washington, D.C., that use the same textbooks. The IGA/Freedom House study was cited as evidence in the report released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in October 2007 that urged the State Department to shut down the Academy unless it could prove it was not teaching religious intolerance. The panel expressed "significant concerns" that the school is promoting a brand of religious intolerance that could prove a danger to the United States.