Cracking Down On The Saudis

By Michael Weisskopf and Adam Zagorin

Despite the best efforts of the U.S., the Saudi government has so far offered little help in stanching the flow of funds to al-Qaeda, claiming that the U.S. has never presented evidence to merit a crackdown. That may change this week, when U.S. diplomat Bill Burns visits Saudi Arabia. He will bring with him, U.S. sources tell TIME, intelligence data linking some of the kingdom's leading money men and charities to Osama bin Laden. The data will include sensitive intercepts, human intelligence and wire transfers to back up American demands that the Saudis freeze assets of suspected bin Laden financiers.

One Saudi in Burns' cross hairs: wealthy businessman Yasin al-Qadi, who has raised millions of dollars for a Saudi charity named by the U.S. as a possible bin Laden front. Al-Qadi has repeatedly protested his innocence, and is challenging a freeze on his assets in a court in Britain. The U.S. last week shipped to London a hefty package of intelligence data to strengthen the British case, sources tell TIME.

Al-Qadi says his charity, known as Blessed Relief, has long been dormant, a contention echoed by a senior Saudi official. But U.S. sources tell TIME that intelligence shows movements of people, money and weapons to Muslim fighters in Bosnia financed by the charity as recently as 1999. It's clear that U.S. officials are not going to let the Saudis off the hook easily.

--By Michael Weisskopf and Adam Zagorin