Saudis lavish funding on U.N. anti-terror arm

Thursday, August 14, 2014

UNITED NATIONS -- Increasingly worried about the spread of Islamist extremism, Saudi Arabia donated $100 million to a United Nations counterterrorism agency Wednesday and expressed hope that the infusion would strengthen the agency's abilities and set an example for other donor countries.

The money was the second big contribution by Saudi Arabia to the United Nations in the past few months, largely in response to crises caused by the ascent of Sunni militants.

On July 1, Saudi Arabia provided $500 million to U.N. humanitarian relief efforts in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of people have been uprooted by the Islamic State extremist group.

Saudi Arabia's Sunni monarchy has also provided grants and loans worth more than $1 billion to help strengthen Lebanon's armed forces, which have recently battled Islamic State fighters.

At a ceremony in the office of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, top Saudi diplomats gave him the $100 million for the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Center, an agency first proposed by Saudi King Abdullah in 2005 and formally inaugurated in 2011 with a $10 million contribution by Saudi Arabia.

Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, who attended the ceremony, said the money was meant to "help provide the tools, technologies and methods to confront and eliminate the threat of terrorism."

The center's website describes it as an advisory body that aims to provide training, information sharing and expertise to member states, with projects and working groups on topics that include support of terrorism victims and countering use of the Internet and international financing channels by terrorist groups.

Al-Jubeir said there were no strings attached to how the center uses the $100 million.

"The only restriction is that it goes to fight terrorism," he said.

A Section on 08/14/2014