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Saudi ex-spy chief calls for anti-Qaeda centre in Gulf

MANAMA (AFP) – A regional centre to fight Al-Qaeda must be created to help countries join ranks and eradicate the Islamist “danger” which threatens the world, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief said on Friday.

“The danger threatens all of us and the fight against terrorism necessitates international action,” Prince Turki al-Faisal said in Manama, which is hosting a major conference on Middle East security.

“We must relaunch the idea of (setting up) a regional centre to fight” against Al-Qaeda, Prince Turki said.

“There should be no obstacles between countries on the exchange of information” about Al-Qaeda, he added.

In 2005 Saudi Arabia first floated the idea of a regional centre based in the ultra-conservative kingdom, where Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was born, to pool international resources against the Islamists.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi, whose country is the ancestral homeland of Bin Laden, told Friday’s meeting the “struggle against Al-Qaeda failed in part because we don’t see this as a global issue.”

“Each one of us is concentrating on their own national security. We need a unified strategy,” Kurbi said.

For his part, British Defence Minister Liam Fox said that “transitional terrorism by definition has no borders.”

“We have to learn to act together,” Fox said.

The annual Manama Dialogue organised by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies draws prime ministers, defence ministers, military officials, intelligence chiefs and private sector heads from across the region and beyond.