FRANCAISInternational Islamic Relief Organisation of Saudi Arabia (al-Ighata al-Islamiya al-'alamiya) - History
2000-2009
-From 2000, Géorgia: the IIRO is active in the Pankisi Gorge, a haven for Chechen and Islamist fighters.
-From 2001 on, United States: the IIRO is under investigation after the attacks of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden against the World Trade Centre in New York on the 11th of September 2001. Several of its employees are imprisoned and accused of supporting or participating in terrorist movements. Among them, an Afghan detainee in Guantanamo, Mustafa Ahmed Hamlily, admits he received military training while he was working for the IIRO in Peshawar from 1987 until 1990. Put in jail by the Canadians as soon as August 2001, an Egyptian teacher, Mahmoud Jaballah, also ran Koranic schools for the Saudi NGO in Peshawar from 1991 until 1994. In the United States, the IIRO is eventually brought to courts when a complaint by the victims of September 2001 is lodged against the institution and accepted by a federal judge in New-York, Richard Casey, on the 22nd of September 2005. On the 3rd of August 2006, the Saudi NGO is then officially listed by the American government as an organization funding terrorism.
-From 2003, Iraq: the IIRO helps the Sunnite population after the country is invaded by American troops.
-From 2004 on, Sudan: the IIRO begins to intervene in favour of the victims of the civil war in Darfur and supplies a camp, al-Salam, which is set up by the government.
-2006, Indonesia: the United States force the Indonesian branch of the IIRO to close down because the regional head of the NGO, Abdul Al-Hamid Sulaiman Al-Mujil, is considered as a member of al-Qaeda and a local terrorist group, the Jemaah Islamiyah.
