FRANCAISHaramayn (Mu’assasat al-Haramayn al-Khariyya) - History
2000-2009
-From 2000, Bangladesh : the AHF funds the Jama‘at-i-Islami, a fundamentalist movement launched in 1996. Its activities raise many suspicions. In 2002, the authorities search an AHF madrasah in Dacca and arrest seven employees who entered the country with forged passports in 1999: four Yemenites, one Sudanese, one Libyan and one Algerian who are quickly released despite their alleged links with al-Qaida and their involvement in the military training of Islamist activists. The AHF has to suspend its operations and its local branch is classified by the United Nations as a terrorist organisation in August 2004.
-2001-2004, Tanzania: following the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York in September 2001, the AHF is again suspected of terrorism, as the Tanzanian authorities had already suspended its activities after a bomb attack on the American embassy in Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998. The Foundation is accused of propagating a fundamentalist ideology in its boarding school and in the 136 mosques it funds throughout the country. According to journalist Gregory Pirio, there is no doubt that the AHF supports the terrorist “base” (al-Qaeda) of Osama bin Laden. For instance, it reportedly participates in an assassination attempt on tourist hotels in Zanzibar in February 2003. Moreover, it might be involved in the unrest of the Muslims of Zanzibar Island in March and April 2004. As a consequence, in February 2004, the authorities expel two leaders of the AHF, a Tunisian, Abu Hubheyifa, and a Yemenite, Mohammed Ally Saleh al-Saad “Mohed”, on the pretext that their visas are not in order. The Tanzanian branch of the Foundation eventually has to stop all its programmes in the following months.
-2002-2004, Chad: the AHF intervenes to build mosques and wells in the central region of Guera. Under the pressure of the United States, however, the Foundation has to close its offices in N’Djamena two years later.
-2003, Albania: pressed by the Americans and the government in Tirana, the AHF has to close down its offices and leave the country. Indeed, its calls for jihad ended up antagonizing the local Muslim community. Moreover, the representative of the AHF in Tirana, Ermir Gjinishi, was accused of the murder of a moderate, Salih Tivari, in January 2002, yet released by the Albanian justice for lack of evidence.
-January 2004, Saudi Arabia: the authorities close down the headquarters of the Foundation in Riyadh and officially disband the organization on the following 2nd of June. The kingdom decided to act because the AHF director, Aqil Abdul Aziz al-Aqil, had become an embarrassment in October 2003 when he publicly boasted that, despite various accusations of terrorism, he was still funded by the crown prince Abdallah ben Abd al-Aziz ben Abd al-Rahman Al Saoud: as a consequence, he was immediately sacked and replaced by his deputy Dabbas al-Dabbas. At that time, the total assets of the regional sections of al-Haramayn in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the Netherlands are estimated at several millions of Euros and frozen by the Saudi National Commission for Relief and Charity Abroad, a new structure created by the monarchy. As for the branches of the AHF in Indonesia, Tanzania, Kenya and Pakistan, they are placed under surveillance.
