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Revised: June 28, 2006

page 69

The General Intelligence Presidency (GIP)

Saudi Arabia’s main foreign intelligence service is the General Intelligence Presidency (GIP).
Among its many responsibilities, it has a foreign security, anti-terrorism, foreign liaison functions, strategic analytical assessments, coordinating the foreign covert networks of the
Kingdom, and ultimately foreign covert operations if need be.

The President of the GIP reports directly to the Prime Minister (the King). Although the budget
of the GIP is classified, it is roughly estimated at a minimum of $500 million per year. That
would make it the most funded intelligence service in the Middle East.

In theory, the head of the General Intelligence Presidency is responsible for intelligence
collection and analysis, and for the coordination of intelligence tasks and reporting by all
intelligence agencies, including those of the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense and Civil
Aviation and the National Guard. In practice, at the operational level, there now is no real Saudi
intelligence “community.”

One is in the process of being formed, however, and a real effort is being made to ensure that the
various services can function in a unified manner. Since 9/11, the senior Saudi leadership has
realized that intelligence sharing -- or “fusion” -- is weak, coordination is poor, and the different
services are filled with personal and bureaucratic rivalries and tensions. The problems are
compounded by the fact that the research departments of the services --- especially those at the
GIP -- are weak, and that in general Saudi intelligence collection relies too heavily on personal
contacts and briefings, rather than systematic and structured analysis.

A pure Saudi intelligence community would be comprised of the GIP, GSS, Border Guard,
National Information Center, the three intelligence branches of the military (Army, Navy, and
Air Force), the National Guard Intelligence Directorate, the Interior Minister’s Bureau of
Analysis and Studies, the Foreign Ministry’s Information and Studies Center, and the National
Guard’s Specialized Studies Center.



The Changing Role of the GIP

Under Prince Turki Al-Faisal’s leadership, the GIP was successful in dealing with many internal
and foreign threats that posed a direct menace to the Kingdom. It had a long history of
cooperation with US intelligence although it has (along with its sister agency, the GSS) generally
opposed any Western efforts to introduce law enforcement organizations like the CIA and FBI
into Saudi security issues in ways that could embarrass the Saudi government. This led to acute
tensions between the two main Saudi services and their American counterparts over the
investigation like the Al-Khobar bombing, and helped lead to the charges that the Saudi
government covered up Iranian involvement in the bombing.

In fairness to Saudi Arabia, however, the US, Britain, and other Western countries failed to
cooperate with Saudi intelligence in a number of past cases because they felt that this might
violate the rights of legitimate opposition movements or raise human rights issues. The US and
other Western intelligence services also turned a blind eye, or at least tolerated, Islamic extremist
activity when it seemed to serve their interests in Afghanistan and Bosnia, or acted as a counter
balance to Russian influence in Central Asia and paid little attention to the potential threat posed
by funds and manpower coming out of the Kingdom. If Saudi Arabia was slow to see the threat
of extremism and terrorism and sometimes “exported” its problems, the US, Britain, and other
European intelligence and security services made equally serious mistakes in monitoring and
characterizing “Islamic” movements.



Changes in the GIP Leadership

Major developments have taken place within the GIP since September 11th. Prince Turki al-
Faisal, the current Saudi Ambassador to the United States, was replaced in August 2001 by
Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz.

Prince Turki al-Faisal had forged the GIP into a modern intelligence service and had spent some
30 years in intelligence and had built a solid reputation for professionalism and effectiveness. He
began his career as deputy director in the Office of Foreign Liaison at the age of 23. Over the
years, he reorganized and consolidated the office into a full-fledged intelligence service.

He became Director of Intelligence in 1977 and it was at that time that the move toward a
professional intelligence service began in earnest. Prince Turki had long been the main contact
point for the US, British, French and other main Western and Arab services among others. He
was also responsible for dealing with operations in Afghanistan and Central Asia since the Soviet
invasion in 1979. He was also the main point of contact with the US-Saudi backed Mujahideen
and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) service, with the various warring Afghan
factions after the Soviet withdrawal, and with the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden (along with
other Arab Mujahideen).75

On January 26, 2005, then Crown Prince Abdullah relieved Prince Nawaf of his duty and the
head of GIP. The agency remained without a minister until October 2005, following King
Abdullah’s accession to the thrown, he appointed Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the
King’s half brother and a former governor of Madina and Hail, to head the GIP. In addition,
King Abdullah relieved Prince Saud bin Fahd of his duties as vice president of the GIP.76
Prince Faisal bin Abdullah bin Mohammad was appointed as a new Assistant President of the
GIP in charge of administratively reorganizing the agency. He was a former Deputy Commander
of the National Guard for the Western Region and brings a new administrative focus to the
service, that along with the personal dynamism of Prince Abdulaziz bin Bandar, the other co-
Assistant President in charge of revamping the vitally important analysis and research
directorate, has led some to hope that they can put back the GIP at the center of the Kingdom's
international security relationships.


The Future Role and Capabilities of the GIP

The future of Saudi internal security will not be shaped by the leadership of the General
Intelligence Presidency alone, but rather by the overall effectiveness of the government and the
royal family in dealing with the broader mix of political, economic, social, and demographic
issues that threaten Saudi Arabia’s internal security. An important fact that has been missed by
most foreign assessments is that the GIP, in its bylaws, does not have the right to make arrests,
rather, it can track and monitor individuals in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, the General
Security Service carries out any recommendations for arrests. Hence, its role is one of an early
warning advisory service, which, depending on the effectiveness of its head, can be extremely
influential in Saudi security planning, or irrelevant, as is the case today.

Saudi Arabia clearly needs to do more to expand and modernize some aspects of its intelligence
operations. In the past, Saudi intelligence has tended to rely heavily on interpersonal relations
and human intelligence (HUMINT), supplemented by limited usage of surveillance equipment
(SIGINT) and computerized records. It worked closely with the major Western and Arab intelligence services in some areas, and had some access to more advanced imagery and signal
intelligence through such sources. Saudi intelligence did not, however, establish and organize for
the kind of sophisticated domestic and foreign surveillance networks necessary to provide
adequate coverage of small, dispersed Islamic terrorist groups and individual movements. It has
tended to rely on information from traditional elites, and to have limited data on urbanized
Saudis and Saudi young males that become affiliated with extremist movements inside and
especially outside of Saudi Arabia. Surveillance of financial transfers, charitable organizations,
and activities like money laundering has been particularly weak, as no such body within the GIP
was set up to deal with those issues.

Most of the sophisticated networks that had been established over many years have deteriorated
and hence the GIP’s role in the global war on terrorism has been marginal at best. Thus, the
Kingdom has had to rely heavily on only one truly professional security service, the GSS.

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by James Risen

The CIA’s bin Laden unit Alec Station sends a memo to CIA Director George Tenet warning him that the Saudi intelligence service should be considered a “hostile service” with regard to al-Qaeda. This means that, at the very least, they could not be trusted. In subsequent years leading up to 9/11, US intelligence will gather intelligence confirming this assessment and even suggesting direct ties between some in Saudi intelligence and al-Qaeda. For instance, according to a top Jordanian official, at some point before 9/11 the Saudis ask Jordan intelligence to conduct a review of the Saudi intelligence agency and then provide it with a set of recommendations for improvement. Jordanians are shocked to find Osama bin Laden screen savers on some of the office computers. Additionally, the CIA will note that in some instances after sharing communications intercepts of al-Qaeda operatives with the Saudis, the suspects would sometimes change communication methods, suggesting the possibility that they had been tipped off by Saudi intelligence.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/e..._direc torate

هناك فرق بين "المؤتمر" و بين "خطة تطوير رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة"

الأمير مقرن ذكر أن الاستخبارات العامة السعودية مقبلة على "برنامج تطويري كبير"

أما المسؤولين على امتداد السنين السابقة فأشهرهم هو الأمير تركي الفيصل الذي رأس الاستخبارات السعودية لمدة حوالي 25 عاما (التقى خلالها بابن لادن و الطالبانيين) و كان للاستخبارات السعودية أدوارا كبيرة في حرب أفغانستان في الثمانينات و في حروب الشيشان و البوسنة