ABC News reports:
"Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah refused a personal plea from President Bill Clinton to help capture Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyah in 1996, according to former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. . .
Clarke says the CIA learned that Mugniyah, wanted for a string of terror attacks, had boarded a commercial flight in Khartoum that was scheduled to stop in Riyadh. 'We appealed to the Saudis to grab him when the plane landed, and they refused,' Clarke said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on ABC 'World News With Charles Gibson.'
After the initial refusal, Clarke said, U.S. officials went to the then-crown prince, now king. 'We raised the level of appeals all the way through Bill Clinton who was on the phone at three in the morning appealing to the highest level in Saudi Arabia to grab him,' Clarke said. 'Instead, the Saudis refused to let the plane land and it continued on to Damascus,' Clarke said."
Our good friends the Saudis. With friends like these . . .
