Saudi report: Michelle O visited 'person of interest'

Jeddah newspaper says first lady saw Alharbi in  hospital

 

A Saudi Arabian newspaper is reporting that United States First Lady Michelle  Obama visited in the hospital Saudi citizen Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi  Alharbi, the young man who had been labeled a “person of interest” in the Boston  Marathon bombing.

The newspaper accompanied its report with an image of  Obama, although  the background was generic and it couldn’t be confirmed immediately that she was  at the hospital where Alharbi was being treated at the time. He reportedly  suffered injuries in the Boston bombing.

The  newspaper’s Arabic-language report is being highlighted by Walid Shoebat, a  former Muslim Brotherhood member who now is a peace activist.

“Okaz, the same prominent Saudi newspaper that published photos of Abdul  Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Alharbi in the hospital after the Boston Marathon  bombings, is now reporting that the Saudi national was also visited by the first  lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, during his hospital stay,” Shoebat  reported.

The newspaper is more than half a century old and publishes out of Jeddah in  Saudi Arabia. It also publishes simultaneously in Riyadh.

One of the oldest newspapers in Saudi Arabia, it also is brave, taking on  banned issues such as lesbianism in the repressive Islamic kingdom. Its  circulation is estimated at about 150,000 and the online version was reported by  Forbes Middle East two years ago to be one of the Top 10 online newspapers in  the Middle East region.

It  was CBS in Boston, and other outlets, that reported that President Obama and  Michelle visited some of the victims of the marathon terrorism at hospitals in  the Boston area yesterday.

It was reported the first lady went to Boston Children’s Hospital, as well as  Brigham and Women’s Hospital, but the visits were off-limits to the media.

See  the documentary that reveals the threat that is right in front of us – but below  the surface and hidden in plain sight, “Jihad in America: The Grand  Deception.”

Reported Shoebat, “There were multiple reports that Alharbi was hospitalized  at Brigham and Women’s so that would seem [to] corroborate the Okaz report.

“Okaz stated further that the first lady also visited the other injured Saudi  at the hospital, a female doctor named Nura Khalid Saleh al-Ajaji.”

Shoebat said there also were tweets from members of the Alharbi  family that added “credibility” to the report.

Reported Shoebat, “Now, contrarians … with concerns about this visit will  likely say that the first lady was simply paying visits to all the victims in  the hospital, of which Alharbi was one and had been cleared two days  earlier.”

But he added, “In light of recent reports that Alharbi was scheduled for  deportation on ‘national security grounds’, the first lady’s visit takes on much  added significance if those reports are true. We already know that the Alharbi  clan consists of multiple al-Qaida members. This would seem to bolster the  claims of scheduled deportation, not claims to the contrary made by the likes of  DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who actually never really answered the question;  she just got rankled and blew it off.”

Wrote Shoebat, “With the track record of this administration relative to  things like blaming a video for two weeks after the Benghazi attacks, it should  have a higher standard to meet and its credibility should be questioned by the  American people. If these reports about Alharbi’s scheduled deportation for such  reasons are correct, a visit by the first lady of the United States would indeed  be significant in its importance. It would also be a major national security  blunder because of the message it would send.”

WND reported earlier when an expert on terrorism said Alharbi, the original  “person of interest” in the Monday bombing, was going to be deported on national  security grounds.

Alharbi is a foreign student, and had been living in Revere, Mass.

“I just learned from my own sources that he is now going to be deported on  national security grounds next Tuesday, which is very unusual,” Steve Emerson of  the Investigative  Project on Terrorism told Sean Hannity of Fox News Wednesday night.

The Reuters news agency reported Barack Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud  al-Faisal on Wednesday, noting “the meeting was not on Obama’s public  schedule.”

After that meeting was mentioned, Emerson told Hannity, “That’s very  interesting because this is the way things are done with Saudi Arabia. You don’t  arrest their citizens. You deport them, because they don’t want them to be  embarrassed and that’s the way we appease them.”

Meanwhile, Tuesday morning, a meeting Secretary of State John Kerry held with  the Saudi foreign minister was abruptly closed to press coverage.

WND had  reported Wednesday morning that the Saudi student Alharbi shares the same  last name as a major Saudi clan that includes scores of al-Qaida operatives.

Some in the clan are senior al-Qaida members while others are reportedly  being held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

A large group of federal and state law enforcement agents reportedly raided  Alharbi’s apartment in Revere, Mass.

CNN reported the search took place by consent, according to a federal  law-enforcement source, meaning no search warrant was needed

Then the Saudi embassy in Washington said Alharbi was no longer under  detention and is not a suspect in the bomb blasts.

Saudi diplomat Azzam bin Abdel Karim reportedly visited Alharbi in the  hospital.

Nail Al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi mission in Washington, stated that  U.S. authorities told the embassy “no Saudi national was a suspect in the Boston  Marathon attack and that the Saudi national in question was a witness, not a  suspect.”

While it is not clear whether the Alharbi questioned as part of the marathon  probe is a member of the well-known Saudi clan, his Facebook page, reviewed by  WND, lists him as Facebook friends with at least seven other Alharbis, located  in both Boston and in Saudi Arabia.

One of the Alharbis on his Facebook friends list, Ahmed Alharbi, is listed as  a pharmacy technician at the Saudi Ministry of Health. Most others live in  Riyadh.

The Alharbi clan has long been active in al-Qaida. Khaled bin Ouda bin  Mohammed al-Harbi, for example, is a Saudi national who joined Osama bin Laden’s  mujahadeen group in the 1980s. He reportedly became an al-Qaida member in the  mid-1990s. He turned himself in to Saudi authorities in 2004 as part of an  amnesty deal.

The BBC  reported Khaled Alharbi was married to the daughter of al-Qaida’s number  two, Ayman al-Zawahiri. He reportedly appeared with bin Laden in a video  praising the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Another top al-Qaida operative is Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi, a Saudi  national identified by the State Department as “a key member of an al-Qaida  network operating in Iran.”

The  State Department has offered a multimillion-dollar reward for the capture of  Abdel Alharbi, saying he is an Iran-based al-Qaida facilitator who serves as the  deputy to Muhsin al-Fadhl, who runs al-Qaida’s Iran network.

On  his website, Shoebat translated a list of the Saudi government’s 85 wanted  al-Qaida members.

The list includes several members of the Alharbi clan:

• Badr Saud Uwaid Al-Awufi Al-Harbi
• Muhammad Atiq Uwaid Al-Awufi Al-Harbi
• Khalid Salim Uwaid Al-Lahibi Al-Harbi
• Raed Abdullah Salem Al-Thahiri Al-Harbi
• Abdullah Abdul Rahman Muhammad Al-Harbi (leader)
• Fayez Ghuneim Humeid Al-Hijri Al-Harbi

Shoebat also points out that several Alharbi clan members are being held by  the U.S. government at Guantanamo Bay, including Salim Salman Awadallah Al-Saidi  Al-Harbi, Majid Abdullah Hussein Al-Harbi, Muhammad Abdullah Saqr Al-Alawi  Al-Harbi, Ghanem Abdul Rahman Ghanem Al-Harbi and Muhammad Atiq Uwaid Al-Awfi  Al-Harbi.

Shoebat  also reported Al-Harbi’s visa was up for revocation and his deportation was  imminent.

He  also reported that according to a YouTube channel used by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one  of the two Chechen Muslims blamed for the bombing, Alharbi admired Shaykh Feiz  Mohammed, an Australian Mulsim preacher who is noted for his fundamentalist  Islamist beliefs.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/saudi-paper-michelle-o-visited-person-of-interest/#7BhgeacX3w9V2f2t.99