Otaibi, the wanted terrorist whose return to the Kingdom was announced in an Interior Ministry statement last Wednesday, has said that Al-Qaeda is in “financial crisis” and that increased vigilance of charity activities coupled with state rehabilitation programs had convinced many individuals to “return and repent.” Speaking to Al-Watan newspaper Sunday, Al-Otaibi said that the lack of funds reaching leaders in Afghanistan had resulted in a reduction in the numbers of fighters being brought in from abroad, and that the recruitment of Arabs and Saudis was focusing on the execution of terrorist operations in their home countries. “All the leaders said they had enough fighters and didn't want to take on any more,” Al-Otaibi said. “They kept passing people on to the other leaders who might want to take them.” “The return and repentance of a lot of young men, following the success of state programs convincing them to do so, particularly the excellent Saudi enlightenment program, was serving as a wake-up call to the organization,” he said. Al-Otaibi, who first entered Waziristan last Ramadan (Sept. 11, 2008), said that the Al-Qaeda camp there was “full of Arabs, particularly Saudis, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis,” and that many were frustrated by the situation and were returning to their home countries. New recruits, according to Al-Otaibi, were not allowed to go to battle fronts in Afghanistan, but instead were enlisted in groups dedicated to suicide bombings targeting the security of Saudi Arabia, Gulf countries and a number of other nations. Al-Otaibi, who handed himself in at the Saudi embassy in Pakistan, said of his return in an Al-Watan interview last week that he “didn't find the jihad he had hoped for”, after entering Afghanistan via the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Pakistan, and Waziristan on his way to Afghanistan. “We asked members of the organization why they wouldn't let us fight as that's what we'd come for, and they said they had a policy of basically hiding and planning to prolong the war as that was what would hurt the Americans the most,” Al-Otaibi told Al-Watan. Since his return to the Kingdom, the precise date of which has not been revealed by the authorities, 36-year-old Al-Otaibi has been held at Riyadh's Al-Hayer Prison. He was permitted last Tuesday to perform Umrah pilgrimage to Makkah.
