Saudi can cut anti-terror ties over US law: Experts

Riyadh : Saudi Arabia could reduce valuable security and intelligence cooperation with longstanding ally Washington after a Congressional “stab in the back”, allowing 9/11 victims to sue the kingdom, experts warn.

Cutting such cooperation is among the options available to Riyadh after Congress voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA).

“I’m afraid that this bill will have dire strategic implications” for the United States, Salman al-Ansari, the president of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), said.

“This partnership has helped provide US authorities with accurate intelligence information” that helped stopped attacks, said Ansari, whose committee is a private initiative to strengthen Saudi-US ties.

JASTA allows attack survivors and relatives of terrorism victims to pursue cases against foreign governments in US federal court and to demand compensation if such governments are proven to bear some responsibility for attacks on US soil.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have a decades-old relationship based on the exchange of American security for Saudi oil.

A senior Saudi prince reportedly threatened to pull out billions of dollars of US assets if JASTA became law, though Saudi officials have distanced themselves from such threats.

“It will be very difficult for Saudi Arabia to continue in intelligence cooperation when they take such a hostile position,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist and analyst.

Obama opposed the law, saying it would harm US interests by undermining the principle of sovereign immunity, opening up the US to private lawsuits over its military missions abroad. 

The erosion of sovereign immunity is also a concern among the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia is the most powerful member.

Saudi Arabia’s Gulf allies have lined up beside Riyadh to criticise the law.

United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan warned before the vote that the law “will have negative effects on international cooperation in the fight against terrorism.”