It was supposed to be one of those international “ho-hum” conferences, dedicated to endangered species...But in a surprise move, the government of Saudi Arabia turned it into an international confrontation, using its veto power to prevent an American conservationist group from presenting what it called “actionable information” that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda...The conservationist group, the Union for the Conservation of Raptors (UCR), said it was prepared to present “new evidence” of ongoing smuggling operations that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda...The UCR said that it would present evidence of bribes paid to UN officials by UAE and Saudi officials in order to allow the smuggling of hunting falcons...The month long falconry camps are “al Qaeda’s boardroom,” Parrot said in his letter to the CITES secretariat....The Saudi-Osama Connection, Kenneth R. Timmerman, Frontpagemagazine.com, 10/12/2006
In Charles McCarry's last novel, The Old Boys, 2005, critics noted of the plot that it was a story cooked up as a merry farewell by a master spy novelist, a fanciful funfest for fancied spies. The objective of the old, retired spies pursuit just happened to be -- you guessed it -- Arab falconry camps. Let's hope the rest was made up. In McCarry's novel, the falconry camps contained atomic bombs.
Luther
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