The Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina was an

aid agency An aid agency, also known as development charity, is an organization dedicated to distributing aid. Many professional aid organisations exist, both within government, between governments as multilateral donors and as private voluntary organizatio ...

operating in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and ...

funded by

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...

.David Palliste
"Terrorist material found in Sarajevo charity raid"
''The Guardian'' 23 February 2002. Retrieved 21 November 2013 Set up in 1993 during the

Bosnian War The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started ...

to assist

Bosnian Muslim The Bosniaks ( bs, Bošnjaci, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share a common Bosnian ancestry, cu ...

s, it was forced to close in 2001 after being linked to

Islamist terrorism Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists. Incidents and fatalities f ...

. Founded by Prince

Salman bin Abdulaziz Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ( ar, سلمان بن عبد العزیز آل سعود, , ; born 31 December 1935) is King of Saudi Arabia, reigning since 2015, and served as Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 2015 to 2022. The 25th son of King ...

with support from King Fahd, it reportedly spent $600 million in aid, and was awarded the

King Faisal International Prize The King Faisal Prize ( ar, جائزة الملك فيصل, formerly King Faisal International Prize), is an annual award sponsored by King Faisal Foundation presented to "dedicated men and women whose contributions make a positive difference". T ...

in 2001. In 2001, after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, the commission's Sarajevo office was raided by

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

forces, who found material relating to those attacks and the bombings of USS ''Cole'' and US embassies in Africa, along with materials for forging

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

badges. An employee, Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar, was detained in Camp X-Ray for an alleged plot to attack US embassy in Sarajevo,Harvard International Review: Eradicating Evil
and released without charge in 2009. In 2002 U.S. authorities said $46 million of the commission's funds was unaccounted for.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia 1993 establishments in Saudi Arabia 2001 disestablishments in Saudi Arabia Organizations established in 1993 Organizations disestablished in 2001 Charities based in Saudi Arabia Bosnian War Bosnia and Herzegovina–Saudi Arabia relations Islamist front organizations Al-Qaeda