According to Bob Woodward, CIA director William Casey was involved in the attack, which he suggests was carried out with funding from Saudi Arabia. "In his book Woodward portrays Casey as a wily and aggressive director who made the CIA his personal instrument of foreign policy. In early 1985 Woodward reports, Casey went "off the books" to enlist Saudi help in carrying out three covert operations. One was the attempted assassination of Sheik Fadlallah, who had been linked to the bombings in Beirut. After that plot failed, Woodward writes, the Saudis offered Fadlallah a $2 million bribe to cease his terrorist attacks. He accepted, and the attacks stopped. Woodward's account of the incident was denied last week by the Saudi press agency and by Fadlallah's office." Former Lebanese warlord and statesman late Elie Hobeika was accused as one of those likely responsible for the actual operation.