Saudi donors most signifcant source of terrorism funding in Pakistan

[Umair Nawaz]

One thing we have understood as a Nation is to dismiss everything that comes from a western source specially America and UK.

This is a stupid propaganda.

 

[RAMPAGE]

No dear... its all heavenly leak and this is nothing new, same baseless story you have been promoting with complicity of your clan, now you can celebrate this again, with your strategic hindu partners.

All self made, otherwise tell Reuters to go inform US President about it, who is wasting trillions of dollars in Afghanistan since last 12 years.

Reported for racism

 

[xyxmt]

All I know is one thing, Its our govt's job to keep track of who is sending money to Pakistan and what it is being used to, muslim or non muslim, Saudia Arabia or Israel or US, it shouldnt matter to us who is sending it. For me a country who harms Pakistan should be our enemy.

 

[Aamna14]

All I know is one thing, Its our govt's job to keep track of who is sending money to Pakistan and what it is being used to, muslim or non muslim, Saudia Arabia or Israel or US, it shouldnt matter to us who is sending it. For me a country who harms Pakistan should be our enemy.

Why would they keep track of it if its ending up in their bank accounts as well?? Be it the Saudis funding them or some martians doing that for that matter. The government is complicit on many levels and thats the real issue.

 

[Arabian Legend]

Excuse me! Why would Saudi Arabia fund terrorism in Pakistan? What will KSA gains by doing so? And against who? Why would Saudi Arabia wants to harm its only trusted ally in the world. Weak Pakistan doesn't fall under KSA interest at all.

Saudi Arabia-Pakistan enjoy fraternal, deep rooted and cordial relations.

This article written by only God knows who without any piece of solid evidence and documentation can only be considered as a trash talk in order to destroy the image of Saudi Arabia. Plus this not what both nations leadership have expressed whether in the past or recently so I'm not going to take this trash and leave what both pakistan and Saudi Arabia say about each other.

 

[Doritos11]

Excuse me! Why would Saudi Arabia fund terrorism in Pakistan? What will KSA gains by doing so? And against who? Why would Saudi Arabia wants to harm its only trusted ally in the world. Weak Pakistan doesn't fall under KSA interest at all.

Saudi Arabia-Pakistan enjoy fraternal, deep rooted and cordial relations.

This article written by only God knows who without any piece of solid evidence and documentation can only be considered as a trash talk in order to destroy the image of Saudi Arabia. Plus this not what both nations leadership have expressed whether in the past or recently so I'm not going to take this trash and leave what both pakistan and Saudi Arabia say about each other.

Private donors, private non gov.

 

[airmarshal]

i thought LET is an NGO.and saudis are friends of pakistanis

Saudis are not friends. Not matter what Pakistani govt says, it has been fuelling sectarian tensions in Pakistan just like it has in Iraq and Syria.

Reuters

With a few hundred hard-core cadres, the highly secretive LeJ aims to trigger sectarian violence that would pave the way for a Sunni theocracy in U.S.-allied Pakistan, say Pakistan police and intelligence officials. Its immediate goal, they say, is to stoke the intense Sunni-Shi'ite violence that has pushed countries like Iraq close to civil war.
More than 300 Shi'ites have been killed in Pakistan so far this year in sectarian conflict, according to human rights groups. The campaign is gathering pace in rural as well as urban areas such as Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city. The Shi'ites are a big target, accounting for up to 20 percent of this nation of 180 million.
In January, LeJ claimed responsibility for a homemade bomb that exploded in a crowd of Shi'ites in Punjab province, killing 18 and wounding 30. LeJ's reach extends beyond Pakistan: Late last year, LeJ claimed responsibility for bombings in Afghanistan that killed 59 people, the worst sectarian attacks since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.
"No doubt - (LeJ) are the most dangerous group," said Chaudhry Aslam, a top counter-terrorism police commando based in Karachi, whose house was blown up by the LeJ. "We will fight them until the last drop of blood."
For an outlawed group accused of fomenting such mayhem, the leader of LeJ is surprisingly easy to find.
Malik Ishaq spent 14 years in jail in connection with dozens of murder and terrorism cases. He was released after the charges could not be proved - partly because of witness intimidation, officials say - and showered with rose petals by hundreds of supporters when he left prison in July 2011.
Although Ishaq is one of Pakistan's most feared militants, he enjoys the protection of followers clutching AK-47 assault rifles in the narrow lane outside his home. There, in the town of Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab province, Reuters visited him for an interview.
"The state should declare Shi'ites as non-Muslims on the basis of their beliefs," said Ishaq, calling them the "greatest infidels on earth." Young supporters with shoulder-length hair in imitation of the Prophet Mohammad hung on every word.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL
To assess the LeJ threat, Reuters followed the group's trail across Pakistan - from Ishaq's compound, to Gilgit in the foothills of the Himalayas, recruiting grounds in central Punjab, and the backstreets of Karachi on the Arabian Sea coast.
In interviews, police, intelligence officials, clerics and LeJ members described a group that has grown more robust and appears to be operating across a much wider area in Pakistan than just a few years ago. But it had a head start.
The LeJ once enjoyed the open support of the powerful spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence. The ISI used such groups as military proxies in India and Afghanistan and to counter Shi'ite militant groups.
Since being outlawed after the attacks of September 11, 2001, LeJ has worked with Salafi radical groups al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban in several high-profile strikes. Among them were assaults in 2009 on Pakistan's military headquarters and on Sri Lanka's visiting cricket team. Washington says LeJ was involved in the killing of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Now it is gathering strength anew. The risks are heightened by Pakistan's long-standing role as a battlefield in a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran, which have been competing for influence in Asia and the Middle East since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
That competition has heated up since the United States toppled secularist dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq and left the country under the control of an Iranian-influenced Shi'ite government. Intelligence officials say the LeJ is drawing financial support from Saudi donors and other Sunni sources.
"Unfortunately, the state for strategic reasons turned a blind eye to the LeJ for a long time," said a retired army general. "Now we have a situation where it has become Pakistan's Frankenstein."
Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who is in charge of internal security, told Reuters that "we always take action" against the LeJ when the group is suspected of murder or terrorism. "We track people and arrest them."
When asked why those arrested are often freed, he said: "Look, my job is to arrest people, not to let them go. We all know who lets them off the hook and why," he said, referring to local politicians and elements of the military who turn a blind eye to their activities or even support them in some cases.

SACRED CALLING
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose name means Soldiers of Jhangvi (after its founder, Haq Maulana Nawab Jhangvi), isn't the only lethal militant group that once enjoyed patronage from the spy agency.
One is Lashkar-e-Taiba (Soldiers of the Pure), which fights against Indian control in disputed Kashmir. It is blamed for several deadly attacks on Indian soil, including the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, and an audacious raid on India's parliament in December 2001 with another Kashmiri militant group, Jaishi-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad). That raid brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Another is the Pakistani Taliban. Its attack this month on 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in Swat was only the most recent in a long list of strikes on civilian and military targets, mainly in the unruly tribal area along the Afghan border.
What makes LeJ particularly dangerous, however, is that the group is based in Pakistan's Punjab heartland. And it is not just attacking targets in Pakistan's neighbors, but has also targeted the state, including the 2009 attack on Pakistan's military headquarters.
LeJ was established as an offshoot of another anti-Shi'ite organization called Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of Mohammad's Companions).
LeJ believes it has a sacred calling - to protect the legacy of the companions of the Prophet Mohammad - and it sees Shi'ites as the main threat.
Mahmood Baber, educated in a madrassa, was drawn by LeJ's call to holy war against Shi'ite infidels. His 16-year career in the movement ended in October, when he and other LeJ members were arrested.
Handcuffed and with a cloth thrown over his head at a Karachi police station, Baber described for Reuters the "great satisfaction" he felt killing 14 Shi'ite "terrorists" over the years. His voice choked with emotion when he said that for 1,400 years Shi'ites had insulted the companions of the Prophet.
"Get rid of Shi'ites. That is our goal. May God help us," he said, before intelligence agents led him away for a fresh round of interrogation.
The schism between Sunnis and Shi'ites developed after the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 when his followers could not agree on a successor. Sunnis recognize the first four caliphs as his rightful successors; the Shi'ites believe the prophet named his son-in-law Ali. Emotions over the issue have boiled through modern times and even pushed some countries, including Iraq five years ago, to the brink of civil war.

THE SAUDI CONNECTION
In the Punjab town of Jhang, LeJ's birthplace, SSP leader Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi describes what he says are Tehran's grand designs. Iranian consular offices and cultural centers, he alleges, are actually a front for its intelligence agencies.
"If Iranian interference continues it will destroy this country," said Ludhianvi in an interview in his home. The state provides him with armed guards, fearful any harm done to him could trigger sectarian bloodletting.
The Iranian embassy in Islamabad, asked for a response to that allegation, issued a statement denouncing sectarian violence.
"What is happening today in the name of sectarianism has nothing to do with Muslims and their ideologies," it said.
Ludhianvi insisted he was just a politician. "I would like to tell you that I am not a murderer, I am not a killer, I am not a terrorist. We are a political party."
After a meal of chicken, curry and spinach, Ludhianvi and his aides stood up to warmly welcome a visitor: Saudi Arabia-based cleric Malik Abdul Haq al-Meqqi.
A Pakistani cleric knowledgeable about Sunni groups described Meqqi as a middleman between Saudi donors and intelligence agencies and the LeJ, the SSP and other groups.
"Of course, Saudi Arabia supports these groups. They want to keep Iranian influence in check in Pakistan, so they pay," the Pakistani cleric said. His account squared with that of a Pakistani intelligence agent, who said jailed militants had confessed that LeJ received Saudi funding.
Saudi cleric Meqqi denied that, and SSP leader Ludhianvi concurred: "We have not taken a penny from the Saudi government," he told Reuters.
Saudi Arabia's alleged financing of militant groups has been a sore point in Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in a December 2009 classified diplomatic cable that charities and donors in Saudi Arabia were the "most significant source of funding to terrorist groups worldwide." In the cable, released by Wikileaks, Clinton said it was "an ongoing challenge" to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority. She said the groups funded included al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

CONFEDERATION OF MILITANTS
When the Taliban and al Qaeda want to reach targets outside their strongholds on the Afghan border, they turn to LeJ to provide intelligence, safe houses or young volunteers eager for martyrdom, police and intelligence officials said.
"Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is the detonator of terrorism in Pakistan," said Karachi Police Superintendent Raja Umer Khattab, who has interrogated more than 100 members. "The TTP needs Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Al Qaeda needs Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. They are involved in most terrorism cases."

Can u share the link please?

 

[xyxmt]

Why would they keep track of it if its ending up in their bank accounts as well?? Be it the Saudis funding them or some martians doing that for that matter. The government is complicit on many levels and thats the real issue.

I wont go as far as you did although it might be true in some cases, the fact of the matter is our current top leadership in Pakistan be it the govt or opposition are totally incapable to understand world politics, they have localized brains and cant understand that in world politics there are no friends and just because King of Saudia arabia shakes hands with and call you brother it doesnt mean squat. On top of that we have this strange and stupid thinking of kissing an arab hand gets you in Jannat and they dont see a knife in the other hand...too sincere to point of utter stupidity.

 

[Aslan]

Excuse me! Why would Saudi Arabia fund terrorism in Pakistan? What will KSA gains by doing so? And against who? Why would Saudi Arabia wants to harm its only trusted ally in the world. Weak Pakistan doesn't fall under KSA interest at all.

Saudi Arabia-Pakistan enjoy fraternal, deep rooted and cordial relations.

This article written by only God knows who without any piece of solid evidence and documentation can only be considered as a trash talk in order to destroy the image of Saudi Arabia. Plus this not what both nations leadership have expressed whether in the past or recently so I'm not going to take this trash and leave what both pakistan and Saudi Arabia say about each other.

You evil wahabi you.

 

[Cheetah786]

The state provides him with armed guards, fearful any harm done to him could trigger sectarian bloodletting.

My tax dollars at work .

 

[Cheetah786]

Excuse me! Why would Saudi Arabia fund terrorism in Pakistan? What will KSA gains by doing so? And against who? Why would Saudi Arabia wants to harm its only trusted ally in the world. Weak Pakistan doesn't fall under KSA interest at all.

Saudi Arabia-Pakistan enjoy fraternal, deep rooted and cordial relations.

This article written by only God knows who without any piece of solid evidence and documentation can only be considered as a trash talk in order to destroy the image of Saudi Arabia. Plus this not what both nations leadership have expressed whether in the past or recently so I'm not going to take this trash and leave what both pakistan and Saudi Arabia say about each other.

Saudi Arabia funding fuels jihadist terror

Big chunks of the country’s huge oil earnings have been spent on spreading a violent and intolerant variety of Islam


The ultimate responsibility for recent atrocities like the Boston Marathon bombing and the butchering last week of an off-duty British soldier is very clear.

It belongs to Saudi Arabia.

Over more than two decades, Saudi Arabia has lavished around $100 billion or more on the worldwide promotion of the violent, intolerant and crudely puritanical Wahhabist sect of Islam that the ruling royal family espouses.

The links of the Boston bombers and the London butchers to organizations following the Saudi royal family’s religious line are clear.

One of the two London butchers, Nigerian-born Michael Adebolajo, was radicalized by the cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who headed the outlawed terrorist group Al-Muhajiroun.

The group follows Wahhabist teachings and advocates unifying all Muslims, forcibly if necessary, under a single fundamentalist theocratic government.

Similarly, the Boston bombers, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, hailed from Russia’s southern predominantly Muslim province of Chechnya. Starting in the late 1980s, Saudi Arabia began dispatching Wahhabist clerics and radical preachers to Chechnya.

The spread of Wahhabism sparked not only a separatist war against the Russians, but also a good deal of violence among Muslims.

Wahhabism is now institutionalized in Chechnya and is particularly attractive to young men.

There are similar strands leading back to Wahhabist indoctrination in the histories of very many of the known Muslim terrorists of the last 20 years.

The founder of the sect, Muhammad ibn abd al-Wahhab, was an eighteenth century Muslim zealot allied to the Al-Saud clan who promoted an extreme version of Salafism.

Salaf is the Arab word meaning pious ancestor and refers to those who attempt to emulate the pure Islamic life of the Prophet Muhammad and his generation of followers.

But Wahhab and his modern disciples take this notion to extremes. The list of people whom Wahhabists should consider their enemies includes not only Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists, but also Shiite, Sufi and Sunni Muslims.

And yet no western politicians seem prepared to accept the obvious.

The chances of disaffected young men being drawn into the evil web of Wahhabist murderous extremism would be significantly decreased if the Saudi funding was blocked.

The Saudis began exporting Wahhabism in the early 1970s when the country’s oil wealth began growing at an ever-increasing rate.

The amount the Saudi royal family, both by government donations and the generosity of individual princes, now lavishes on Wahhabist schools, colleges, mosques, Islamic centres and the missionary work of fundamentalist imams around the world is extraordinary.

In 2003, a United States Senate committee on terrorism heard testimony that in the previous 20 years Saudi Arabia had spent $87 billion on promoting Wahhabism worldwide.

This included financing 210 Islamic centres, 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges and 2,000 madrassas (religious schools).

Various estimates put the amount the Saudi government spends on these missionary institutions as up to $3 billion a year.

This money smothers the voices of moderate Muslims and the poison flows into every Muslim community worldwide.

Key figures in the September 2001 attacks on the United States were radicalized at mosques in Germany.

Britain is now reckoned by some to be the worst breeding ground anywhere for violent Muslim fundamentalists

Indian newspapers recently reported Saudi Arabia has a massive $35 billion program to build mosques and religious schools across South Asia, where there are major Muslim communities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the divided territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

Indian police and Central Intelligence officers were quoted as saying their information came from American intelligence agencies.

There are unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia and members of the royal family have donated millions of dollars to fund mosques and Islamic centres in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Quebec.

The money, and the emphasis on Wahhabist teaching that comes with it, has caused sharp divisions among Canadian Muslims.

Over the years, there have been repeated complaints to Saudi Arabia about its funding of radical indoctrination. But while there has been some toning down of the most inflammatory language in the Wahhabist texts the Saudi’s disperse, the overall message of the propaganda program has changed little.

Where the Saudi government has retreated under pressure from Washington is in the direct funding of terrorist organizations.

It is widely believed by western intelligence agencies that in the 1980s and 90s, the Saudi government had a deal with Wahhabist terrorist groups like al-Qaida that their fundraising would not be hindered so long as they only operated in foreign countries.

However, after the terrorist attack on a residential compound for foreigners in Riyadh in May, 2003, the Saudi government began a crackdown on terrorism.

But even though the Saudi government ended official support for groups like al-Qaida, the Taliban and the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, private donations from Saudi Arabia still find their way to these and similar groups.

But when all is said and done, curbing direct payments to terrorist groups is a small matter when so many billions of dollars continue to be directed at creating terrorists.

Jonathan Manthorpe: Saudi Arabia funding fuels jihadist terror

 

[KRAIT]

Danger is not from Iran but from KSA.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Saudis are not friends. Not matter what Pakistani govt says, it has been fuelling sectarian tensions in Pakistan just like it has in Iraq and Syria.

The fact of the matter is that just as there are non-state actors in Pakistan fighting to carve out a salafi-inspired state, there are 'non state directors' in the Saudi Salafi establishment, orchestrating these violent insurgencies and propping up non state actors: the TTP and Al Qaeda in Pakistan, Al Nusra in Syria, AQAP in Yemen, AQIM in Mali, ISIL in Iraq, Al Shabab in Somalia, Abu Sayyaf in Philipines, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Ansar Al Sharia in Tunisia...the list goes on and on.

While TTP and other foot soldiers fight on the ground, the Salafi jihadist establishment provides the violent salafi ideology and operational guidance, as well as the funding to all these organizations through its Al Qaeda affiliates as directed by its 'non state directors' sitting in Saudi.

This is a war being waged by Salafi jihadists against the rest of the muslim world, and the western world.The goal is to overthrow existing states and set up salafi takfiri states around the world and eventually link them under the umbrella of a salafi caliphate.

That is why the TTP continues to reject the pakistani state's constitution, its founding principles, and democratic system , and demands withdrawal of the pakistani military from pakistani territory! They are looking to take over the state as per the directive from their masters.

Hopefully the Pakistani state and the US establishment are smart enough to realize that this war cannot be won just by targeting the non-state foot soldiers like TTP. At the end of the day, the fight must also be taken to the ' non state directors' sitting in Saudi , dreaming of a salafi caliphate and orchestrating diabolical insurgencies around the world.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Express Tribune

ISLAMABAD: As part of its proposed national security policy, the government will ask ‘brotherly’ Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, to clamp down on financers of sectarian and terrorist networks operating in Pakistan, The Express Tribune has learnt.

On Friday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan met to discuss the 33-page draft of the National Security Policy 2013 prepared by the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta). He was accompanied by his security advisers and three members of his cabinet.

According to a federal minister who attended the meeting, a strategy to counter influence from certain states on sectarian violence in Pakistan was discussed as part of the hectic efforts to finalise the new policy.
“Such influence has been a contributory factor towards the growth of sectarian networks in Pakistan… the roots of extremism in the country have often been traced to groups within our neighbours on the western border as well as countries with large Pakistani diasporas such as the Gulf states,” the minister, who wished not to be named, said citing page 17 of the draft. He added that the government has decided to dismantle the links of terrorists in Pakistan from groups operating from outside the country.

Interior ministry officials privy to the meeting said Prime Minister Nawaz also advised the interior minister to launch a crackdown against hate literature being distributed across the country. “Literature espousing extremist ideas must be eradicated from educational institutions, particularly seminaries,” an official cited the premier as saying.

The new policy, according to the officials, observes that clerics have failed to provide the people lessons on peace and as such calls for reforming the education structure. It notes that the current education structure facilitates an extremist mindset and provides terrorist organisations with potential recruits. They said the interior ministry, on Premier Nawaz’s directions, will ask provinces to send recommendations on parallel systems of education in this regard.

 

[janon]

Another hindu conspiracy to malign the gentle, peace loving ummah brothers.