Saudi donors most signifcant source of terrorism funding in Pakistan

[dray]

They are, but now they are getting the taste of their own venomous medicine.

Who? Pakistan?

 

[Yousafzai_M]

Saudi Arabia (along with other sheikhdoms) and Iran have been the prime sponsors of terrorism in Pakistan. They play their dirty game in our land and our people suffer. We don't need a leaked cable to know that.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

DAWN

KARACHI: Investigators probing the first attack claimed in Pakistan by the Islamic State group believe a notorious local sectarian group may have carried out the massacre as it seeks to expand its ties to the Middle East.Gunmen stormed a bus in Karachi last month, killing 45 members of the Ismaili minority community in one of the deadliest incidents in Pakistan this year.

The slaughter was swiftly claimed by ISIS, marking the first time the militants, who have seized control of large areas of Iraq and Syria and declared a “caliphate”, said they were behind an attack in Pakistan.Islamabad has officially denied that ISIS is operating in Pakistan, which has been wracked by Al Qaeda and Taliban linked violence for more than a decade.

But investigators believe the attack may have been carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) as it seeks to expand its international influence — and get access to ISIS's rich funding.
LJ has emerged as the bloodiest and most ruthless anti-Shia outfit in Pakistan, which has seen a rise in sectarian attacks in recent years, mostly targeting Shias, who make up 20 per cent of the population.
“We are investigating the LJ connection behind the attack and one of the arrested suspects is linked to LJ,” a security official involved in the probe told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“LJ wanted to gain attention of IS for its financial needs and the attack on Ismailis provided the perfect choice as it got international attention."

Returning fighters

Senior intelligence officials and militant sources say LJ cadres have fought in Syria and returned inspired by ISIS, which has won global notoriety for its brutality and slick propaganda operation.The returned fighters are working with a new generation of middle-class, educated, self-radicalised 'jihadists' to try to raise the black flag of the ISIS “caliphate” in Pakistan.

An intelligence officer who has tracked LJ for years said the group, based in the southern part of Punjab, had sent hundreds of fighters to Syria.“The new cadre of militants going to Syria and Iraq, these militants are mostly educated people with middle-class backgrounds,” the intelligence officer told AFP.
Over the past decade the patchwork of militant groups that make up the Pakistani Taliban have largely focused on waging a domestic campaign against the government and armed forces.

But a former LJ militant who produces online propaganda material for terror groups said for young militants in Pakistan, all the talk now is of ISIS and the Middle East.“Many jihadists particularly from Punjab went to fight in Syria and some died,” he said.

“Unlike the past, news from Syria, Iraq and Yemen is the most debated and shared item on extremist-militant forums in Pakistan." Security analyst Amir Rana said. LJ had fighters in Iraq since 2013, and even set up a training camp there.“The Salafi/Wahabi ideological and operational association between Pakistani militant groups and ISIS is not new, Pakistani militants were part of ISIS since its inception,” he told AFP.

“The actual threat for Pakistan is the return of LJ militants fighting in Iraq and Syria, as they would add to the sectarian violence here."

Silent surge

LJ, founded in 1996, a militant arm of ASWJ (formerly known as Sipah Sahaba), has been behind some of the worst attacks on Shias in Pakistan's history, including two huge bombings in the southwestern city of Quetta in 2013 that together killed nearly 200 people.

The security official said the group was now seeking to expand its operations.
“LJ is growing from an anti-Shia organisation to an organisation with trans-national interests,” he said.The group has been accused of carrying out attacks in Afghanistan and has also begun targeting Sunni Barelvis, Christians, Hindus and other Muslim sects.

“For the last two years, there is evidence that the organisation is involved in attacking minorities in urban centres where they have established strong bases, especially in Karachi,” he said.“But LJ has claimed responsibility for hardly any of those incidents — usually militant organisations with no structural or organisational existence have claimed responsibility for attacks carried out by LJ,” he added.

He said LJ maintained a strict cellular structure, with individuals in one unit unaware of the existence of others, and sometimes drew militants from other groups for specific missions.

According to a Reuters report, the LeJ by 2004 had became a powerful terrorist organization with increasing support from Al Qaeda. The new, never-before-known expertise of LeJ cadres proficient in bomb-making and suicide bombings came from the same source. With time, the LeJ had established its contacts with extremists in Pakistan’s tribal areas (FATA). The new ‘friends’ were mainly Uzbek, belonging to the notorious Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who had taken refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas as US operations in Afghanistan continued.

With the formation of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2007, many of the LeJ’s factions started operating in urban areas under its umbrella. The rise of an insurgency in FATA and a sudden increase in terrorist attacks all over Pakistan proved to be very beneficial for the LeJ as the main concentration of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) was diverted towards fighting the more powerful rebellion of the TTP. The LeJ’s undeclared alliance with the TTP came to limelight when the responsibility for 2008 Marriott hotel bombing in Islamabad was claimed by the TTP.

When TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in 2009, Hakimullah Mehsud took over. He is credited with forming a proper alliance with the LeJ. Under his command, the TTP began targeting minority sects in tribal areas and claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Shias. But the major joint terror strike by the TTP and LeJ was witnessed in 2009 which was a first-of-its-kind and took the entire nation by surprise.

It was the siege of Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters or the GHQ in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. 5 out of 10 terrorists who stormed the GHQ belonged to Punjab-based extremist organisations, mainly the LeJ; the other 5 belonged to the TTP. A successful special forces hostage rescue operation ended the siege, but resulted in the martyrdom of two SSG commandos and two civilians.

THE SAUDI CONNECTION

In the Punjab town of Jhang, LeJ’s birthplace, SSP/ASWJ 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.

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 ASWJ 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.

 

[janu.bravo]

Please post full article next time.

DAWN

KARACHI: Investigators probing the first attack claimed in Pakistan by the Islamic State group believe a notorious local sectarian group may have carried out the massacre as it seeks to expand its ties to the Middle East.Gunmen stormed a bus in Karachi last month, killing 45 members of the Ismaili minority community in one of the deadliest incidents in Pakistan this year.

The slaughter was swiftly claimed by ISIS, marking the first time the militants, who have seized control of large areas of Iraq and Syria and declared a “caliphate”, said they were behind an attack in Pakistan.Islamabad has officially denied that ISIS is operating in Pakistan, which has been wracked by Al Qaeda and Taliban linked violence for more than a decade.

But investigators believe the attack may have been carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) as it seeks to expand its international influence — and get access to ISIS's rich funding.
LJ has emerged as the bloodiest and most ruthless anti-Shia outfit in Pakistan, which has seen a rise in sectarian attacks in recent years, mostly targeting Shias, who make up 20 per cent of the population.
“We are investigating the LJ connection behind the attack and one of the arrested suspects is linked to LJ,” a security official involved in the probe told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“LJ wanted to gain attention of IS for its financial needs and the attack on Ismailis provided the perfect choice as it got international attention."

Returning fighters

Senior intelligence officials and militant sources say LJ cadres have fought in Syria and returned inspired by ISIS, which has won global notoriety for its brutality and slick propaganda operation.The returned fighters are working with a new generation of middle-class, educated, self-radicalised 'jihadists' to try to raise the black flag of the ISIS “caliphate” in Pakistan.

An intelligence officer who has tracked LJ for years said the group, based in the southern part of Punjab, had sent hundreds of fighters to Syria.“The new cadre of militants going to Syria and Iraq, these militants are mostly educated people with middle-class backgrounds,” the intelligence officer told AFP.
Over the past decade the patchwork of militant groups that make up the Pakistani Taliban have largely focused on waging a domestic campaign against the government and armed forces.

But a former LJ militant who produces online propaganda material for terror groups said for young militants in Pakistan, all the talk now is of ISIS and the Middle East.“Many jihadists particularly from Punjab went to fight in Syria and some died,” he said.

“Unlike the past, news from Syria, Iraq and Yemen is the most debated and shared item on extremist-militant forums in Pakistan." Security analyst Amir Rana said. LJ had fighters in Iraq since 2013, and even set up a training camp there.“The Salafi/Wahabi ideological and operational association between Pakistani militant groups and ISIS is not new, Pakistani militants were part of ISIS since its inception,” he told AFP.

“The actual threat for Pakistan is the return of LJ militants fighting in Iraq and Syria, as they would add to the sectarian violence here."

Silent surge

LJ, founded in 1996, a militant arm of ASWJ (formerly known as Sipah Sahaba), has been behind some of the worst attacks on Shias in Pakistan's history, including two huge bombings in the southwestern city of Quetta in 2013 that together killed nearly 200 people.

The security official said the group was now seeking to expand its operations.
“LJ is growing from an anti-Shia organisation to an organisation with trans-national interests,” he said.The group has been accused of carrying out attacks in Afghanistan and has also begun targeting Sunni Barelvis, Christians, Hindus and other Muslim sects.

“For the last two years, there is evidence that the organisation is involved in attacking minorities in urban centres where they have established strong bases, especially in Karachi,” he said.“But LJ has claimed responsibility for hardly any of those incidents — usually militant organisations with no structural or organisational existence have claimed responsibility for attacks carried out by LJ,” he added.

He said LJ maintained a strict cellular structure, with individuals in one unit unaware of the existence of others, and sometimes drew militants from other groups for specific missions.

According to a Reuters report, the LeJ by 2004 had became a powerful terrorist organization with increasing support from Al Qaeda. The new, never-before-known expertise of LeJ cadres proficient in bomb-making and suicide bombings came from the same source. With time, the LeJ had established its contacts with extremists in Pakistan’s tribal areas (FATA). The new ‘friends’ were mainly Uzbek, belonging to the notorious Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who had taken refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas as US operations in Afghanistan continued.

With the formation of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2007, many of the LeJ’s factions started operating in urban areas under its umbrella. The rise of an insurgency in FATA and a sudden increase in terrorist attacks all over Pakistan proved to be very beneficial for the LeJ as the main concentration of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) was diverted towards fighting the more powerful rebellion of the TTP. The LeJ’s undeclared alliance with the TTP came to limelight when the responsibility for 2008 Marriott hotel bombing in Islamabad was claimed by the TTP.

When TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in 2009, Hakimullah Mehsud took over. He is credited with forming a proper alliance with the LeJ. Under his command, the TTP began targeting minority sects in tribal areas and claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Shias. But the major joint terror strike by the TTP and LeJ was witnessed in 2009 which was a first-of-its-kind and took the entire nation by surprise.

It was the siege of Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters or the GHQ in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. 5 out of 10 terrorists who stormed the GHQ belonged to Punjab-based extremist organisations, mainly the LeJ; the other 5 belonged to the TTP. A successful special forces hostage rescue operation ended the siege, but resulted in the martyrdom of two SSG commandos and two civilians.

THE SAUDI CONNECTION

In the Punjab town of Jhang, LeJ’s birthplace, SSP/ASWJ 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.

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 ASWJ 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.

Pakistan's threat within: The Sunni-Shia divide - The Express Tribune

Shia revenge

Some Shia groups do look to Iran’s clerical establishment for spiritual leadership, but insist they have no aims beyond protecting members from Sunni attacks.

In the offices of a Shi’ite organization in Karachi, images of the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini are featured on a wall clock. There, a Pakistani Shia woman named Shafqat Batool described what happened to her son, a judge, when he left for work on August 30.

Minutes after Sayid Zulfiqar stepped out of the family home in Quetta, she said, witnesses told the family three men on a motorcycle opened fire with Kalashnikov rifles. One of the assailants then grabbed a weapon from Zulfiqar’s bleeding driver and pumped more bullets into her son.

It prompted Zulfiqar’s family to move to Karachi. “We are not safe anywhere in the country,” his mother said. “People are horrified, people can’t sleep.”

The fear is palpable in Quetta, the mountainous provincial capital of southwestern Baluchistan. LeJ has unleashed an escalating campaign there of suicide bombings and assassinations against ethnic Hazaras – Persian-speaking Shias who mostly emigrated from Afghanistan and are a small minority of the Shia population in Pakistan.

At least 100 Hazaras have been killed this year, according to Human Rights Watch, leaving some 500,000 Hazaras fearful of venturing out of their enclaves.

“We are under siege; we can’t move anywhere,” said Khaliq Hazara, chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party. “Hazaras are being killed and there is nobody to take any action.

In Quetta and Karachi, Shia leaders say they are urging young men to exercise restraint and buy weapons only for self-defense.

“We are controlling our youth and stopping them from reacting,” said Syed Sadiq Raza Taqvi, a Karachi cleric, seated beside a calendar with images of Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

But with each killing, the temptation to take revenge grows.

Shia extremists have not adopted the kind of attacks favored by LeJ. But they have hunted down members of the SSP.

One such case was an attack survived by Sohaib Nadeem, 27, son of an SSP member. Men he described as “Shia terrorists backed by Iran” opened fire on the Nadeem family in their car. Nadeem survived nine gunshot wounds but his father and brothers were killed. “The Shias are our enemies,” Nadeem said.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

That Saudia Arabia along with other Gulf oil kingdoms fund terrorism is open secret that nobody in Pakistan or even the West wants to talk about. This is ca subject where Western media is coy and Hillary Clinton danced around diplomatically lest she annoyed the Saudi's.

Oil is money and money is power and power buys influence.

 

[Adecypher]

Saudia Arabia like any other country follow policies to protect and serve "their interests" which not necessarily have to coincide with Pakistan's self interests (reality check). Now the question is what Pakistan (i.e. past and present ruling elites and establishment) have accomplished (i.e. counter strategies etc) to protect Pakistan's self interests in the best possible way knowing our society is an amalgamate of various sects and beliefs.

Apney gerebaan mein bhi jhankna chahiyay kabhi kabhi...it take courage but usually pays off in the long run.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

It seems ISIS, and Lashkar e Jhangvi (already a part of TTP) are marching to the drumbeat of their Saudi masters and have joined hands to wage war against the Pakistani state.

QUETTA, Pakistan — ISIS has created a 10-man "strategic planning wing" with a master plan on how to wage war against the Pakistani military, and is trying to join forces with local militants, according to a government memo obtained by NBC News.

"They are now planning to inflict casualties to Pakistan Army outfits who are taking part in operation Zarb-e-Azb," says the alert, referring to the military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban and other militants that was launched in June in a tribal region near the Afghan border.

Labeled "secret," the memo was sent by the government of Balochistan, a southwestern province that borders Afghanistan, to authorities and intelligence officials across Pakistan last week. Akber Durrani, the province's home secretary, called it "routine" and said Sunni militant group and its sympathizers do not have a stronghold there.

But the document suggests that ISIS has Pakistan in its cross-hairs, warning that the group aims to stir up sectarian unrest by dispatching the Saudi-backed militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi on offensives against Pakistan's minority Shiite Muslim community, further destabilizing a country already battling LeJ, TTP and Qaeda elements.

ISIS has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq. It claims to have recruited 10,000 to 12,000 followers in tribal areas on the Afghan border, including in Hangu, which is known for hostility between Shiites and Sunnis, the memo says. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has claimed responsibility for violence against Shiites, was banned after 9/11.

Just days ago, the chief minister of Balochistan, Dr. Malik Baloch, told journalists he had no information about the presence of ISIS in the province. "However, there are fundamentalists like Lashkar e Jhangvi whose approach is similar to that of ISIS," he said.

The memo recommended "strict monitoring" of militants and "extreme vigilance" to ward off any attacks. There have been other signs of ISIS flexing its muscles in the region. In late last September, a pamphlet apparently made by the self-proclaimed caliphate was distributed among Afghan refugees in Pakistan exhorting them to pledge allegiance and lashing out against " the infidels".

 

[TalibanSwatter]

DAWN

LAHORE: Malik Ishaq, chief of banned sectarian outfit Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, his two sons Usman and Haq Nawaz, and 11 attackers were killed in an alleged exchange of fire with police personnel late on Tuesday night. At least six policemen were injured in the alleged encounter.

Ishaq and his sons were arrested by the Counter-Terrorism Department a week ago. Following their recent arrest, the police had interrogated them and had subsequently taken them to Shahwala in Punjab's Muzaffargarh district to aid the police in recovering weapons and explosives, sources in the CTD said.

The encounter appears to have taken place as militants attacked security forces and tried to free Ishaq who was killed in the ensuing exchange of fire, security sources say.

A spokesman for CTD Multan said Ishaq, his two sons, one Ghulam Rasool Shah and two other accused, all from Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, were taken to Muzaffargarh by the counter-terrorism department to aid in the recovery of arms and explosives.

The spokesman added that 14 militants, including Malik Ishaq and Ghulam Rasool Shah, were killed by the attackers themselves.

All bodies have been shifted to DHQ Muzaffargarh. The bodies of Ishaq and his sons will undergo a postmortem before being taken to Rahim Yar Khan, where he was based.

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is regarded as the most extreme terror group in Pakistan and is accused of killing hundreds of Shias after its emergence in the early 1990s. The organisation is also said to have links with Al Qaeda.

He was arrested in 1997 and is implicated in dozens of terrorism cases. He was released on bail in July 2011 after serving a jail term of nearly 14 years.

Since his 2011 release he has been frequently put under house arrest as his sermons raised sectarian tensions. He was also arrested in 2013 over deadly sectarian attacks targeting the Hazara Shia community in Quetta. The first attack took place on Jan 10, 2013 targeting a Hazara snooker hall and killing 92 people and the second bomb attack occurred on Feb 16, killing 89 people. The attacks were claimed by Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

Ishaq was also accused of masterminding, from behind bars, the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, which wounded seven players and an assistant coach, and killed eight Pakistanis.

 

[mujhaidind]

Without Saudi aid and charity Pakistan wouldnt be so prosprprosperous.

 

[Daneshmand]

prosprprosperous.

Is that a new word? What does it mean?

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Sources say LeJ behind the suicide attack on Shuja Khanzada as a reaction to the Malik Ishaq encounter.

 

[VCheng]

Is that a new word? What does it mean?

Prosprprosperous. It means "feeling rich on other peoples' money".

 

[Daneshmand]

Prosprprosperous. It means "feeling rich on other peoples' money".

Indeed! Indeed! Feel proud!

 

[Aramagedon]

Saudi Wahhabism and Conspiracies



While Islam as a faith is the main religion in 48 countries, and Muslims around the globe are rapidly growing, Saudi Islam is the main sectarian movement in Saudi Arabia, and its influence is also rapidly growing. Acting as the protector of Islam through its own form of Islam, while it remains an American client state through its location, petrodollar’s cheque book, and American diplomatic and military protection, it could be argued that among the major influential players, Saudi Arabia’s policies, its own form of Islam, and its relations with the US, undoubtedly constitute one of the most serious threats to the security of the world today.

Indeed, since the eighteenth century, and in conjunction with the Wahhabi religious establishment, Saudi Arabia became the centre for a new brand of religious imperialism based on sectarian movements. For nearly a century, the kingdom’s religious fervour kept the oil-rich country in the Western political camp. Today, the existence of radical Islamic groups is in part a legacy of the Saudi form of Islam, not Islam itself, and the Saudi-US alliance, and of political decisions made to address a different set of security concerns which helped no one accept the US projects.

While Islam itself as a faith is not a threat to international security, it is Saudi Islam that is a threat. Indeed, it is fair to say that the problems within the Muslim world today rise not from Islam itself, but from the Saudi form of Islam, Muslim religious leaders who are relying on Saudi support, and their own interpretations of the Quran. It is also fair to say that questions pertaining to why Americans see Islam as a threat to world stability is because of the American failures to distinguish between Islam as a faith and Saudi Islam. In the US, Islam has been perceived as a threat to its civilization. However, while Americans knew that Islam itself is not a threat to their civilization, the majority of American politicians, journalists, and ideologists have ignored the truth that the threat is coming from Saudi Islam. This is seen as a tactic to avoid any damage to the relations with the House of Saud in order to keep economic and political interests alive.

As a result, the Saudi-US relationship and the Saudi Wahhabi expansionist policy not only transform Muslim world politics, but also world politics. Saudaisation movements may expand into broader struggle throughout the Arab and Muslim nations and beyond. In some parts of the Muslim world, steps toward Saudaisation have already begun while the US is turning a blind eye to the Saudi rulers. At the same time, the US is also busy trying to convince the world that their policies towards Saudi Arabia is about promoting democracy and protecting human rights.


Apart from the obvious results of such a conflict, such as loss of power in some Muslim countries, it would impact on the behaviour of other Western and non-Western states which could use the conflict for more ideological and tactical reasons. So, because religion has no borders, it could become global religious and sectarian conflicts.

It is possible we are already seeing the war in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Yemen and of course, the non-stoppable Wahhabi-American pressure on Syria.

Why? This is because Wahhabism itself is nothing more than an extension of Western imperialism. This short paper shed light on the roots and origin of the Saudi Wahhabism.

The Roots of Wahhabism:

Although the origin of the Saudis’ current expansionist and extremist policy dates back to the religious and military alliance with the Wahhabi establishment, it was actually the British who initially provided the Saudis with the ideas of Wahhabism and made them its leaders for their own purposes to destroy the Muslim Ottoman Empire.[1] Indeed, the intricate details of this intriguing British conspiracy are to be found in the memoirs of its master spy, titled “Confessions of a British Spy” (For details see Sindi 2004). [2] In his memories, the British spy “Hempher” who was one of many spies sent by London to the Arabian Peninsula in order to destabilize the Ottoman Empire has stated:

“In the Hijri year, the Minister of Colonies sent me to Egypt, Iraq, Hejaz and Istanbul to act as a spy and to obtain information necessary and sufficient for the breaking up of Muslims. The Ministry appointed nine more people, full of agility and courage, for the same mission and at the same time. In addition to the money, information and maps we would need, we were given a list containing names of statesmen, scholars, and chiefs of tribes. I can never forget! When I said farewell to the secretary, he said, the future of our State is dependent on your success. Therefore you should exert your utmost energy”. (Nabhani, see also confession of a British spy). [3]

As a result, a small Bedouin army was established with the help of British undercover spies. In time, this army grew into a major menace that eventually terrorized the entire Arabian Peninsula up to Damascus, and caused one of the worst Fitnah (violent civil strife) in the history of Islam.[4] In the process, this army was able to viciously conquer most of the Arabian Peninsula to create the first Saudi-Wahhabi State.[5]

After the death of Muhammad ibn Saud, his son, Abd al-Aziz, became Ad Diriyah’s new emir who captured Riyadh in 1773. By 1781, the al-Saud family’s territory extended outward from Ad Diriyah, located in the Arabian Peninsula’s central region of Najd, about one hundred miles in every direction. In 1788, Saud, son of Abd al-Aziz, was declared heir apparent. He led his Wahhabi warriors on more raids.[6] To fight what they considered Muslim “polytheists” and “heretics”, the Saudis-Wahhabis shocked the entire Muslim world when in 1802, invaded Iraq’s Shiite majority, sacked Karbala, where Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the leading Shiite martyr is buried, and also demolished the massive golden dome and intricate glazed tiles above Hussein Bin Ali’s tomb, a holy shrine to Shiite Muslims. In the same year, the Saudi-Wahhabi warriors committed another atrocity in Taif, just outside Mecca. Again in 1810 they ruthlessly killed many innocent people across the Arabian Peninsula. They raided and pillaged many pilgrimage caravans and sever major cities in Hejaz including the two holiest cities of Makah and Medina.

In Makah they turned away pilgrims, and in Medina they attacked and desecrated Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque, opened his grave, and sold and distributed its valuable relics and expensive jewels.[7]The Saudi-Wahhabi crimes angered the ottomans.

In 1818, an Egyptian army destroyed the Saudis-Wahhabis army and razed their capital to the ground. The Wahhabi Imam Abdullah al-Saud and two of his followers were sent to Istanbul in chains where they were publicly beheaded. The rest of the Saudi-Wahhabi clan was held in captivity in Cairo. The destruction of the Saudi-Wahhabi warrior’s alliance did not last long. It was soon revived with the help of British colonialist.[8]

Accordingly, when Britain colonized Bahrain in 1820 and to expand its colonization in the area, the Wahhabi House of Saud sought British protection through Wahhabi Imams.[9] As a result, the British sent Colonel Lewis Pelly in 1865 to Riyadh to establish an official British treaty with the Wahhabi House.[10] Between 1871 and 1876, power changed hand seven times and the Wahhabis led more raids. This marked the end of the second Saudi state. This period however, kept the Wahhabi movement alive, ready to influence Muslims again in the twentieth century—and in the twenty-first.[11]

The twentieth century’s Saudi Arabia comprises the third period of Wahhabis political power. It has changed Saudi Arabia dramatically and the Saudi-Wahhabi’s kingdom has changed the century significantly. The first interval began in 1902, when Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud captured Riyadh and proceeded to re-establish a Wahhabi Kingdom. In 1904, Abd al-Aziz captured Anaiza, an oasis near Hail. In 1913, he captured Al Hasa Province, but had no idea that he had just acquired a quarter of the world’s oil.[12]

Not surprisingly, after his return from Al Hasa, the British helped ibn Saud with the establishments of the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), an army of fierce religious warriors. The Ikhwan looked for the opportunity to fight non-Wahhabi Muslims—and non-Muslims as well—and they took Abd al Aziz as their leader. The Ikhwan movement began to emerge among the Bedouin. They abandoned their traditional way of life in the desert and moved to an agricultural settlement. By moving to agricultural settlement, the Ikhwan intended to take up a new way of life to enforce a rigid Islamic orthodoxy.[13]

To achieve his goals, on December 26, 1915, Abd al Aziz signed treaty with Sir Percy Cox, Britain’s political agent in the Arab Gulf. The British praised Abd al-Aziz as the greatest Arab man,[14] and recognised his [Abd al- Aziz] sovereignty over Najd and Al-Hasa (central and eastern Arabia), while Abd al-Aziz promised the British that he would not have any dealing with any other country without the British approval and supplies.[15] In addition, the British praised Abd al-Aziz despite his unattractive traits such as public beheading, amputations and floggings. The advisor of Abd al-Aziz for more over 30 years, Harry St John Philby, had described him as ‘the greatest Arab since the Prophet Muhammad’. Philby was sent to Arabia by the British government to assist Abd al-Aziz, perhaps to play kingmaker, in 1917.[16]

Indeed, when in 1915, there were more than 200 hujar in and around Najd and nearly 100,000 Ikhwan waiting to fight, the British supplied Abd al-Aziz with weapons and money. The word hijra (hujar) was related to the term for the Prophet’s emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622. This period ended in 1934, with the declaration of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the leadership of Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud.

Since then, Abd al-Aziz declared the relationship between oil and religion. Indeed, after establishing his British-made Wahhabi State, the Wahhabi king and imam Abd al-Aziz became an autocratic dictator who named the whole country after his own family, calling it the Kingdom of “Saudi” Arabia.[17] Since then the House of Saud has allocated a significant amount of oil revenues to building Islamic schools and mosques throughout the Muslim world,[18]which eventually has inspired radical Islam.[19] At that time however, Abd al-Aziz had various goals: he wanted to take Hail from the Al Rashid’ clan, to extend his control into the northern deserts (Syria), and to take over the Hejaz and the Persian Gulf coast. While Cox openly encouraged Abd al-Aziz to attack al-Rasheed’s clans to divert them from helping the Ottomans he prevented him from taking over much of the Gulf coast, where they [the British] had established protectorates.[20] They also opposed Abd al Aziz’s efforts to extend his influence beyond the Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi deserts because of their own imperial interests. But Abd al-Aziz continued his mission, and after he began the siege of Hail, the city surrendered to the Saudi’s warriors. In 1922, the Ikhwan warriors attacked Amman, the capital of Trans-Jordan. This caused problem with the British because, unlike Mecca and Medina, Hail had no religious significance. However, Abd al-Aziz apologised to the British. The British asked him to draw borders between his kingdom and Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait.[21]



Today, although a few Wahhabi religious leaders have tried to “distant” themselves from the House of Saud’s brutality and anti-Islamic policies in a vain attempt to save Wahhabism’s image from further deterioration, most of the top Wahhabi religious leaders are still firmly behind the House of Saud. In fact, most Wahhabi leaders have openly supported the House of Saud’s unpopular domestic and foreign policies. Indeed, in the Arab nations, the rise of extremism in the form of the Wahhabi movement during the twentieth century could not have taken place without the huge investments made by the Al-Saud family in conjunction with the American in the name of democracy, freedom and human rights to destroy Arab nationalism, socialism, secularism, and of course Islam. This has intensified since the discovery of oil in the 1930s, reached its peak during World War II, and the Cold War, and took more extreme directions since the establishment of the Iranian Islamic Republic in 1979, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the same year.

References:

[1] – Abdullah-M, S 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’an Bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361, pp. 1-9.

[2] -Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[3] -Nabhani, Y Khulasat-ul Kalam, Dar-ul-kitab-is-sufi (the House of Sufi book), Cairo, Egypt, see also Confession of a British Spy and British Enmity Against Islam, available at: , <http://www.hizmetbooks.org/British_Spy_Hempher/index.html>.

[4] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[5] -Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[6] Weston, M 2008a, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[7] Ibid; Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey; Troeller, G 1976, the Birth of Saudi Arabia: Britain and the Rise of the House of Saud, Frank Cass, London.

[10] Lacey, R 1981, the Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York.

[11] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Aburish, SK 1994, A Brutal Friendship: the West and the Arab Elite, first edn, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

[15] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[16] Aburish, SK 1994, A Brutal Friendship: the West and the Arab Elite, first edn, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

[17] Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[18] Long, D 1979, The Wilson Quarterly (1976), vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 83-91.

[19] Redissi, H 2008, ‘The Refutation of Wahhabism in Arabic Sources, 1745-1932’, in Kingdom without Borders: Saudi Arabia’s Political, Religious and Media Frontiers, ed. A-R M, Hurst, London, pp. 157-177.

[20] Aburish, SK 1994, A Brutal Friendship: the West and the Arab Elite, first edn, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

[21] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

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[TalibanSwatter]

Thanks for the article.