The Saudi war in Iraq and lessons for Pakistan

[OrionHunter]

The first step would be to tell the Saudis to stop meddling in our affairs. We should not countenance even a single dirham from that country that may force us to take sides in the coming conflict.

Easier said than done! The Pakistani government loves the color of money even if it is from hell! They recently accepted a gift of $1.5 billion from SA to shore up its reserves, out of $3 billion promised for so called 'development' activities.

I wonder, if Pakistan's Arab friends notably SA, can donate $1.5 billion as gift, just for nothing. Pakistani media tied those funds to Saudi Arabia seeking Military personal for Syrian war or sales of Pakistani weapons to the Syrian rebels....all of which of course, has been denied by PM Nawaz Sherif in recent days.

Or is it a quid pro quo for nukes? In Eating the Grass, his semi-official history of the Pakistani nuclear program, Major General Feroz Hassan Khan wrote, "Saudi Arabia provided generous financial support to Pakistan that enabled the nuclear program to continue." Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons". From where? No prizes for guessing. I'm not saying this. It's from the horse's mouth - the Saudis themselves!

BBC reported in November, 2013 that Saudi Nukes are on order in Pakistan and ready for delivery. The BBC report backs by increasing circumstantial evidence and now 1.5 billion payment as " GIFT" makes the case more strong.

Conspiracy theory? Probably. Probably not. So the argument of the author that, "We should not countenance even a single dirham from that country that may force us to take sides in the coming conflict", is just hyperbole.

 

[Secur]

BBC reported in November, 2013 that Saudi Nukes are on order in Pakistan and ready for delivery. The BBC report backs by increasing circumstantial evidence and now 1.5 billion payment as " GIFT" makes the case more strong.

You think Pakistanis are insane, to deliver nuclear weapons? You sure that we aren't aware of the consequences?

 

[Asian.Century]

The Worries about Nuclear capable Pakistan..... Well the point here is Pakistan has some special ties with Turkey, KSA, UAE, Iran and several other important muslim countries in the whole of Asia. Everyone has their own interests and objectives. I don't care about about what Saudis plan or whoever plans for themselves. I'll only talk about Pakistan; its Army / Govt, "the Pakistani Establishment" We surely don't have a safe eastern border and our Military doesn't want the same in on the West. We want it to be a safe Border. We will always be with those who share similar objectives like ours in Afghanistan.

Going back to 70's. We fought alone alone with afghanis from 73-79 with Russians and from 79-88 along with US-KSA. This was because we wanted Soviets out of Afghanistan cuz they were not safe for us. Fromm 94-2001 We supported Talibs under Molah Omer, why? Cuz they were safe for us. After US intervention we had to support US. Although, We are badly blamed for U.S failure in Afghanistan. I don't really know if we back-stabbed US or not. But if we did, Its cuz our Military realized U.S intervention in Afghanistan was not safe for us just like Soviets.

What I want to say by all that story is that, Pakistan would only interfere if their is something good coming for it. Else, It won't. So, the lessons you want to show us from Iraq and Syria are useless..... We may only interfere as a formality to come up for some peaceful talks between different groups fighting in Arab countries and Iran...

 

[TalibanSwatter]

ISLAMABAD: The army on Sunday strongly denied reports that it was sending troops to Saudi Arabia in an effort to secure the Kingdom’s border with Iraq, where the Islamic State (IS) is gaining ground.
“No Pakistani troops are being sent or being deployed in Saudi Arabia as reported in a section of the media,” said Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Maj-Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa on Twitter.

The ISPR DG’s reaction came after certain reports in the Western media claimed Saudi Arabia was looking up to its allies Pakistan and Egypt to send in troops to secure its border with Iraq.

“The Kingdom is calling in favors from Egypt and Pakistan,” an adviser to the Saudi government told The Times. “No one is certain what ISIS has planned, but it’s clear a group like this will target Mecca if it can. We expect them to run out of steam, but no one is taking any chances.”

IS, which was formally known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has a strong control on Iraq’s western borders near Syria and Jordan. With the group taking one town after the other in Iraq, the southern border with Saudi Arabia could be the next possible target.

Last month, The Telegraph had reported that the Saudi government sent in an additional 30,000 soldiers to the desert border to stop any advance from IS.

Interestingly, IS or ISIS has often been seen as a group that flourished under the patronage of the Saudis. There have been allegations in the international community that Saudi Arabia covertly supplied weapons to the group to fight Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

“ISIS has been a Saudi project,” The Atlantic had quoted a senior Qatari official back in June. However, Saudi Arabia has rubbished all such accusations.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4th,2014.

Looks like the chickens are coming home to roost!

Lessons of Blowback

The Atlantic

“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,” John McCain told CNN’s Candy Crowley in January 2014. “Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, and for our Qatari friends,” the senator said once again a month later, at the Munich Security Conference.

McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.

But shortly after McCain’s Munich comments, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah relieved Bandar of his Syrian covert-action portfolio, which was then trasnferred to Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. By mid-April, just two weeks after President Obama met with King Abdullah on March 28, Bandar had also been removed as head of Saudi intelligence—according to official government statements, at “his own request.” Sources close to the royal court told me that, in fact, the king fired Bandar over his handling of the kingdom’s Syria policy and other simmering tensions, after initially refusing to accept Bandar’s offers to resign. (Bandar retains his title as secretary-general of the king’s National Security Council.)

The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the “moderate” armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assad’s forces are Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the (ISIS), the latter of which is now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra, to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi project.”

ISIS, in fact, may have been a major part of Bandar’s covert-ops strategy in Syria. The Saudi government, for its part, has denied allegations, including claims made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that it has directly supported ISIS. But there are also signs that the kingdom recently shifted its assistance—whether direct or indirect—away from extremist factions in Syria and toward more moderate opposition groups.

The worry at the time, punctuated by a February meeting between U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and the intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, and others in the region, was that ISIS and al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra had emerged as the preeminent rebel forces in Syria. The governments who took part committed to cut off ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, and support the FSA instead. But while official support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia appears to have dried up, non-governmental military and financial support may still be flowing from these countries to Islamist groups.

Senior White House officials have refused to discuss the question of any particular Saudi officials aiding ISIS and have not commented on Bandar’s departure. But they have emphasized that Saudi Arabia is now both supporting moderate Syrian rebels and helping coordinate regional policies to deal with an ascendant ISIS threat.

Like elements of the mujahideen, which benefited from U.S. financial and military support during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and then later turned on the West in the form of al-Qaeda, ISIS achieved scale and consequence through Saudi support, only to now pose a grave threat to the kingdom and the region. It’s this concern about blowback that has motivated Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to encourage restraint in arming Syrian rebels. President Obama has so far heeded these warnings.

John McCain’s desire to help rebel forces toss off a brutal dictator and fight for a more just and inclusive Syria is admirable. But as has been proven repeatedly in the Middle East, ousting strongmen doesn’t necessarily produce more favorable successor governments. Embracing figures like Bandar, who may have tried to achieve his objectives in Syria by building a monster, isn't worth it.

 

[Metanoia]

In my opinion.....the objective of ISIS was to keep Iran and co. constantly engaged for as long as possible.

Apparently once the nuclear talks were initiated and the US practically disabled the option for any sort of military intervention vis-a-vis Iran....something else had to be done by the regional powers to curb the Iranian influence.

This is one angle I think is very much possible.

Either ways Pakistan should classify this organization as a severe threat to its national security and should stay way clear of it. We have bitten by Al-Qaeda on more than one occasion....chiefly due to our own stupidity. Thus it is time we learn from the past....otherwise we deserve destruction.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Executive Intelligence Review

Aug. 25—The sudden emergence of another organized militant Islamist-terrorist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), aka the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or simply IS, along the Iraqi-Syria borders, was not really "sudden" at all. A series of West-organized military actions, particularly the Iraq invasion of 2003, invasion of Libya in 2011, and arming and facilitating the passage of Islamists and terrorists, in the garb of freedom fighters, to Syria to dismantle the Assad regime, has served to bring together thousands of hard-core Islamic terrorists, from as many as 50 countries, who have for years been funded and indoctrinated by the Saudis, and Kuwaitis, with the "kill them all" Wahhabi-Salafi vision of Islam, to establish what ISIS calls the Islamic State.

That state currently encompasses a swath of land stretching from the outskirts of Baghdad in the east, to the outskirts of Aleppo in Syria, bordering Lebanon and Turkey, in the west. Estimates of the number of fighters that might be affiliated with ISIS vary from more than 10,000, to as many as 17,000.

Setting Up Sectarian War
Although this large group of Wahhabi-Salafi terrorists in Iraq and Syria, who are killing Shi'as, and grabbing large of tracts of land for setting up a Wahhabi-Salafi Caliphate, has been much better organized and trained over the decades, it is not altogether different from the London-organized, Saudi-funded, and Pakistan-trained mujahideen in the 1980s, who showed up in Afghanistan to drive out the invading Soviet military. While the objective of the mujahideen brought in by Western powers was to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and then become terrorists-for-hire, ISIS is busy setting up a Caliphate in Southwest Asia.

It is perhaps because of this distinction that the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, told reporters on Aug. 24, on his way to Afghanistan, that he believes ISIS is more of a regional threat, and is not currently plotting attacks against the U.S. or Europe. He also pointed out that there is no indication, as of now, that ISIS militants are engaged in "active plotting against the homeland, so it's different than that which we see in Yemen." In Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has attempted attacks against Western countries.
There is no doubt that the threat that ISIS poses, as observed by General Dempsey, is a regional threat, and is primarily directed against Iran, Iran's allies, and Shi'as in general. But it also poses a serious threat to all Arab monarchies and countries such as Lebanon.
The objective of ISIS became evident from its actions in Iraq and Syria. It is clear that the staunchest promoters of anti-Shi'a ideology, which is aimed at undermining Shiite Iran, are the Saudi monarchy, and the Kuwaiti monarchy under the al-Sabahs. These monarchies are exporters of the Salafi-Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam, which does not accept Shi'as as Muslims, and considers them to be heretics who should be annihilated in order to purify Islam.

Saudi Fears and Cover ups
Nonetheless, the rise of the ISIS and its military prowess, seen in its securing a large tract of land not too-distant from the Saudi Arabian borders, has evoked an existential fear in the House of Saud. In addition, the presence of thousands of Western jihadi fighters who could raise hell upon their return to their home countries, has also made the Americans, the British, the French, and some other European governments a bit uneasy. In order to assuage their Western friends' fears, the Saudis have begun a propaganda campaign to convince others that they do not fund ISIS.

The West, with its vested interest in Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf nations, has continued to defend Saudi Arabia; U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry went on record praising the Saudi Kingdom for donating $100 million to the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre. Riyadh is also spewing out the lie that the ISIS militants are not adherents to Wahhabism. In a statement to the Aug. 23 London-based Saudi news daily Asharq al-Awsat, a spokesperson for the Royal Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in London said:
"Saudi Arabia wants the defeat and destruction of ISIS and other terrorist networks. Terrorist networks are as abhorrent to the government and people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as they are to the governments and peoples of the rest of the world.... There have been suggestions that ISIS followers are members of some sort of Wahhabi absolutist sect. Indeed, certain UK media outlets often refer to Muslims within Saudi Arabia as Wahhabists. The unsubstantiated use of this invented connotation must end because it is untrue. Wahhabism is not a sect of Islam."

The Saudi spokesperson criticized Western media attempts to draw comparisons between Wahhabism and extremist ideology.But some Western news media are not buying these denials by Riyadh and Washington about the Saudi-Kuwaiti connections to ISIS. The British weekly The Spectator, on Aug. 21, alluded to the common ideology of the Saudi and ISIS Wahhabists: "Saudi Arabia is a close ally of Britain and a keen customer of our killing machines, and like most of the Arab states is hostile to lunatic elements like ISIS and Hamas. Yet they are part of the problem; like many Islamists, including those in Britain, the Saudis are happy to condemn ISIS in what they do but not their basic ideology, largely because it mirrors their own."The article pointed out that "the Saudi hostility to ISIS could even be described in Freudian terms as the narcissism of small differences. ISIS is dangerous to them because for those raised in the Saudi version of Islam, the Islamic State's even more extreme interpretation is not a huge leap."

Wahhabi 'Peaceniks' of Yesteryear and Today's ISIS
In 1744, Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab swore a traditional Muslim oath, in which they promised to work together to establish a state run according to Islamic principles. Until that time, the al-Saud family had been accepted as conventional tribal leaders whose rule was based on longstanding, but vaguely defined, authority. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab labeled all those who disagreed with him heretics and apostates, which, in his eyes, justified the use of force in imposing both his beliefs and his political authority over neighboring tribes. This in turn led him to declare holy war (jihad) on other Muslims (neighboring Arab tribes), an act which would otherwise have been legally impossible under the rules of jihad.
In 1802, the Wahhabis captured Karbala in Iraq, and destroyed the tomb of the Shi'ite Imam Husayn. In 1803, the Wahhabis captured the holy city of Mecca. The Ottoman Turks became alarmed, and in 1811, dispatched Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman ruler of Egypt, to challenge the Wahhabis. He succeeded in re-imposing Ottoman sovereignty in 1813. Nearly a century later, in 1901, with Wahhabi help, Saudi emir Abd al-Aziz al-Saud recaptured Riyadh. Al-Saud's sovereignty over the Arabian peninsula grew steadily until 1924, when his dominance became secure. At that point, the Wahhabis went on a rampage throughout the peninsula, smashing the tombs of Muslim saints and imams, including the tomb of the Prophet's daughter Fatima. Saudi Arabia was officially constituted as a kingdom in 1932.[1]
I
n Newsweek July 8, Lucy Westcott wrote, "The Islamist militant group ISIS has been destroying Iraq's Shiite mosques and religious shrines as it continues to put pressure on the country and further its extreme agenda. The AFP reported that four shrines that commemorated Sunni Arab or Sufi figures have been destroyed, while six Shiite mosques were demolished. The destruction seems to have been limited to Iraq's northern Nineveh province, including militant-held Mosul. One local resident told Al-Arabiya that members of the group had also occupied the Chaldean cathedral and the Syrian Orthodox cathedral, both in Mosul, removing their crosses and replacing them with the black flag of the Islamic State."

There is another hallmark that ties Wahhabism with ISIS like an umbilical cord. Human Rights Watch reported recently that Saudi Arabia has beheaded 19 people since the beginning of August. Some confessions may have been gained under torture, and one poor defendant was found guilty of sorcery. Beheading of Kafirs (in Arabic, a slur to describe non-believers) is also the high-profile act of both ISIS and al-Qaeda under Sheikh Osama bin Laden, another group that was a beneficiary of Saudi money and wide-ranging Gulf support.
ISIS beheaded the American journalist James Foley recently in Iraq; while another American journalist, Daniel Pearl, was beheaded in 2002 in Pakistan. In both cases, videos of the beheadings were widely circulated to rev up emotions among the Wahhabis.
The Financing of ISIS
In 2011, in Syria, when President Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron, and President François Hollande joined forces to remove Syria's elected President Bashir al-Assad from power, and thus deal a body blow to the Russians and the Iranians, who acknowledge Assad's legitimacy, not-so-militant groups within were bolstered by attaching them to well-trained Salafi-Wahhabi terrorists from a number of countries. While the Western countries were quite generous with arms, and worked with the neighboring countries to facilitate entry of arms into Syria, the bulk of the money came from the Salafi-Wahhabi bastions led by Saudi Arabia.

Despite denials issued from Riyadh and Doha to quiet gullible Westerners, the funding of various Sunni groups seeking to establish Salafism and Wahhabism in a number of countries has long been well-documented. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for example, who is keen to see Assad, and the Russian influence over Syria, vanish altogether, praised the Saudis and Qataris for financial help lent to the Syrian "rebels," in a discussion on CNN, in January 2014,
"Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, and for our Qatari friends," the Senator repeated at the Munich Security Conference in late January. McCain praised Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Assad in Syria. McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.[2]

But McCain was a bit off the mark. At the time he was bloviating on CNN, the "rebel" power in Syria was already firmly in the hands of ISIS—now an enemy of the U.S. Indeed, in Syria, where the moderate Friends of Syria (those who, according to what the White House conveyed to the American people in 2011-13, were the recipient of arms thanks to American and other Western largesse), Jabhat al-Nusra (a faction of al-Qaeda), and ISIS worked together in the early stages of the Saudi-Qatari-Kuwaiti-funded anti-Assad militancy. These groups used to carry their flags together during militant operations against Damascus; but that changed, and the Salafi-Wahhabis, having seized arms and ammunition from their earlier collaborators, became the powerhouse.

Now, it is evident that ISIS has enough killing power to loot and extort funds to sustain itself, and even grow.

How Saudi Money Created Foreign Wahhabi Terrorists
In 2010, Britain's news daily The Guardian citing Wikileaks, Dec. 5, 2010, quoted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying that Saudi Arabia is the world's largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)—but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money. Both the Afghan Taliban and the LeT espouse the Wahhabi version of orthodox Islam. "More needs to be done," wrote The Guaridan, "since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups, says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

"Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide," she said.The cables highlight an often ignored factor in the Pakistani and Afghan conflicts: that the violence is partly bankrolled by rich, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them. The problem is particularly acute in Saudi Arabia, where militants soliciting funds slip into the country disguised as holy pilgrims, set up front companies to launder funds, and receive money from government-sanctioned charities.
In other words, while Saudi money may have gone directly to ISIS, definitely a lot more Saudi money armed and trained terrorists in Russia's Chechnya, Dagestan, North Ossetia, Ingushetia; in Pakistan; along the Afghanistan-Pakistan borders; in the Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan belt in Central Asia and also in Europe, particularly in Britain's Londonistan. These militants have come in droves to the Syrian theater with their expertise to boost ISIS's killing power.
In short, the Saudis have shipped money, sermons, and volunteers to Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Russia's North Caucasus, just as they're doing now in Syria. In Chechnya, Saudis such as Ibn al-Khattab, Abu al-Walid, and Muhannad (all noms de guerre) indoctrinated, armed, and trained militants who mired the Chechens in an endless war that killed some 160,000 people, while forcing Chechen women into Saudi-style isolation, and throwing Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia into turmoil. Many of these jihadis are now on full display in the Syria-Iraq theater on behalf of ISIS.
In Afghanistan, Saudi money, and the Pakistani military, backed by Saudi money and support, have created a relatively small, but hardcore, Wahhabi capability in a number of provinces. Although these Taliban were not notably visible in either Syria or Iraq, they have helped facilitate movement of Saudi-funded Wahhabi terrorists coming down from the north to participate in the Caliphate-formation war in Iraq and Syria.

In Pakistan, myriad Saudi-financed Wahhabi and anti-Shi'a terrorists are growing in strength, and trying establish inroads into the Pakistani military; while in Afghanistan, the Saudi- and opium-funded Taliban, spewing Wahhabi venom, are trying to seize power again. In addition, Saudi money is also being distributed to build bases in several nations for recruitment and training of jihadis for future operations. It is evident that such a widespread operation cannot be carried out in stealth for years; it is therefore fair to assume that such base-building is done in collaboration with the targeted nation's intelligence community. These recruits remain available for use by the mother-nation. This became visible when the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group (LIFG) was used to dismantle the Libyan state and kill Colonel Qaddafi.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Tahir Mustafa
It was premature to write off Bandar when he was relieved of his duties as the Saudi spy chief in May. He has re-emerged as special advisor to the king.
Public pronouncements by Saudi officials against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), now renamed the Islamic State (IS, for short), notwithstanding, the fact is, this monster is a Saudi creation. And it did not emerge last week or month; the House of Saud has nurtured it for nearly a decade as part of a long-term strategy to contain the growing influence of Islamic Iran in the region.
The man responsible for the ISIS file, and indeed the entire takfiri project is none other than Bandar bin Sultan, the illegitimate son of Sultan bin Abdul Aziz who died in 2012 after suffering a long battle with cancer. Last April when it was announced that Bandar had been relieved of his responsibilities as Saudi intelligence chief, it was assumed that this was because of his failure to bring down the Bashar al-Asad government in Syria. He re-emerged in late June in his new role as special advisor to and envoy of the aged and ailing King Abdullah.
Bashar’s resilience and survivability have surprised many observers. It was assumed that he would be overthrown in a matter of months if not weeks. He has not only survived for three-and-a-half years, he also now has a strong mandate from the people. In the June 3 presidential elections, he garnered more than 89 percent of the vote. The choice before the people was Bashar or the takfiri cannibals and bloodsuckers; they chose Bashar regardless of his many faults and weaknesses. Unless totally consumed by hatred, nobody can deny the fact that he has broad support among the Syrian masses, at least for now.
The Syrian army has also made steady progress against the mercenaries that have flooded from 83 countries, according to Asad’s assertion during a speech on July 16. They have been driven out of Homs province and local residents have returned to their homes. In Aleppo, too, the terrorists are under pressure and large parts of the city have been liberated from their clutches. In a moment of candor, some of the terrorists have admitted that they thought all that was required to overthrow Asad was to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ a few times and raise the black flag. It has turned out to be a lot more difficult, in fact, well nigh impossible under present circumstances.

Bandar’s re-emergence on the political scene, however, indicates that the Saudi regime has not given up on Syria or on mischief making. In fact, what recent developments in the region indicate is that the Saudis want to up the ante by unleashing the takfiris in Iraq, right on the border with Iran. They may publicly say that they are worried about the takfiris but they are cut from the same Wahhabi cloth. The takfiris are the Saudis’ dream come true: ruthless, utterly unconcerned about the sanctity of human life and more important from the Saudi point of view, they can achieve their objectives without the Saudis having to do the dirty work themselves.

The takfiris’ failure in Syria has resulted in intensification of their brutal campaign in Iraq. The Sunni tribesmen have joined them, smarting from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s shortsighted policies. Additional muscle has been provided by remnants of the Ba‘athist army that lost out in the new Iraq. The emerging scenario has all the hallmarks of exploding into a full-scale sectarian war with frightening consequences for the Ummah. The Saudis, however, have never cared for the wellbeing of the Ummah as long as they can maintain their illegitimate hold on power in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Saudi (Bandar)-hatched conspiracy to instigate Sunni-Shia conflict was revealed by Patrick Cockburn in The Independent on July 13, 2014. He wrote: “Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: ‘The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally “God help the Shia”. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them.’”

Cockburn further wrote how the ISIS thugs killed Shia women and children in villages south of Kirkuk, and machine-gunned Shia air force cadets and buried them in mass graves near Tikrit. Mosques and shrines frequented by Shias have also been blown up to further escalate sectarian tensions. The Maliki government has resorted to mobilizing Shia militias playing into the hands of the takfiris and their Saudi sponsors.

That the Saudis, and Qataris are financing the takfiris is well established. Money is collected from private donors in Saudi Arabia and in order to circumvent ‘official restrictions’ on funding such groups, the money is sent to Kuwait. The regime there has few strictures about financing terrorists. It is easily transferred to the various terrorist outfits in the world.

Even leaked documents from Wikileaks confirm Saudi funding of such groups. In one such document, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in December 2009 in a cable released by Wikileaks that “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan], Lashkar e Jhangvi and other terrorist groups.” Ms Clinton identified the Saudi policy of clamping down on al-Qa’ida activities as aimed purely at containing domestic threats. Externally, it has not only turned a blind eye but has actually encouraged and financed it because it meets the regime’s broader objectives of creating fitna among Muslims.
The only silver lining in this otherwise bleak picture is that many leading ‘Sunni’ scholars have spoken out against ISIS’s declaration of the khilafah and their brutal methods that are further tarnishing the image of Islam. These range from middle of the road scholars to those that would be considered extremist, such as the Salafis . Many al-Azhar graduates have also spoken out against the takfiris’ khilafah project although it is important to note that al-Azhar as an institution has not formally condemned it.

The most prominent ‘Sunni’ scholar to take a stand against the ISIS is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars on whose website he published an open letter stating the ISIS’s declaration of the khilafah was “void” according to Islamic law.

“A group simply announcing a khilafah, is not enough to establish a khilafah,” Sheikh Qaradawi wrote.

Rachid Ghannouchi, the Tunisian scholar and founder of An-Nahdha Party has also lashed out at the takfiris. He did so during a Jumah Khutbah early last month saying the takfiris had made a mockery of an important Islamic institution.

Supporters of the takfiris have claimed that all these scholars are opposing al-Baghdadi’s khilafah because they have failed to establish one themselves and in any case, they feel their position is being threatened. Under Islamic law, Muslims are obliged to pledge allegiance to a khalifah. These scholars either have to do so or reject it, thereby avoiding the obligation of allegiance.

In any case, if the takfiris’ argument is accepted, then one is forced to ask, why did they not pledge allegiance to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the reclusive Taliban leader who had also declared himself Amin al-Mumineen. To the best of our knowledge, Mullah Omar has not repudiated that claim even if he does not control the whole territory of Afghanistan. When the Taliban regime of Mullah Omar first emerged in 1996, three countries extended it recognition: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the UAE. The US also dealt with them without extending recognition. No such argument was advanced by anyone at the time that all Muslims must pledge allegiance to Mullah Omar, as al-Baghdadi and his cohorts have done.

The entire al-Baghdadi khilafah project and Saudi support for it is meant to demean and distort important Islamic principles and institutions in order to turn ordinary Muslims from mainstream Islam(while promoting Wahhabi domination). That is the essential policy of the Saudis despite claiming to be ‘Custodians of the Two Holy Cities.’

One could hardly find a better definition of munafiqs.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

In my opinion.....the objective of ISIS was to keep Iran and co. constantly engaged for as long as possible.

Apparently once the nuclear talks were initiated and the US practically disabled the option for any sort of military intervention vis-a-vis Iran....something else had to be done by the regional powers to curb the Iranian influence.

This is one angle I think is very much possible.

Either ways Pakistan should classify this organization as a severe threat to its national security and should stay way clear of it. We have bitten by Al-Qaeda on more than one occasion....chiefly due to our own stupidity. Thus it is time we learn from the past....otherwise we deserve destruction.

Agreed.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Daily Times

Reap what you sow

Saudi Arabia took into custody 88 people for allegedly being members of an al Qaeda cell. This came after the Saudi authorities recently banned its citizens from fighting for or being part of any jihadist militant movement. They have officially denounced extremist organisations like the Islamic State (IS) that has claimed to build a ‘caliphate’ and has gained large territories in Iraq and Syria. These 88 people were arrested during the past several days and the suspects are accused of planning attacks inside and outside Saudi Arabia. The fact that 84 of them are Saudi nationals (the rest are Yemenis) and interestingly, more than half of them have previously served prison terms for similar offences, reflects that Saudi Arabia remains a breeding ground of a dogmatic and extremist mindset. The narrow and parochial Wahhabi ideology that has large numbers of its people in its grip is responsible for producing such extremist ideologues.

Almost 2,500 Saudis are reportedly fighting in foreign countries. In its effort to cleanse the country of al Qaeda’s network, Saudi Arabia has fought a consistent battle during the last decade. In its desire to spread the Wahhabi ideology, Saudi Arabia took no heed of its consequences, and without thinking it through blatantly supported extremist proxies in different countries including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The Saudis openly funded such groups to topple Assad’s regime but the Syrian forces fought relentlessly and are still struggling to free the country of terrorist militancy.

All these efforts were bound to produce a blowback, which is precisely what is happening now. IS has declared the Saudi kingdom and its monarchs to be corrupt and unworthy of ruling. Now that IS is expanding and poses an existential threat to the region and to the world, many countries in the region and further abroad are converging towards the need to eradicate this menace. Unlikely allies such as Iran, Syria and the US may have to come together to extinguish this fire. These arrests in Saudi Arabia are a timely step to help turn the tide of jihadist militancy that is now flowing towards Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world. Along with this, Saudi Arabia needs to withdraw its support to militant proxies fighting in different countries (including Pakistan) before the whole enterprise comes back to haunt it.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Saudi clerics condemn ISIS but preach intolerance

Reuters

When Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh described Islamic State and al Qaeda as "kharijites" last month, he was casting them as the ultimate heretics of Muslim history, a sect that caused the faith's first and most traumatic schism.
That sort of rhetoric aimed at expelling militants from the Muslim mainstream has grown increasingly common among top Saudi clerics in recent weeks as they work to counter an ideology that threatens their political allies in the Al Saud dynasty.
But while Saudi Arabia's official Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam attacks Islamists as heretical and "deviant", many of its most senior and popular clergy preach a doctrine that encourages intolerance against the very groups targeted by IS in Iraq.

The arch conservatives Abdulrahman al-Barrak and Nasser al-Omar, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, have accused Shi'ites of sowing "strife, corruption and destruction among Muslims".

Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan was sacked as judiciary head in 2008 for saying owners of media that broadcast depravity have forsaken their faith, a crime punishable in Sharia law by death, but he remains a member of the kingdom's top Muslim council.
Abdulaziz al-Fawzan, a professor of Islamic law and frequent guest on the popular al-Majd religious television channel, has accused the West of being behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, saying "these criminals want to take control over the world".

Such opinions, which echo the views of militants in Iraq, are not unusual in Saudi Arabia, which has beheaded 20 people in the past month, and where clerics oversee a lavish state-funded religious infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia and its ultra conservative Wahhabi school are often seen in the West as the ideological wellspring of al Qaeda, which has staged attacks across the world and of Islamic State, which has beheaded hostages in Syria and Iraq.
It is a viewpoint vociferously denied by the Saudi establishment, including the ambassador to London, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, who wrote last month that it "does not even faintly correspond" with Wahhabi teachings.
The Al Saud are sensitive to such criticism not only because of the costs of suppressing a militant insurgency a decade ago that killed hundreds, but because their legitimacy rests partly on religious credentials underwritten by Wahhabi clerics.

Saudi authorities point to the influence of the radical wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in developing modern jihadi thinking, but play down Riyadh's decades of support for Islamists around the world as a counterweight to anti-royal leftist ideology.

The government's inability or reluctance to crack down on expressions of intolerance towards non-Sunnis has led some Saudi liberals and foreign analysts to ask if the kingdom is committed to tackling radicalism's roots, or only its symptoms.

"It's their definition of extremism we may not agree with. It is still very mainstream to call Shi'ites infidels. That's not seen as extremist," said Stephane Lacroix, author of Awakening Islam, a book about Islamism in Saudi Arabia.

JIHAD
When the Al Saud first raised a state near Riyadh in the mid 18th century, they did so with the support of a local preacher, Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, whose purist doctrine is often known as Wahhabism, a term rejected by those who follow it.
Wahhabi ideology is focused on eliminating incorrect doctrine, particularly when it appears to undermines monotheism, a category that includes Shi'ite reverence for the Prophet Mohammed's descendents and the Christian belief in a trinity.
Like Shi'ites, the Kharijites wanted Mohammed to be replaced as leader of the Muslims by his son-in-law, Ali, but they later assassinated him for compromising with the early Sunnis. That act won them the enmity of both Islam's main sects.
Wahhabi clergy offer legitimacy and public support to a king who styles himself "custodian of the two holy mosques", and leave all matters of governance and foreign policy to him so long as his edicts do not contradict Muslim law.
In return, the ruling family has given them top government jobs, control over Saudi Arabia's Sharia Muslim law, great influence over social issues and public morality, and funds for foreign evangelism and massive Wahhabi seminaries.
Riyadh, which sees itself as a protector of Sunnis against Shi'ite factions manipulated by an expansionist Iran, has given arms and cash to Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Alawite sect close to Shi'ites.
But it also sees militant groups among the rebels, including IS and the Nusra Front, as a threat to its own security, fearing that thousands of Saudi nationals who have gone to fight there will be radicalised and target their own country.
It has declared both groups illegal and imposed long prison terms for any who offer them support, help them raise money or join them to fight.

That position is backed by the Wahhabi establishment, which has declared the struggle in Syria a jihad, or holy war, for the Syrian people, but not for Saudis, and repeatedly urged citizens not to go to fight.
"Peace and war have to be directed by the government and the king himself. As for those encouraging others to go and fight, I don't agree with it at all. It doesn't comply with our religion and it's not legal," said Sheikh Abdulmohsen Al al-Sheikh, a former member of the Sharia faculty at Mecca's Umm al-Qura seminary.
The militants, in turn, often cite Wahhabi clerics from the 18th and 19th century, but they regard their modern successors as tools of the Saudi government, which they have vowed to topple with the slogan "kadimoun" or "we are coming".

"The jihadis stopped citing senior mainstream Saudi clerics many years ago," said Thomas Hegghammer, a research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and author of Jihad in Saudi Arabia.
Even the few Saudi clerics who once supported al Qaeda, and are now in prison in the kingdom, are shunned by IS because of its own rift with the older militant group, he said.
However, there are clearly contacts between some lower-level clerics and militants in Iraq and Syria. The authorities said last month they had detained mosque imams who urged people to go and join the fight and prepared sermons for use by IS fighters.
Another cleric was sentenced to five years in prison in August for "glorifying" extremist ideology and urging others to go to Syria to fight. Thousands of Saudis are believed to have joined militant groups in Syria and Iraq.

LIBERAL SAUDIS
Over the past decade, the authorities have tried to hem in radical clergy by imprisoning or sacking those who overtly support militancy. They have vetted Friday sermons and restricted the power to issue fatwas (religious rulings) to the 21 members of the Council of Senior Scholars.
This does not go far enough for liberal Saudis. They believe the clergy's willingness to use highly sectarian language and voice contempt or hatred for non-Muslims fuels radical ideology.
"The only way to fight al Qaeda and Islamic State is by being transparent and open about it. We have a problem: some of our teachings promote militancy and we don't need those teachings any more," said Jamal Khashoggi, head of a television news channel owned by a prince.
Some school textbooks, many of which are written by clerics, still feature strong sentiments against non-Muslims despite Riyadh's pledge to purge the curriculum of intolerant language.
King Abdullah has pushed more tolerant interpretations of Wahhabi thought, appointing Shi'ites to the Shoura Council which advises on policy and calling for a new centre to study Islam's sects to be built in Riyadh, to the chagrin of some Wahhabis.

However, he has also been quoted in a 2006 U.S. embassy cable released by WikiLeaks as attacking Shi'ites for "worshipping stones, domes and statues" and has done little to rein in clerical attacks on the sect.
"Anti-Shi'ism in Saudi religious discourse is extremely strong. So Saudis are open to understanding and accepting those justifications for militancy," said Lacroix.

Supporters of the Al Saud argue they have to tread carefully when dealing with conservative clerics. They say the ruling family is more liberal than most Saudi citizens, and is wary of provoking public anger.
But liberal Saudis and some foreign analysts say that is not the case, and argue that if the government really wanted to reduce intolerant religious discourse, it could readily do so.
"When the government wants things to be done, they will be done," said Mohammed al-Zulfa, a former member of the Shoura Council and an early public advocate of allowing women to drive.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Fouad Ibrahim
May 2014

The recent announcement by Saudi Arabia concerning its fighters in Syria is no mere detail to gloss over. It is a decidedly serious indicator of the extent of pressure exerted by the United States, including the threat to cancel the expected visit by President Barack Obama to the kingdom. Yet the story has another dimension: the return of Saudi fighters to their home country.

The Saudis are afraid of an uncontrolled return of those fighters to their country. Two conditions have been set. The first would be a return, under security precautions via the Saudi embassy in Turkey, as mentioned by the ambassador in Ankara on February 6. The second means their dispersal along the frontlines, a repeat of what Saudi fighters in Afghanistan experienced. The following is just some of what is known about the kingdom's abandonment of its fighters in Syria.

Thus, many Saudi fighters and their supporters are beginning to see the royal decree as a provocative act. This might push the fighters to commit foolish security acts to foil its aims, tarnishing the image of the kingdom and reinforcing the impression that it supports terrorism.

Royal orders in Saudi Arabia are not issued except in the case of relieving an emir of his duties, appointing him to a position, or in relation to a sovereign issue requiring orders from the highest authority in the state. However, the royal orders issued on February 3 are a clear indicator that the subject of the royal decree surpasses the authority of the cabinet. It called for what can be described as a "written pledge" from the king himself.

Three issues could be construed from the royal orders:

First, the royal order was issued in the context of the media debate on the supposed visit by US President Barack Obama to Riyadh at the end of March. At the beginning of this month, US newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, published the news about the prospective visit. The US embassy in Riyadh quickly replied, saying the White House did not say anything of the sort. "The embassy did not have any information about the visit and cannot comment on it," said the assistant media attaché at the US embassy Stewart White.

However, with the issuing of the royal decree on February 3, the White House immediately announced the visit by Obama to Riyadh at the end of next March. The royal order was the lengthiest in the history of such decrees, except for those related to the budget. In summary, it was a wholesale condemnation of terrorist acts in all their forms, where Saudi citizens were involved, whether civilians, military personnel, and preachers who agitate, belong, donate, or glorify religious or ideological extremists, calling for the most severe sentences against them.

According to available information, US officials presented the Saudis with a huge dossier at the end of last year. It contained irrefutable evidence proving the involvement of Saudi Arabia in terrorist activities in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and even Russia. The dossier was now in the hands of the international community, which could lead to a censure at the UN Security Council and the classification of Saudi Arabia as state sponsor of global terrorism.

The message was heard clearly by the Saudis. It meant that it is impossible to include terrorism in the protection and strategic defense treaty signed in the 1940s between Saudi King Abdul-Aziz and US President Franklin Roosevelt. The question of terrorism is an international issue and does not belong in bilateral agreements.

Saudi Arabia felt the threat, which required a quick position from the highest authority in the country. Some in the royal family understood it as a precondition for Obama's visit to Riyadh in order to allay the concerns of US allies and the international community, who no longer doubt Saudi's involvement in the majority of terrorist activities in the region and around the world.

Second, the royal orders were a clear message to Saudi fighters, civilians and military alike, principally in Syria, but also in Iraq, Lebanon, and other places. It meant that a harsh fate awaits them if they decided to come back home. To avoid the grim destiny and severe punishment, they had to remain outside the borders and continue their mission until they perish or get dispersed in other fighting arenas, much like the first contingent of Arab Afghan fighters and those who emerged in Iraq after 2003, in Lebanon after the Nahr al-Bared war at the end of 2007, and those currently in Syria following the agreement between Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan and former CIA chief David Petraeus in the summer of 2012.


Saudi Arabia had mastered a double game. In public, it expressed a contrived strictness about the participation of Saudis in fighting abroad or collecting donations for al-Qaeda and its old and new subsidiaries.

There is no doubt that a royal decree of such severity is a stab in the back by the official sponsor, represented by Prince Bandar, whose mission was put to rest by the decision. Reactions by al-Qaeda supporters on social media sites indicate extensive anger against Saudi Arabia for deceiving the fighters, time after time, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Lebanon and now in Syria. Thus, many Saudi fighters and their supporters are beginning to see the royal decree as a provocative act. This might push the fighters to commit foolish security acts to foil its aims, tarnishing the image of the kingdom and reinforcing the impression that it supports terrorism.

Naturally, the Saudi regime could hide behind the pretext that it never supported the fighting abroad and did not allow the collection of donations or incitement to emigrate to join the jihad. On the surface, the excuse is valid. Many agitating preachers and mosque imams were subjected to investigations to stop the collection of donations for fighting in Syria, in addition to the issuing of fatwas, which considered fighting in Syria to be "sedition."

On the other hand, observers have gathered overwhelming evidence about the complicity of Saudi political, media, and religious institutions in the emigration of thousands of Saudis to the "land of steadfastness" in Syria. Nothing else could explain the participation of hundreds of Saudi soldiers fighting there, despite being prohibited from traveling abroad, except by special orders of the military leadership.

The mention of military personnel and the severe punishment awaiting them was not by accident. It would not have happened without documented evidence about the participation of large numbers of military personnel in the fighting in Syria, who poured through Jordan under the patronage of Saudi Assistant Defense Minister Prince Salman bin Sultan, the half-brother of the godfather of the war in Syria Prince Bandar.

Saudi Arabia had mastered a double game. In public, it expressed a contrived strictness about the participation of Saudis in fighting abroad or collecting donations for al-Qaeda and its old and new subsidiaries. But in secret, money, men, and weapons were flooding the battlefields without any control.

The third issue concerns secondary indicators in the royal decree, which imply that the war in Syria was coming to an end and that armed groups are now on their own, after losing the required finances, arms, and training. This could only mean the end of the role of Prince Bandar, who left to the United States for a prolonged vacation, under the pretext of medical treatment.

This brings us to the Iranian-Turkish proposal, which provides the Saudis a decent exit from the Syrian quagmire, on the condition of gradually abandoning its support for the insurgents. It is clear that the two countries have begun a joint high-level coordination to confront the question of terrorism. After Ankara's previous hesitation to give it serious consideration, according to the Iranian view, it is now beginning to give it the widest attention, after the recent visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Iran.

The outcome means that Saudi is fearful of the return of its fighters, so it came up with a list of harsh punishments to avoid the violent repercussions at the time of reckoning. Moreover, what is even more dangerous, from its perspective, would be international sanctions which await the kingdom if it does not withdraw from the war in Syria and funding terrorism on the international level. This has led European intelligence agencies to step up their presence in the region to follow-up on the return of Saudi citizens back to the kingdom

 

[TalibanSwatter]

agreed.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Huffington Post
Alastair Crooke

BEIRUT -- The dramatic arrival of Da'ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed -- and horrified -- by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia's ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, "Don't the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?"

It appears -- even now -- that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite "fire" with Sunni "fire"; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da'ish's strict Salafist ideology.

Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist/Salafist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan -- please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s.


THE SAUDI DUALITY
Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins.

One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader -- amongst many -- of continually sparring and raiding Bedouin tribes in the baking and desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.)

The second strand to this perplexing duality, relates precisely to King Abd-al Aziz's subsequent shift towards statehood in the 1920s: his curbing of Ikhwani violence (in order to have diplomatic standing as a nation-state with Britain and America); his institutionalization of the original Wahhabist impulse -- and the subsequent seizing of the opportunely surging petrodollar spigot in the 1970s, to channel the volatile Ikhwani current away from home towards export -- by diffusing a cultural revolution, rather than violent revolution throughout the Muslim world.

But this "cultural revolution" was no docile reformism. It was a revolution based on Abd al-Wahhab's Jacobin-like hatred for the putrescence and deviationism that he perceived all about him -- hence his call to purge Islam of all its heresies and idolatries.

MUSLIM IMPOSTORS
The American author and journalist, Steven Coll, has written how this austere and censorious disciple of the 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab, despised "the decorous, arty, tobacco smoking, hashish imbibing, drum pounding Egyptian and Ottoman nobility who travelled across Arabia to pray at Mecca."

In Abd al-Wahhab's view, these were not Muslims; they were imposters masquerading as Muslims. Nor, indeed, did he find the behavior of local Bedouin Arabs much better. They aggravated Abd al-Wahhab by their honoring of saints, by their erecting of tombstones, and their "superstition" (e.g. revering graves or places that were deemed particularly imbued with the divine).

All this behavior, Abd al-Wahhab denounced as bida -- forbidden by God.

Like Taymiyyah before him, Abd al-Wahhab believed that the period of the Prophet Muhammad's stay in Medina was the ideal of Muslim society (the "best of times"), to which all Muslims should aspire to emulate (this, essentially, is Salafism).
Taymiyyah had declared war on Shi'ism, Sufism and Greek philosophy. He spoke out, too against visiting the grave of the prophet and the celebration of his birthday, declaring that all such behavior represented mere imitation of the Christian worship of Jesus as God (i.e. idolatry). Abd al-Wahhab assimilated all this earlier teaching, stating that "any doubt or hesitation" on the part of a believer in respect to his or her acknowledging this particular interpretation of Islam should "deprive a man of immunity of his property and his life."

One of the main tenets of Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine has become the key idea of takfir. Under the takfiri doctrine, Abd al-Wahhab and his followers could deem fellow Muslims infidels should they engage in activities that in any way could be said to encroach on the sovereignty of the absolute Authority (that is, the King). Abd al-Wahhab denounced all Muslims who honored the dead, saints, or angels. He held that such sentiments detracted from the complete subservience one must feel towards God, and only God. Wahhabi Islam thus bans any prayer to saints and dead loved ones, pilgrimages to tombs and special mosques, religious festivals celebrating saints, the honoring of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's birthday, and even prohibits the use of gravestones when burying the dead.

"Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. "

Abd al-Wahhab demanded conformity -- a conformity that was to be demonstrated in physical and tangible ways. He argued that all Muslims must individually pledge their allegiance to a single Muslim leader (a Caliph, if there were one). Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. The list of apostates meriting death included the Shiite, Sufis and other Muslim denominations, whom Abd al-Wahhab did not consider to be Muslim at all.

There is nothing here that separates Wahhabism from ISIS. The rift would emerge only later: from the subsequent institutionalization of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab's doctrine of "One Ruler, One Authority, One Mosque" -- these three pillars being taken respectively to refer to the Saudi king, the absolute authority of official Wahhabism, and its control of "the word" (i.e. the mosque).

It is this rift -- the ISIS denial of these three pillars on which the whole of Sunni authority presently rests -- makes ISIS, which in all other respects conforms to Wahhabism, a deep threat to Saudi Arabia.

BRIEF HISTORY 1741- 1818

Abd al-Wahhab's advocacy of these ultra radical views inevitably led to his expulsion from his own town -- and in 1741, after some wanderings, he found refuge under the protection of Ibn Saud and his tribe. What Ibn Saud perceived in Abd al-Wahhab's novel teaching was the means to overturn Arab tradition and convention. It was a path to seizing power.

"Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear. "


Ibn Saud's clan, seizing on Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine, now could do what they always did, which was raiding neighboring villages and robbing them of their possessions. Only now they were doing it not within the ambit of Arab tradition, but rather under the banner of jihad. Ibn Saud and Abd al-Wahhab also reintroduced the idea of martyrdom in the name of jihad, as it granted those martyred immediate entry into paradise.

In the beginning, they conquered a few local communities and imposed their rule over them. (The conquered inhabitants were given a limited choice: conversion to Wahhabism or death.) By 1790, the Alliance controlled most of the Arabian Peninsula and repeatedly raided Medina, Syria and Iraq.

Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear. In 1801, the Allies attacked the Holy City of Karbala in Iraq. They massacred thousands of Shiites, including women and children. Many Shiite shrines were destroyed, including the shrine of Imam Hussein, the murdered grandson of Prophet Muhammad.

A British official, Lieutenant Francis Warden, observing the situation at the time, wrote: "They pillaged the whole of it [Karbala], and plundered the Tomb of Hussein... slaying in the course of the day, with circumstances of peculiar cruelty, above five thousand of the inhabitants ..."

Osman Ibn Bishr Najdi, the historian of the first Saudi state, wrote that Ibn Saud committed a massacre in Karbala in 1801. He proudly documented that massacre saying, "we took Karbala and slaughtered and took its people (as slaves), then praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and we do not apologize for that and say: 'And to the unbelievers: the same treatment.'"

In 1803, Abdul Aziz then entered the Holy City of Mecca, which surrendered under the impact of terror and panic (the same fate was to befall Medina, too). Abd al-Wahhab's followers demolished historical monuments and all the tombs and shrines in their midst. By the end, they had destroyed centuries of Islamic architecture near the Grand Mosque.

But in November of 1803, a Shiite assassin killed King Abdul Aziz (taking revenge for the massacre at Karbala). His son, Saud bin Abd al Aziz, succeeded him and continued the conquest of Arabia. Ottoman rulers, however, could no longer just sit back and watch as their empire was devoured piece by piece. In 1812, the Ottoman army, composed of Egyptians, pushed the Alliance out from Medina, Jeddah and Mecca. In 1814, Saud bin Abd al Aziz died of fever. His unfortunate son Abdullah bin Saud, however, was taken by the Ottomans to Istanbul, where he was gruesomely executed (a visitor to Istanbul reported seeing him having been humiliated in the streets of Istanbul for three days, then hanged and beheaded, his severed head fired from a canon, and his heart cut out and impaled on his body).

In 1815, Wahhabi forces were crushed by the Egyptians (acting on the Ottoman's behalf) in a decisive battle. In 1818, the Ottomans captured and destroyed the Wahhabi capital of Dariyah. The first Saudi state was no more. The few remaining Wahhabis withdrew into the desert to regroup, and there they remained, quiescent for most of the 19th century.

HISTORY RETURNS WITH ISIS

It is not hard to understand how the founding of the Islamic State by ISIS in contemporary Iraq might resonate amongst those who recall this history. Indeed, the ethos of 18th century Wahhabism did not just wither in Nejd, but it roared back into life when the Ottoman Empire collapsed amongst the chaos of World War I.

The Al Saud -- in this 20th century renaissance -- were led by the laconic and politically astute Abd-al Aziz, who, on uniting the fractious Bedouin tribes, launched the Saudi "Ikhwan" in the spirit of Abd-al Wahhab's and Ibn Saud's earlier fighting proselytisers.

The Ikhwan was a reincarnation of the early, fierce, semi-independent vanguard movement of committed armed Wahhabist "moralists" who almost had succeeded in seizing Arabia by the early 1800s. In the same manner as earlier, the Ikhwan again succeeded in capturing Mecca, Medina and Jeddah between 1914 and 1926. Abd-al Aziz, however, began to feel his wider interests to be threatened by the revolutionary "Jacobinism" exhibited by the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan revolted -- leading to a civil war that lasted until the 1930s, when the King had them put down: he machine-gunned them.

For this king, (Abd-al Aziz), the simple verities of previous decades were eroding. Oil was being discovered in the peninsular. Britain and America were courting Abd-al Aziz, but still were inclined to support Sharif Husain as the only legitimate ruler of Arabia. The Saudis needed to develop a more sophisticated diplomatic posture.

So Wahhabism was forcefully changed from a movement of revolutionary jihad and theological takfiri purification, to a movement of conservative social, political, theological, and religious da'wa (Islamic call) and to justifying the institution that upholds loyalty to the royal Saudi family and the King's absolute power.

OIL WEALTH SPREAD WAHHABISM

With the advent of the oil bonanza -- as the French scholar, Giles Kepel writes, Saudi goals were to "reach out and spread Wahhabism across the Muslim world ... to "Wahhabise" Islam, thereby reducing the "multitude of voices within the religion" to a "single creed" -- a movement which would transcend national divisions. Billions of dollars were -- and continue to be -- invested in this manifestation of soft power.

It was this heady mix of billion dollar soft power projection -- and the Saudi willingness to manage Sunni Islam both to further America's interests, as it concomitantly embedded Wahhabism educationally, socially and culturally throughout the lands of Islam -- that brought into being a western policy dependency on Saudi Arabia, a dependency that has endured since Abd-al Aziz's meeting with Roosevelt on a U.S. warship (returning the president from the Yalta Conference) until today.

Westerners looked at the Kingdom and their gaze was taken by the wealth; by the apparent modernization; by the professed leadership of the Islamic world. They chose to presume that the Kingdom was bending to the imperatives of modern life -- and that the management of Sunni Islam would bend the Kingdom, too, to modern life.

"On the one hand, ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is ultra radical in a different way. It could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism."


But the Saudi Ikhwan approach to Islam did not die in the 1930s. It retreated, but it maintained its hold over parts of the system -- hence the duality that we observe today in the Saudi attitude towards ISIS.

On the one hand, ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is ultra radical in a different way. It could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism.

ISIS is a "post-Medina" movement: it looks to the actions of the first two Caliphs, rather than the Prophet Muhammad himself, as a source of emulation, and it forcefully denies the Saudis' claim of authority to rule.
As the Saudi monarchy blossomed in the oil age into an ever more inflated institution, the appeal of the Ikhwan message gained ground (despite King Faisal's modernization campaign). The "Ikhwan approach" enjoyed -- and still enjoys -- the support of many prominent men and women and sheikhs. In a sense, Osama bin Laden was precisely the representative of a late flowering of this Ikhwani approach.

Today, ISIS' undermining of the legitimacy of the King's legitimacy is not seen to be problematic, but rather a return to the true origins of the Saudi-Wahhab project.

In the collaborative management of the region by the Saudis and the West in pursuit of the many western projects (countering socialism, Ba'athism, Nasserism, Soviet and Iranian influence), western politicians have highlighted their chosen reading of Saudi Arabia (wealth, modernization and influence), but they chose to ignore the Wahhabist impulse.

After all, the more radical Islamist movements were perceived by Western intelligence services as being more effective in toppling the USSR in Afghanistan -- and in combatting out-of-favor Middle Eastern leaders and states.

Why should we be surprised then, that from Prince Bandar's Saudi mandate to manage the insurgency in Syria against President Assad should have emerged a neo-Ikhwan type of violent, fear-inducing vanguard movement: ISIS? And why should we be surprised -- knowing a little about Wahhabism -- that "moderate" insurgents in Syria would become rarer than a mythical unicorn? Why should we have imagined that radical Wahhabism would create moderates? Or why could we imagine that a doctrine of "One leader, One authority, One mosque: submit to it, or be killed" could ever ultimately lead to moderation or tolerance?

 

[TalibanSwatter]

PESHAWAR: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may become stronger in Pakistan after six top commanders of the Pakistani Taliban announced their allegiance to it.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, in an audio message sent to the media, on Tuesday formally announced joining the ISIS along with five senior commanders.

After reciting a few verses from the Holy Quran in the audiotape, he introduced himself, saying his name was Abu Omar Maqbool al-Khurasani but the people know him as Shahidullah Shahid.

“I am going to announce my allegiance to Al-Baghdadial-Qarshi. I will obey his every command, whether good or bad and whatever the situation. Neither the TTP nor its leader Maulana Fazlullah has directed me to announce my allegiance to the ISIS, but I and five senior leaders have decided to join al-Baghdadi al-Qarshi,” Shahid said.
He added that he had announced his allegiance to Abu Sair al-Urdani before the launching of the ISIS.“I want my allegiance to be accepted. I will wait for your reply and at the end all praise must be for Allah Almighty,” the Taliban commander mentioned in the audio statement recorded in Arabic.The five TTP commanders who joined the ISIS and were mentioned by Shahid include Hafiz Saeed Khan, Hafiz Daulat Khan, Maulana Gul Zaman, Mufti Hassan and Khalid Mansoor.
Hafiz Saeed Khan is the Taliban leader for Orakzai Agency and Hafiz Daulat Khan is the leader for the Kurram Agency.Maulana Gul Zaman is the TTP head for Khyber Agency, Mufti Hassaan is operating in Peshawar and Khalid Mansoor in Hangu.

Mufti Hassaan belongs to Swat and was part of the Swat Taliban when Maulana Fazlullah and his fighters were in control of the scenic valley from 2007-2009. He and several other militants later shifted to North Waziristan while others crossed the border and settled in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces when the Pakistani military launched an operation against Maulana Fazlullah and his men in Swat and in the adjoining Buner district in 2009.

After the killing of TTP head Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike last year, Hafiz Saeed Khan, Hafiz Daulat Khan and Maulana Fazlullah were among the candidates hoping to replace him. Fazlullah was eventually chosen as the TTP chief.
Shahid and the five TTP commanders who have pledged allegiance to the ISIS were opposed to peace talks with the government early this year. The failure of the talks led to the military operation in North Waziristan on June 15.

 

[HAIDER]

goes around comes around.