The Saudi war in Iraq and lessons for Pakistan

[TalibanSwatter]

Nation

The chief suspect behind Sehwan suicide bombing is reported to be involved in several other such attacks in Sindh.

The blast in Sehwan killed at least 88 precious lives last week and has been on of the deadliest attacks of Pakistan.

Other attacks in which suspect is involved, include a suicide attack in 2015 at an Imam Bargah in Shikarpur which killed 61.

The name of suspect is Abdul Hafeez Pandrani and he is a resident of Abdul Khaliq Pandrani village of district Shikarpur.

During the investigation, it has been found that he is the leader of the Hafeez Brohi group affiliated with the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) but now is reported to have joined Daesh.

Police and intelligence agencies suspect Pandrani to be the mastermind of the recent bombing. He is also alleged to be involved in several high-profile terrorist attacks in interior Sindh.

Pandrani, who belongs to the Brohi tribe, is named in the seventh edition of Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), Sindh, Red Book. The 35-year-old most-wanted terrorist, whose details are mentioned on page number 57 of the Red Book, is affiliated with banned LeJ.

He was also the key contact of LeJ Chief Asif Chotu, who was killed in an alleged encounter with CTD Punjab on January 18, this year. Chotu and Pandrani were responsible for carrying out deadly attacks in Shikarpur and other parts of interior Sindh.

Pandrani’s name also came up in the suicide bombing inside the Imam Bargah Karbala-e-Mualla of Lakkhi Dar, Shikarpur, on January 30, 2015, which killed 61.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Express Tribune

This is Trump’s first visit to a foreign country and surprisingly, he chose Saudi Arabia as his destination. Surprising is too mute a word to capture the reality check any reader would have felt when they first heard this; given the fact that Saudi Arabia was one of Trump’s primary ‘hate speech’ targets during his election campaign. Well to be realistic, this U-turn is only a matter of time, usually between a candidate winning the election and becoming an elected official. All idealism goes out the window once the oath is taken and of course, the daily briefs start changing ones perspective on national issues.

Perhaps this change of heart could have been a result of Trump’s meeting with the Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in March or the quiet signing of a $5.4 million one-year contract with the Sonoran Policy Group (SPG), a boutique Washington lobbying firm with ties to Trump’s team. The ministry run by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef footed the bill for this contract.

However, the factors for this reversal point more strongly towards the not so quiet alliance developing between Saudi Arabia and Israel, who are both strongly fixated on countering the influence of Iran in the Middle East. Both countries do not openly acknowledge this relationship but Benjamin Netanyahu has alluded to it when pressed in recent interviews.

Given the current state of the American economy and Trump’s promises of creating jobs, there was no easier way than to get involved with the Saudis and get a contract for somewhere in line of $98 billion to $128 billion worth of arms sales. This figure could be forecasted to around $350 billion over 10 years, which easily sounds like the biggest arms deal in history.

Saudi Arabia has also played its cards right as far as American interests in the Middle East are concerned. The formation of the Islamic Military Alliance to fight terrorism has struck the right chords in the West. This is besides the fact that almost all of the international terrorist groups receive patronage from Saudi Arabi and Qatar who are all part of the military alliance.

Conspicuous enough, the countries battling terrorists within their borders or giving support to fighting terrorism in other allied countries are missing such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. This has of course tainted the alliance as being ‘sectarian’ in nature despite General Raheel Sharif’s condition that he would become commander-in-chief of the alliance only if Iran was included. Knowing American and Saudi policies in the Middle East, the chances of this happening are zero at best.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Patrick Cockburn

In the wake of the massacre in Manchester, people rightly warn against blaming the entire Muslim community in Britain and the world. Certainly one of the aims of those who carry out such atrocities is to provoke the communal punishment of all Muslims, thereby alienating a portion of them who will then become open to recruitment by ISIS and al-Qaeda clones.

This approach of not blaming Muslims in general but targeting “radicalisation” or simply “evil” may appear sensible and moderate, but in practice it makes the motivation of the killers in Manchester or the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015 appear vaguer and less identifiable than it really is. Such generalities have the unfortunate effect of preventing people pointing an accusing finger at the variant of Islam which certainly is responsible for preparing the soil for the beliefs and actions likely to have inspired the suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

The ultimate inspiration for such people is Wahhabism, the puritanical, fanatical and regressive type of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, whose ideology is same as that of al-Qaeda and ISIS. This is an exclusive creed, intolerant of all who disagree with it such as secular liberals, members of other Muslim communities such as the Sufis, Shia or women resisting their chattel-like status.

What has been termed Salafi jihadism, the core beliefs of Isis and al-Qaeda, developed out of Wahhabism, and has carried out its prejudices to what it sees as a logical and violent conclusion. Shia and Yazidis were not just heretics in the eyes of this movement, which was a sort of Islamic Khmer Rouge, but sub-humans who should be massacred or enslaved. Any woman who transgressed against repressive social mores should be savagely punished. Faith should be demonstrated by a public death of the believer, slaughtering the unbelievers, be they the 86 Shia children being evacuated by bus from their homes in Syria on 15 April or the butchery of young fans at a pop concert in Manchester on Monday night.

The real causes of “radicalisation” have long been known, but the government, the BBC and others seldom if ever refer to it because they do not want to offend the Saudis or be accused of anti-Islamic bias. It is much easier to say, piously but quite inaccurately, that Isis and al-Qaeda and their murderous foot soldiers “have nothing to do with Islam”.

This has been the track record of US and UK governments since 9/11. They will look in any direction except Saudi Arabia when seeking the causes of terrorism. President Trump has been justly denounced and derided in the US for last Sunday accusing Iran and, in effect, the Shia community of responsibility for the wave of terrorism that has engulfed the region when it ultimately emanates from one small but immensely influential sect - the Salafis. One of the great cultural changes in the world over the last 50 years is the way in which Wahhabism/ Salafist once an isolated splinter group, has become an increasingly dominant influence over mainstream Islam, thanks to Saudi financial support.

A further sign of the Salafi-jihadi impact is the choice of targets: the attacks on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015, a gay night club in Florida in 2016 and the Manchester Arena this week have one thing in common. They were all frequented by young people enjoying entertainment and a lifestyle which made them an Isis or al-Qaeda target. But these are also events where the mixing of men and women or the very presence of gay people is denounced by puritan Wahhabis and Salafi jihadis alike. They both live in a cultural environment in which the demonisation of such people and activities is the norm, though their response may differ.

The culpability of Western governments for terrorist attacks on their own citizens is glaring but is seldom even referred to. Leaders want to have a political and commercial alliance with Saudi Arabia. They have never held them to account for supporting a repressive and sectarian ideology which is likely to have inspired Salman Abedi. Details of his motivation may be lacking, but the target of his attack and the method of his death is classic al-Qaeda and ISIS in its mode of operating.

The reason these two demonic organisations were able to survive and expand despite the billions – perhaps trillions – of dollars spent on “the war on terror” after 9/11 is that those responsible for stopping them deliberately missed the target and have gone on doing so. After 9/11, President Bush portrayed Iraq not Saudi Arabia as the enemy; in a re-run of history President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East. This is the real 9/11 conspiracy, beloved of crackpots worldwide, but there is nothing secret about the deliberate blindness of British and American governments to the source of the beliefs that has inspired the massacres of which Manchester is only the latest – and certainly not the last – horrible example.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Vice News

Saudi Arabia is the “foremost” foreign funder of Islamist extremism in the U.K., according to new report released by a British think tank on Wednesday.

The Henry Jackson Society — a right-wing think tank — claims that overseas funding primarily from the governments and private charities of Gulf countries has a “clear and growing link” to the onslaught of violence the U.K. and other Western countries.

The group estimates that the Saudi government and charities spent an estimated $4 billion exporting Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism, worldwide in 2015, up from $2 billion in 2007. In 2015, there were 110 mosques in the U.K. practicing Salafism and Wahhabism compared to 68 in 2007. The money is primarily funneled through mosques and Islamic schools in Britain, according to the report.

“Influence has also been exerted through the training of British Muslim religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, as well as the use of Saudi textbooks in a number of the U.K.’s independent Islamic schools,” the report said.

Responding to the report, Labor MP Dan Jarvis told the BBC that “in the wake of the terrible and tragic terrorist attacks we have seen this year, it is vital that we use every tool at our disposal to protect our communities.”

“This includes identifying the networks that promote and support extremism and shutting down the financial networks that fund it,” he said.

Prime Minister Theresa May created a private government commission for countering extremism in the wake of several deadly terrorist incidents in Britain, including the Manchester Arena attack in which a suicide bomber detonated during an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people. May has faced accusations that she is sitting on a report about terrorist financing that shows Saudi Arabia is largely to blame.

May has publicly reinforced the U.K.’s economic and security ties to the Kingdom and in turn, may be reluctant to point fingers. Saudi Arabia is one of the U.K.’s principal security partners in the Middle East, raking in $4.2 billion in weapons deals since March 2015.

Just like President Trump, one of May’s first international visits was to Saudi Arabia and she has repeatedly defendedher relationship even in the face of criticism over the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in the brutal war in Yemen.

The report includes Qatar in its findings but still concludes that Saudi Arabia is the principal perpetrator.