Saudi Arabia Disavows its Son Twice
Ali Mourad - "al-Akhbar" Newspaper
The Saud Family video and print media outlets have been working hard since the Paris terrorist attacks to pump a huge amount of reports and articles that promote a central idea in indirect ways: "The Saudi regime and Wahhabi thought disavow the responsibility of producing "ISIS" terrorism that began hitting capitals in Europe and around the world."
Saudi newspapers manipulated some information circulated by European media outlets about the mastermind of the Paris attacks Abdul Hamid Abaoud. The "al-Sharq al-Awsat" newspaper wrote in its headlines on November 19, 2015: "The Paris Attacks Mastermind Studied in Catholic School, Hung out in Bars." The paper selected what suits the official governmental order supervised by the Minister of Information Adel al-Toraifi, portraying to its readers that what led the "ISIS"-affiliated Abaoud to carry out what he had done is due to his bad education and upbringing (according to the Wahhabi belief that considers Catholics infidels.)
The story didn't end here, as the "al-Arabiyah" Saudi channel left great space in its news reports on Saturday November 21st, 2015 to highlight the story of "Hasna Aitboulahcen", the girl who was killed in St-Denis apartment, that she ended up with "ISIS" after being a "bad girl" who drank wine, used drugs, and suffered from a difficult childhood under her divorced parents.
This Saudi concentration on the personal life of each terrorist who participated in France's attacks, by recalling stories of the difficult past, drinking wine and using drugs, is to stress that there is no ideological and intellectual background behind attracting Abaoud and Boulahcen toward terrorism, but just "disrespectful ethical looseness" that made them victims of "ISIS".
Inside Saudi Arabia, written media was on alert to highlight the "campaign" the Prince of al-Qassim Faisal bin Mashaal bin Saud bi Abdul Aziz had launched in late May, which he called: "Together against Terrorism and Misguiding Thought." However, it appears that he asked the newspapers to re-highlight his campaign at this time in particular.
In this context, the "Al-Madina" newspaper ran a title in its Friday November 20, 2015 edition called: "Specialists: Secret Hands and Foreign Institutions Seek "Destroying and Recruiting" Saudi Youth." The article includes interviews conducted with "specialists" who are either members of the "al-Monasaha" committees or directors of legal preaching centers, who all praised "his majesty's" campaign, warning of secret hands that aim at harming their youth by spreading the "ISIS" culture in their society which is "strange" to "ISIS" culture.
As per the futile Saudi media, which could not produce other than those who were brought up with Wahhabi belief, someone would say that the responsibility of the fathers should not be held by their sons, because the Wahhabi massacres that took place in the past happened under certain circumstances imposed by the policy and geography of the incidents back then, between the Ottoman Sultanate and the British Empire.
The response would be quick, citing a history full of evidence on the Saud Family masterminding a process across a couple of centuries, and handing it to their sons. The Saudis proved they are able to appear under (the garb of) religion whenever they need. Abdul Aziz repeated the experience of his grandfather Mohammad bin Saud with the Bedouins of Najd again in the wake of the twentieth century, supported by the grandsons of the son of Abdul Wahhab, who washed the brains of their followers, calling them "brothers of he who obeys Allah", performing what he desired of expansion and invasions in the Arabian Peninsula.
And after "his brothers" became stronger, practicing the most brutal killings and destruction in the Arabian Peninsula, especially the "Tarbah Massacre" in Hejaz (the author of "The History of Najd and its Auxiliaries" estimates the number of casualties in this massacre as 8000 civilians of the Hejazi males, females and children, in addition to 7000 soldiers of Sheriff Abdallah bin Hussein's army that were deceived on the night of May 15, 1915), the world started learning the practices of "Abdul Aziz's brothers", and the British felt the danger of the brothers escaping from ibn Saud's control through their repeated invasions of their strongholds in Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan in the late 1920s.
Hence, Britain made the decision and Abdul Aziz couldn't but apply it and disavow the "brothers" whom he produced, supervising the formation of the ideology of their brains, thus ordering the Wahhabi Sheikhs to issue the fatwas that consider them as infidels and excluded from the sect. Thereafter, Britain launched aerial strikes against them, and they were also attacked by Abdul Aziz's army, so they vanished in the Sabilla Battle of March 1929.
Upon the death of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Salman became in charge of power. The "Foreign Policy" magazine published on January 27th, 2015 an article by the American author David Wennberg, citing a former officer in the CIA called "Bruce Riddell", saying that Salman used to gather funds in the 1980s for the "fighters" in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets, and the Bosnia Muslims during the Balkan struggles in the 1990s. He added that Salman was the main funder of boosting the fundamentalists in the warring countries abroad.
Wennberg noted that Salman, instructed by his brother King Khaled (who ruled from 1975 till 1982), used the family communications to achieve international goals in the wake of the Afghani struggle, by running a committee to raise funds. The author further cited another CIA officer who worked in Pakistan in the 1980s, saying that the private Saudi funds in that period ranged between 20 and 25 million dollars per month.
Rachel Bronson, in her book "Thicker than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia", says that Salman helped recruit fighters for the Afghani extremist Abdul Rassoul Saif, Osama bin Laden's guide, and the mastermind of September 11 attacks in New York, Khaled Sheikh Mohammad. Wennberg also noted that Salman, after proving successful in the first mission of running "the higher Saudi commissioner for relieving Bosnia and Herzegovina" when it was established in 1992 by the order of his brother King Fahed - in which he raised funds from the ruling family to "relief" Balkan - remained supervising the commission until it was closed in 2011.
He further added that in 2001, the commission collected some 600 million dollars under the title of relief and pure religious goals. Indeed, however, the money went to buying weapons despite the UN decision regarding the arms embargo in Bosnia. He also explained that the NATO forces in late 2001 charged into the commission's offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital, Sarajevo, finding photos before and after the al-Qaeda attacks on September 11, 2001, as well as guidelines regarding how to fraud the motto of the American Department of State, in addition to maps of governmental buildings in Washington.
Moreover, Wennberg noted that this raid is not the first evidence against the commission exceeding its role in humanitarian aids; between 1992 and 1995, European officials chased the transfer of some 120 million dollars as funds from Egyptian personal accounts for Salman to a Bosnian aids organization based in Vienna, called "Third World Relief Agency."
He also explained that although the agency focuses on providing humanitarian relief, western intelligence estimated that it spent most of its funds on arming the fighters allied with the Bosnian government. Some al-Qaeda dissidents gave evidence in before the UN, saying that Salman's commission and the community offered key support for al-Qaeda in Bosnia. The Saudi support for fighters in Afghanistan and the Balkans had opposite impacts at the end, when the veteran fighters returned to the country, forming the spinal cord of al-Qaeda attacks' escalation in the Saudi Arabian Peninsula in 2003.
The "Arab Spring" events broke out and the al-Qaeda group emerged in several Arab countries, establishing "ISIS" following the American invasion to Iraq in 2003, led by former fighters in Afghanistan who transformed their expertise to a new generation that got engaged in their lines to grow and strengthen its destructive role in Iraq. There is no doubt that its western expansion toward Syria, and its control of oil wells in ar-Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour, in parallel with the absence of Syrian (state) authority in the region, led to the development of its performance, and independence from its financial sources somehow. It also transformed it into a military power whose operations began to shake big countries such as France.
The coalition led by Washington against the organization from the air, and the later Russian airstrikes on its strongholds, with talks on an inclusive international coalition to crush the organization after the bloody Paris attacks, as well as the group's threats to Europe and many international capitals, all of this made Saudi Arabia disavow - before the media and the west - any responsibility for creating the al-Qaeda organization and its terrorist wings - different in form but identical in essence.
In addition, Saudi Arabia disavowed supporting them, which made some western countries and figures hold Riyadh responsibility for supporting terrorism in one way or another. The last of such indicators was the statement of the US presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said few days ago in front of the Foreign Relations Council in New York that "the donors from Saudi Arabia are the greatest source of funding terrorist groups in the world."
The Saudis know very well that the world has been recently asking, and will ask more in the future, after every terrorist attack that hits western cities, about the relationship between "ISIS" and the Wahhabi ideology. The Saudis could no longer deny and bury their heads in the ground under their insistence to continue performing their heritage of belief in their daily political and judicial life.
Our region is no more the same that was in the time of Mohammad bin Saud and Mohammad bin Abdul Wahhab, or even in the time of the founder of their third kingdom Abdul Aziz. The world now can see, listen, and understand.
In case the Saud Family keeps denying their responsibility for shedding innocent blood in the east and the west, relying on the imperial authority governing the old and new colonial countries, then they will discover sooner or later that those imperialists will soon throw them away in front of any world public opinion, just as they did to many before them.
Unless the Saudis hurry to understand that the globe does not rotate any longer around them as it used in the past, as long as their oil is not appealing for the west anymore, let the people of the region expect the fall of their regime who knows very well that it would not have reached power in case it was destined to remain for one person since the beginning.
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