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While the Wahhabis have always been
sympathetic to Sunni Muslim extremists and evidence exists that they have
supported such people financially as early as a century ago, the real Saudi
offensive to spread Wahhabism aggressively and support kindred extremist groups
world-wide began in the mid-1970s, when the kingdom reaped an incredible
financial windfall with rocketing oil prices after Riaydh's imposition of an oil
embargo in 1973.9 "It was only when oil revenues began to generate real wealth,"
says a government publication, that "the kingdom could fulfill its ambitions of
spreading the word of Islam to every corner of the world."
There are no published Western
estimates of the numbers involved, which, in itself, is evidence of our failure
to address this key issue, but even the occasional tidbits provided by official
Saudi sources, indicate a campaign of unprecedented magnitude. Between 1975
and 1987, the Saudis admit to having spent $48 billion or $4 billion per year on
"overseas development aid," a figure which by the end of 2002 grew to over $70
billion (281 billion Saudi rials). These sums are reported to be Saudi state
aid and almost certainly do not include private donations which are also
distributed by state-controlled charities. Such staggering amounts contrast
starkly with the $5 million in terrorist accounts the Saudis claim to have
frozen since 9/11. In another comparison, it is instructive to put these figures
side by side with the $1 billion per year said to have been spent by the
Soviet Union on external propaganda at the
peak of Moscow's power in the 1970s.
Though it is claimed that this is
"development aid" it is clear from the Saudi media and government statements
alike that the vast majority of these funds support "Islamic activities", rather
than real developmental projects. For example, a report on the yearly activities
of the Al Haramain Foundation described as "keen on spreading the proper
Islamic culture" are listed as follows: "it printed 13 million (Islamic) books,
launched six internet sites, employed more than 3000 callers (proselytizers),
founded 1100 mosques, schools and cultural Islamic centers and posted more than
350,000 letters of call (invitations to convert to Islam)" while the
International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), another key "charity,"
completed 3800 mosques, spent $45 million for Islamic education and employed
6000 proselytizers. Both of these organizations have been implicated in
terrorist activities by U.S. authorities and both operate directly out of Saudi
embassies in all countries in which they do not have their own offices.
The Saudi money is spent
according to a carefully designed plan to enhance Wahhabi influence and control
at the expense of mainstream Muslims. In Muslim countries, much of the aid goes
to fund religious madrassas that teach little more than hatred of the infidels,
while producing barely literate Jihadi cadres. There are now tens of thousands
of these madrassas run by the Wahhabis' Deobandi allies in South Asia and also
throughout Southeastern Asia. In Pakistan alone, foreign funding of these
madrassas, most of which comes from Saudi Arabia, is estimated at no less than
$350 million per year. The Saudis also directly support terrorist activities in
places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chechnya, Bosnia
and, as noticed above, most of the large Saudi foundations have been implicated
in such involvement.
It needs to be emphasized here
that contrary to Saudi claims that charities such as Al Haramain, the Muslim
World League (MWL), the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and the
International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) are independent and
non-governmental, there is conclusive evidence from Saudi sources that they are
tightly controlled by the government and more often than not run by government
officials. It is also the case that as early as 1993, the kingdom passed a law
stipulating that all donations to Muslim charities must be collected in a fund
controlled by a Saudi Prince.
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=alexievtestimony
Seema Mustafa reports on Saudi infiltration of
India back in May, 1997 in BJP Today:
“Money pouring in from the Saudi
Arabian Government for the ostensible uplift of the Muslim ummah is being
diverted for the propagation of militant Islam. Charitable organizations in
India, the major recipients of these funds, have been "infiltrated" by
militants, particularly in Kashmir, who have successfully usurped the money for
anti-state activities.
The Indian government has full
information about the misuse of these funds but has turned a blind eye to
these Saudi operations in this country. The Saudi Arabian Government has been
funding all
kinds of organizations without any system of accountability. In Kashmir
particularly the funding has increased over the years with extremists openly
"capturing" organizations known to be receiving
Saudi donations in lakhs every year. There has been no protest from India even
though it is aware that in the Valley the Saudi funds are being largely utilized
by the militants.”
He goes on to say:
Forty organizations in India are
being funded by the International Islamic Relief Organization based in
Saudi Arabia which is probably the largest
body covering 100 countries through 45 overseas offices. The World Muslim League
is one of its umbrella organizations which has the avowed objective of
propagating militant Islam. The money
being sent is being used for residential
schools for Islamic learning, in keeping with the Saudi intention to develop
Muslim society in India along lines predetermined by it. The key word is
indoctrination.
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0597/0267.html
The Netherlands’s, known for their gentle tolerance, has been a
breeding ground for Islamic Extremists.
From NOVA TV, by Peter ter Horst en
Siem Eikelenboom
In the Netherlands there is a systematic distribution of fundamentalist and
hate-encouraging texts from extremist Muslims.
Nova (Dutch news program) has done an investigation of the politic Islam in the
Netherlands and discovered that in many of the texts there is a call for hate
against Christians, Jews, woman and homosexuals.
"I have been given orders to fight the people, to wage war with them, until
they confess that Allah is the only and true god and Mohammed is his prophet",
is one of the texts in a book that is currently in use by some schools for
children aging 4 to 12 years in the Netherlands. The educational books are from
the foundation Al Waqf from Eindhoven
that holds connections with Saudi-Arabia.
Criminal code expert A. Ellian from the University of Amsterdam says that the
educational books from the foundation Al Waqf from Eindhoven call out for hate.
In one of the study books from Al Waqf the teachers are instructed to
motivate their "students to behave like conquerors".
Foundation Al Waqf also has a youth organization where on the internet a
cyber-imam answers a lot of questions from young Muslims. Questions on this site
are about the way Islam teaches about homosexuality: "... the argument (about
the punishment of homosexuality) that is amongst the "learned" is only about the
way of how the punishment has to be; some say that the person needs to be
beheaded with a sword, others say that he has to be tossed from a high point and
then to be stoned".
An interview with from one of the popular Muslim youth leaders provides
another look at this philosophy of hatred and their desire to spread this
violent sector of Islamic faith globally.
Young fundamentalists
From Trouw, by Romana Ables en Kustaw Bessems,
21 december 2001
Although Barzizaoua recognizes the
disappointment of Van de Ven, who is disgusted with Holland and wants to leave
from there very quickly, he is not considering leaving for a more Islamic
country. "With the religion is nothing wrong in the Netherlands. You can build
mosques everywhere, you can pray, you can do Ramadan. That you are allowed to
call for prayers is even regulated by laws. In a lot of Arabic countries there
is a lot less freedom, you are forced to hold lectures according to what the
state describes. Like in Egypt,
where simple believing Muslims like fundamentalists are persecuted. In Morocco
great learned ones are not permitted to leave their house or are jailed."
Furthermore: "If Muslims did not settle outside a Muslim country, the Islam
would not have come further than Mecca
and Medina. Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are only “Islamized” by
trade-journeys. Retreating to a country
that is already Islamic would not be in accordance to the universal character of
Islam, a defeat. The prophet did say: the whole world is my mosque. Humanity can
learn a lot from Islam
So based on the years of infiltration, the money behind it, and
the State support of spreading Wahhabi belief, it appears they have grander
plans than many expected such as a quiet invasion of Europe. Perhaps that
explains France’s strange behavior over the past year? Were they also bought
out by the Saudi’s?
Recent research studies all tell the
same story: falling birth rates in France, Germany, and other Western European
nations mean their populations are not being replaced. Married couples with even
as few as two children are rare, and the median age of residents in these
countries is climbing. Fears about the political and economic viability of "Old
Europe" are being openly expressed.
While this severe downturn is taking place, Western Europe is also experiencing an extraordinary influx of newcomers, including
many Muslims. Mosques are being built, but not without tension and controversy.
Catholic leaders in Rome have expressed
concern about the anti-Christian sermons emanating from the new Muslim house of
worship in the Eternal City.
Muslims have established separate schools and some extremists openly boast that
Europe will soon become part of the Islamic world, avenging the Christian
military victories centuries ago in Spain and Vienna. Muslim zealots claim
Islamic hegemony is only a matter of time as their youthful population increases
while the "Old Europe" population decreases.
Read the Jews Week Article
Let’s look at how they began in Chechnya.
How Jihad Made Its Way to Chechnya
Secular Separatist Movement Transformed by Militant Vanguard
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 26, 2003;
KARAMAKHI, Dagestan -- This isolated
southwest Russian village of dirt roads and one-story clay brick houses was
profoundly peaceful, its residents say, until a Jordanian cleric named Khabib
Abdurrakhman arrived in the early 1990s with a seemingly irresistible deal.
To a hamlet made destitute by the
collapse of the Soviet Union, Abdurrakhman brought a slaughtered cow and a free
feast every week. In a place where many people were left jobless by the demise
of the local collective farm, he handed out $30 to every convert who came to his
simple mosque. And to those adrift in the social chaos of the Soviet breakdown,
he offered a new purpose in life -- a form of their traditional Islam rooted in
fundamentalism and militancy.
Few questioned where his money came
from, or who were the other Arabs who began to drift into the community. By the
time questions did arise, it was too late.
By 1999, Abdurrakhman's growing band
of followers had transformed the little settlement into an armed enclave,
crisscrossed by tunnels and trenches and stockpiled with weapons for
Abdurrakhman's true mission: severing Dagestan from Russian control and
merging it into an Islamic state with neighboring Chechnya.
"They tried to lure people in a
friendly way at first," according to Magomed Makhdiyev, the village imam, who
says he tried to withstand the fundamentalists' influence. "But by 1999, they
were saying, 'Join us or we'll cut your head off.' "
Those scruples faded in the
mid-1990s, as more and more Arab missionaries and fighters flocked to the
republic, proclaiming Islamic law, or sharia, and promoting Wahhabist
traditions. Warlords had come to dominate Chechen society, and some of them
embraced the fundamentalist cause.
The article goes into detail on the funding…
The Arabs' goal went beyond
preserving Chechnya's freedom: They wanted to merge Chechnya and Dagestan to
create an Islamic state. Chechnya and Dagestan were poorer than the rest of
Russia, and Dagestan, though home to a mosaic of ethnic groups, was
predominantly Muslim. Its access to the
Caspian Sea and its oil and gas reserves gave it a
strategic importance to Russia that Chechnya did not share.
One of the new leaders was Khattab,
who fought with bin Laden in Afghanistan as a teenager and who
had publicly praised the al Qaeda leader as the "main commander of the
mujaheddin worldwide." Khattab's position in the rebel movement was assured when
he won over Shamil Basayev, Chechnya's best-known militant.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A39482-2003Apr25¬Found=true
So has Al-Haramain Charitable
Institution closed down? Well they
still have it listed at Arriyadh.com a Saudi Riyadh website which states it has
branches in:
The Institution has branches in the
following countries:
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India,
Palestine, Jordan, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Thailand, Kashmir, Iran,
Burma, Sri Lanka, Khazakistan, Tajikhstan, Afghanistan, Federal Russia,
Indonesia, Nepal, Kurdistan, Lebanon, China, Sierra Leon, Uganda, Somalia,
Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea, Nigeria, Eriterea, Sudan, Mauritania, Mali, Chad,
Niger, Djibouti, Ghana, Cameron, Bosnia, Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Holland,
Belgium, Sweden, U.S.A., and Australia.
It states its main objectives are:
1. Firmly establish the correct
faith in the hearts of Muslims as stated in the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah
(teachings of Prophet Mohammed -pbuh-).
2. Concentrate on teaching the
correct Sunnah and its importance in understanding religious belief as well as
in worshipping and behavior
That leads us back to oil and the global plays
around energy supply. OPEC is a cartel of oil producing countries that set the
price for their oil. The members include Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,
Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and
Venezuela. How is this balanced with international price setting? What is the
history since its inception and the Arab Oil Embargo exercised on October, 17th
1973 causing the stagnation and energy crisis in the US? The embargo was
imposed by the Arabs for US support of Israel. This may provide some of our
answers for dealing with today’s problems. After setting the background on
Saudi infiltration this topic of global energy warrants an entire article to
itself…
Last week
the first part of this article explained the difference between Islamic
countries and “Islamization” countries which is essential for the West to
understand to effectively counterstrike on this war on terror. If you missed it
please read here Last Weeks Article
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