Asia TimesThe other role of the House of Saud - its part in the problem - is much more difficult to document and explain, as the Saudi regime does not want the world to know about it. What is clear, however, is the broad context: Riyadh's fight against terrorism since May 2003 and related calls for national unity have provided a facade for behind-the-scenes moves to strengthen the role of the Wahhabi religious establishment, with whom the al-Saud rules in effective partnership. [13]
Such moves are bad news for the "war on terrorism" in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The Saudi royal family certainly cracked down hard on al-Qaeda in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the subsequent Islamist campaign of violence inside the kingdom. To shore up support among its core constituents, however, whom the crackdown risked alienating, it also reached out not only to the masses through advertising campaigns, but also to the hardline religious establishment whose support legitimizes the royal family. The regime claimed to endorse a "truer" version of Islam than that of the terrorist organizations. Yet, the line between that "truer" Islam and al-Qaeda's proclaimed ideology is becoming increasingly blurred.
Saudi leaders, in their eagerness to prove their Islamist credentials in the face of charges of being US puppets, [14] have empowered a number of clerics who, although not overtly critical of the regime, are also not overtly critical of the terrorists - indeed, on occasion, quite the reverse. The words and actions of these clerics challenge the official, antiterrorism narrative fine-tuned at the Riyadh conference, heavily promoted by the state-controlled media as well as Saudi embassies abroad, and tied to reality by the frequent clashes between the security forces and suspected militants. In this counter-narrative, the al-Saud, despite its effort to hunt down those who directly threaten its own rule, is less serious about tackling the deeper issues related to the funding of, ideological legitimization of, and recruitment for al-Qaeda in the kingdom.
Particularly alarming was Riyadh's announcement, just days after the counter-terrorism conference and one day before a first round of partial municipal elections got underway, that Abdullah al-Obeid, a former head of an Islamic charity, had been appointed as the kingdom's new education minister. Described by the Wall Street Journal as "an official enmeshed in a terror financing controversy", he is a former director of the Muslim World League (WML), the parent organization of the International Islamic Relief Organization, which the US Department of the Treasury claims may have had financial ties to Islamist terrorist groups. Obeid was head of the WML from 1995 to 2002, during which time the charity spent tens of millions of dollars to finance the spread of Wahhabism. The Wall Street Journal quoted an essay by Obeid from 2002 in which he blamed "some mass media centers that are managed and run by Jews in the West" for reports linking terrorism and Islam. [15] He also reportedly organized symposiums to explain that Palestinian suicide attacks on Israelis "are conducted in self-defense" and "are lawful and approved by all religious standards, international treaties, norms and announcements". [16]
On the basis of such evidence, Obeid, who replaced as education minister the secular, progressive-minded Muhammad al-Rasheed, a man hated by the hardline Wahhabis, [17] is not an individual the West should trust to delete anti-Semitic and anti-Christian passages from the Saudi school curriculum, let alone its pro-jihadi rhetoric, all widely blamed as providing ideological justification for attacks on non-Muslims by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.
Nor, for that matter, is there much cause for confidence in the Saudi chief justice, Saleh bin Muhammad al-Luhaidan, who also holds the rank of government minister. Luhaidan has been accused of instructing Saudis on how to fight US and Iraqi troops in Iraq in the name of Allah. An October 2004 recording obtained and distributed by a Washington-based Saudi dissident group has Luhaideen making remarks at a mosque in Riyadh in response to questions from a group of Saudis who wanted to join terrorist organizations in Iraq. [18] He is heard advising that those who still want to join the fight must be careful when entering the country because US planes and satellite surveillance equipment may be monitoring the borders. He adds that those Saudis who do manage to enter Iraq will not be punished by the Saudi security forces and insists that money raised for the jihad must go directly to those who will launch attacks.
Two of the kingdom's most extremist, anti-Western clerics, Safar al-Hawali and Salman al-Auda, known as "awakening sheikhs" because of their powerful influence on young Arab Muslims in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War when they were imprisoned by the al-Saud, have also returned to the mainstream, even acting as intermediaries between the government and suspected terrorists. [19] Hawali, who reportedly recently suffered a heart attack, is secretary general of the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign, a militant, anti-American entity established by more than 225 radical figures from across the Islamic world as a response to the US invasion of Iraq. The group's initial statement condemned "the Zionists and the American administration led by right-wing extremists that are working to expand their control over nations and peoples, loot their resources, destroy their will, and to change their educational curricula and social system". [20]
In November 2004, Hawali and Auda were among 26 Saudi clerics, most of whom receive their salaries from the Saudi royal family, who published a religious statement urging Muslims to wage holy war in Iraq. "Jihad against the occupiers is a must," said the statement. "It is not only a legitimate right, but a religious duty." [21] The fact that both of these men remain in their jobs speaks volumes. The al-Saud's secret strategy is to put out the message that it is okay to attack "infidels" in Iraq, but not in Saudi Arabia. Critics of the regime refer to this when they point out alleged "Saudi duplicity". According to a recent study, some 60% of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals, [22] and even a Saudi-based analyst concedes that as many as 2,500 Saudis have crossed over to Iraq to join the insurgency. [23] Saudi observer and Gulf expert Simon Henderson has written in a more general context:
Worried about their own necks, the Saudi royal family tolerates a political fudge, hoping that it can reduce support for al-Qaeda from among its citizens and win the battle for Islamic legitimacy. Al-Qaeda recognizes the basic rules, targeting foreigners. Hence, no direct attacks on members of the House of Saud itself ... Before 9/11, Western officials say that senior princes were paying off bin Laden to avoid targeting the kingdom altogether. That changed when Western pressure stopped the payments. For the West, this means more terrorism and high oil prices. [24]
One has to wonder about the duplicity within the regime. Actually, because of a little known fact, it all makes sense. Bin Ladin was part of Ronald Reagan's strategy against the Soviets in Afghanistan. From Juan Cole:
Salon.comFahd was a ruler of a small, defenseless country, and the only weapon he had was money. The Saudi population in 1980 was probably only 5 million, not counting guest workers. But between 1973 and 1980, annual government oil revenues jumped from $4.3 billion to $101.8 billion, in U.S. dollars. Fahd made the fateful decision to seek the security umbrella of the United States.
In exchange for sophisticated U.S. weaponry such as AWACS spy planes, F-15 accessories and Stinger shoulder-held missiles, he signed on to President Ronald Reagan's creation of anti-communist militias -- in effect private terrorist armies -- giving them Saudi money in Nicaragua, Angola and Ethiopia, and vastly increasing aid to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Although Saudi officials deny a formal relationship to Osama bin Laden, who was a fundraiser for the Mujahedeen fighting the Soviets, it seems that he did have a relationship to Saudi intelligence in Pakistan. Some say that bin Laden was recruited as a fundraiser by Fahd's nephew, Turki al-Faisal, the then-minister of intelligence. (Abdullah recently appointed al-Faisal as the Saudi ambassador to Washington.)
The Bin Ladin's have been an important part of the Saudi royalty for years. Osama had a lot of ties to Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and became the chief fundraiser, organizer and recruiter for the Saudi effort against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, Osama had much success in certain circles in Saudi Arabia. What would be surprising would be that all of Osama's supporters would turn against him after 9/11.
It appears to me what is going on is a civil war by proxy in Saudi Arabia. Abullah is mollifying Osama's supporters by improving their position in the community while he attempts to eliminate Al Qaeda operatives in his country. All this suggests the fundamentalists are a very strong force in Saudi Arabia. The real question is how successful can Abdullah split Osama from his supporters in the royal family and ensure his successor will be a moderate. That outcome is far from assured. Clearly this is a subtly that escapes Bush and the neo-cons. I'm sure they have been counting on launching an invasion of Saudi Arabia from their base in the western deserts of Iraq.
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