Circle of violence coming full circle?
In 1980s Saudis sent the largest single contingent of foreign jihadis to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Saudi fighters developed the reputation of being the most blood-thirsty and cruel in the international brigade of jihadis
Three suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia on one day indicate that the Saudi jihadists are now increasingly realising that it is time to give the Saudi royals a taste of their own medicine. Saudi Arabia has fallen victim to terrorism which it has spawned over decades, encouraging, financing, arming and dispatching terrorists to launch suicide attacks, and bomb innocent people in other countries, thousands of miles away.
To refresh the readers memory let us recount some of the well-known facts. 15 out of the 19 terrorists who launched an attack inside the US on 9/11, and thus opened a Pandora box that refuses to close were Saudi citizens. So was Osama bin Laden, the architect of the present day international f terrorism.
In 1980s Saudis sent the largest single contingent of foreign jihadis to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Saudi fighters developed the reputation of being the most blood-thirsty and cruel in the international brigade of jihadis. More Saudi fighters followed to join the civil war in Afghanistan after the American financed jihad was over with the exit of the Soviet troops. OBL set up training camps in Afghanistan with the help of the Saudi fighters.
Saudi jihadists also fought Russian troops in Chechnya. During the campaign Saudi preachers proselytised among the local population converting some to Wahhabism also known as Salafi ideology. Saudis were also active in Bosnia. Here too jihad and radicalisation of population went hand in hand.
Saudi volunteers entered Iraq soon after the US invasion in 2003. Some joined Abu Musab Zarqawi’s group, the precursor of today’s IS. With Iraqi government falling into the hands of the Shi’a majority the impetus for jihad in Iraq increased.
It is widely understood that substantial and sustained funding from private donors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to which the authorities turned a blind eye, has played a central role in the IS surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. Saudi extremists have been fighting in Iraq alongside the IS as well as al Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) for years against the elected government.
According to Daily Telegraph Saudi Arabia provides the second largest foreign contingent of volunteers fighting in Syria numbering about 2,500. A number of Saudi volunteers in Syria have taken important positions on the ground as clerics or leaders. This could have far reaching implications. Saudi foreign fighters who join jihadist groups such as the IS or Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) have gained tactical experience and further indoctrination of terrorism in Syria. A number of Saudi veterans of the Afghan jihad fighting in Syria have already joined either IS or JN.
Two years back there were predictions that once their “tour” in Syria ends, these fighters could adopt either al Qaeda’s or IS’ targeting patterns while conducting attacks against the Saudi government or in Western countries.
What explains the Saudi citizens’ prominent role in conflicts abroad? Salafi ideological orientation imbibed at home is one factor. This makes them consider all Muslim sects except their own as apostates and the punishment reserved by their clerics for apostasy is death. The well publicised Friday show of public beheadings in Riyadh is the “only form of public entertainment” in Saudi Arabia, as British author John R Bradley puts it. The public beheading of criminals creates an acceptance for brutality like decapitation of those taken prisoner.
The Saudi clerics who whip up sentiments against those practicing other religions are another factor. These clerics have played a major role in the recruitment of jihadis for Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other countries. The Saudi government too has encouraged volunteers seething with religious fervour who were keen to participate in jihad. The government and numerous Saudi charities have also financed the purchase of weapons for those fighting abroad.
By 2014 alarm bells started ringing in the Saudi security agencies about the impact of the more radical organisations on Saudi fighters and the kind of activities that they might get engaged in on return to their country.
The Saudi government issued a royal order in 2014 declaring that any citizen who fights in conflicts abroad will face three to twenty years in jail. A royal edict cannot however undo the mischief that Saudi royalty and clergy have perpetrated over decades. Two years later a group of Salafi clerics issued a counter edict calling upon their fellow citizens to join the anti-Bashar al Asad jihad in Syria.
A section of the population in the Saudi kingdom is already under the influence of the IS and other violent organisations. Relying on these elements the IS has set up several sleeper cells in the kingdom. Arms, ammunition and suicide jackets are easily available to the terrorists. This is shown by the frequency of terrorist attacks conducted on Shi’a mosques, security personnel and officials of intelligence agencies.
The Middle East Monitor, quoting an interior ministry source, reports there were thirty terror attacks in the kingdom in 2015.
The Saudi royalty has made the Salafi ideology the state religion. This is a narrow interpretation of the teachings of Islam rejected by the vast majority of the Muslims spread all over the world.
The Salafis reject the richness acquired by Islam as a result of interaction with other religions and cultures. They insist on returning to primitive Islam rejecting any later day addition as “bidaat” or novelty which is to be treated as heresy. Saudi royalty’s regional rivalry with Iran has particularly turned them into Shi’a haters.
The Saudi regime has no respect for history. It holds that almost any historical monument represents an excuse for idolatry. Abdul Aziz ibn Saud ordered the destruction of the tombs, houses, orchards and relics of the Holy Prophet and his companions as he moved into Mecca in the 1920s.
Conscious of the Salafis still being a small minority sect, the Saudi government and local charities launched a campaign of constructing Salafi mosques and seminaries all over the world under the control of Saudi financed clerics. Besides teaching jihad the seminaries taught students to undertake the type of vandalism the Saudis had already conducted in their own country. This explains attacks on the shrines of Syed Ali Hajveri, or Data Saheb, and Sakhi Sarwar in Punjab, Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi and Sufi poet Rehman Baba in KP. These are just a few examples out of dozens.
While the terrorists inspired by Salafi ideology launched attacks on shrines in Pakistan, in Afghanistan they destroyed the magnificent Bamyan Buddha; in Timbuktu they set on fire the historic library containing rare manuscripts some dating from the 13th century; in Syrian cities they attacked Islamic relics, centuries old churches and medieval forts constructed by Crusaders besides the Roman ruins of Palmyra.
As Robert Fisk puts it, this hatred of history is part and parcel of the retrograde Wahhabi belief in which the past has only a spiritual presence, its physical remains a reminder only of imperfection.
It is no wonder that IS, which shares the Saudi rulers’ Salafist ideology, has attacked Masjid-e- Nabavi in Medina hosting the Prophet’s last remains. The man who indulged in the horrific crime must be thinking he was taking the Salafi teachings to their logical conclusion.
