Saudi Arabia: another name for ‘Jihadi factories’

Following is the summary of the views expressed by India's well known security expert and geo-strategist Brahma Chellaney in his recent post at TheGlobeandMail.com. The link of the article is given below.

• In the article Chellaney explains that modern day terrorism is derived from Wahhabism. In his words:"The Brussels bombings, as with the Paris terrorist attacks last year, show that jihadi-minded citizens of European Union states can turn into killers by imbibing the insidious ideology of Wahhabism."
• He further elaborates on the crucial role Saudi Arabia has played in the rise of Wahhabism. "Since the oil-price boom of the 1970s, Saudi Arabia has spent more than $200-billion on its global jihad project, including funding Wahhabi madrassas, mosques, clerics and books. Wahhabism legitimizes violent jihad with its call for a war on "infidels."
• Chellaney argues that the countries like Saudi Arabia are funding Wahhabism. To quote from his article: "The export of Wahhabism by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some other oil sheikdoms is the source of modern Islamist terror. From Africa to Asia and now Europe, Arabian petrodollars have played a key role in fomenting militant Islamic fundamentalism that targets the West, Israel and India as its enemies."
• Chellaney has further stated that because of the resources, like oil, it has control over and the over the top donations that the Saudi kings make ,the West has turned a blind eye towards them saying "How the Saudi kingdom buys up world leaders is apparent from the Malaysian attorney-general's recent disclosure that $681-million (U.S.) deposited in Prime Minister Najib Razak's personal bank account was a "personal donation" from the Saudi royals and that $620-million of it was returned. Saudi Arabia has also given between $10-million and $25-million to the Clinton Foundation."
• However of late, world leaders have started acknowledging the connection of Jihad and Saudi Arabia. Here are a few noteworthy observations.

German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said : "We must make it clear to the Saudis that the time of looking the other way is over."

"As U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden said in a 2014 speech at Harvard University, Saudi and other "allies' policies wound up helping to arm and build allies of al-Qaeda and eventually the terrorist [Islamic State]."

"The late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew correctly said in 2003 that winning the war on terror hinges more on controlling the "queen bees" – the "preachers" of the "deviant form of Islam" – than on simply killing the "worker bees" (terrorists)."

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and author, most recently of Water, Peace, and War.

Link :Theglobeandmail.com