Sadiq Khan, Minister of Cohesion, visited Saudi Arabia last week and became the first western minister to make the pilgramage to Mecca. He also visited Medina, where he had this to say about the University of Medina:
“I was encouraged by the university’s obvious commitment to ensure that the students have sufficient expertise and knowledge to stand in the way of violent extremism.”
Earlier this month, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was equally impressed with Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation program for former militants and its newfound committment to tackling anti-extremism at home and has been helping Pakistan in its efforts to contain the Taliban insurgency there.
All very good but this seems to be trotting out some anodyne line on Saudi Arabia merely for diplomatic reasons. But why the kudos now being heaped on the Saudis? Possibly because the US are considering sending the Yemeni detainees of Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia as part of Washington’s intentions to close down the detention centre. The Saudis have had much success lately in tackling its homegrown jihadi cells and al Qaeda franchises. The Saudi’s appetite for tackling extremism has seen great improvements after al Qaeda attacked Saudi Arabia twice in 2003. Three factors contribute to this success:
1) The orthodox Wahhabi establishment of government scholars are completely integrated with the political insitiutions of the royal family. This historic Saudi-Wahhabi alliance with its monarchist scholars have long provided the Saudi royal establishment with religious legitimacy.
2) The power of the strong tribal structures which pay deference to the Sauds is normative.
3) The Saudis have vast amounts of petro-dollars at their disposal for throwing at disgruntled Islamists and money is known to be a strong de-radicalisation tool
But can we be sure that Saudi Arabia is wholly committed to fighting Islamist radicalism?
The jihadist threat within the kingdom remains, but a combination of unique circumstances enabled Saudi Arabia to make considerable progress on the home front. Fears still exist that because of the ultraconservative religious nature of the state, the monarchy might fall and be replaced by a radical regime — especially as the kingdom enters an extended period of transition. But for now, the Saudi situation is stable to the point where the Saudis can look beyond their borders and offer help to other jihadist trouble spots.
The success of Saudi Arabian anti-extremists strategies so highly regarded lately by Sadiq Khan and Robert Gates do not bear up to scrutiny. The levels of state financing of al Qaeda have always been regarded as an open secret.
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia remains the world’s leading source of money for Al Qaeda and other extremist networks and has failed to take key steps requested by U.S. officials to stem the flow, the Bush administration’s top financial counter-terrorism official said Tuesday.
The numbers of al Qaeda extremists are decreasing in Saudi Arabia not so much because of de-radicalisation as simply because they are moving out and setting up in Sanaa in neighbouring Yemen. The Yemen Soldiers Brigade, an al Qaeda franchise, is bulging with new recruits from Saudi Arabia:
The announcement also provided links to downloadable versions of the latest issue of the group’s online magazine, Sada al-Malahim, (Arabic for “The Echo of Battle”). The Web page links provided to download the magazine also featured trailers advertising the pending release of a new video from the group, now referred to by its new name, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The translated name of this new organization sounds very similar to the old Saudi al Qaeda franchise, the al Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic, “Tandheem al Qaeda fi Jazeerat al-Arabiyah”). But the new group’s new Arabic name, Tanzim Qa’idat al-Jihad fi Jazirat al-Arab, is slightly different. The addition of “al-Jihad” seems to have been influenced by the Iraqi al Qaeda franchise, Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn. The flag of the Islamic State of Iraq also appears in the Jan. 24 video, further illustrating the deep ties between the newly announced organization and al Qaeda in Iraq. Indeed, a number of Yemeni militants traveled to Iraq to fight, and these returning al Qaeda veterans have played a large part in the increased sophistication of militant attacks in Yemen over the past year.
Saudi Arabia’s links with extremism and jihadism in Pakistan and Afghanistan continues unabated. However, the Saudi model for receding the influence of jihadi cells does not necessarily translate to Pakistan, Afghanistan or other South Asian countries let alone Europe:
On the religious front, Afghanistan and Pakistan lack religious establishments. Instead, they both have highly fragmented religious landscapes consisting of rival Islamist groups, competing Sunni sects and networks of madrassas. Even the two countries’ more mainstream ulema are divided into various groups. Unlike in Saudi Arabia and (to a lesser degree) Yemen, only a tiny minority adheres to Salafist/Wahhabi Islam in Southwest Asia. Even so, the Deobandis (the sect of the Taliban and other Islamist militant groups) are a growing movement, posing a challenge to the Shia and the majority Barelvis (a South Asian form of Sufi Islam).
More recently in the USA, a suit has been filed by several insurance companies who are looking to recover over $300 billion for losses incurred in the 9/11 attacks. In the case of the Fedeal Insurance Co vs Saudi Arabia, the following Saudi princes have been named as defendents:
* Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, president of SHC, who was warned in 2000 of his organization’s ties to al Qaeda;
* Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the designated successor to King Abdullah, who received warnings as early as 1994 that some Muslim charitable groups were fronts for al Qaeda;
* Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who as Saudi Minister of the Interior monitors and controls the charities operating in Saudi Arabia;
* Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who was the director of the Kingdom’s Department of General Intelligence (“DGI”) until August 2001; and
* Prince Mohamed al Faisal al Saud, who unlike the other princes named is not a government official but a bank manager alleged to have knowingly provided material sponsorship to international terrorism.
Saudi Arabia’s successes in rolling back religious radicalism at home are the result of a perfect storm of certain unique circumstances that simply do not exist in more troubling jihadist hot spots like Afghanistan and Pakistan or indeed amongst Islamist radicals in Britain. Complimenting the Saudis on their initiatives makes for pleasant diplomatic table talk, but politicians like Sadiq Khan should in addition, be putting public pressure on Saudi Arabia for its continued funding of international Islamist radicalism which have direct effects and repurcussions within Southasian communities in the UK.
6 Comments
Excellent post! And not to discount the influence of the Saudi-owned Dar us-Salam publisher in the process of radicalisation. Most English-speaking Muslims and many non-Muslim Arabists/Islamologists possess at least one Darussalam tome, and whilst the translations are often less than ideal, the company and its staff have made a valuable contribution to da’wah and the globalisation of knowledge. However, instead of making a wide range of texts available that reflect the diversity of Islam, publishing is confined to those scholars who find favour with the most ‘orthodox’ Muslims, apart from the canonical texts that is.
Ideally somebody, somewhere should conduct some research into the effects of Darussalam texts on radicalising English-speaking Muslims. I’d be interested to read the results. One observation that I’ve made is that, often the most radical Muslims, Anjem/Andy being a case point, have little or know knowledge of Arabic. We also notice anecdotally how popular sites like at-Tibyan are and the Salafi interweb, where eccentric use of transliteration invariably reveals the mindset of an author, play a role in radical Islam.
How about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia?
Many have likened Saudi Arabia’s practices with respect to women as “gender apartheid”. Women are not allowed to drive, women are banned from voting and a womans testimony in court is not considered reliable. Prior to 2006 women never had I.D cards and only their names were mentioned on their father’s identity cards.
The legal system is totally in favour of the man. A woman victim of a gang rape, was sentenced by a Saudi court to six months in prison and 200 lashes for violating laws on segregation of the sexes, as she was in an unrelated man’s car at the time of the attack. More recently many conservative clerics supported the case of a 50 year old man marrying an 8 year old girl.
And what exactly are Saudi Arabia’s anti-extremist measures ? are they to execute extremists or to simply put them in holiday camps and spoil them with gifts like Playsations etc. To get out of prison I’m sure most militants will say they have given up their extremists ideas….don’t Sunnis also believe in taqiyya ?
Most of the 9/11 hijackers were of Saudi origin but Saudi has deeper rooted problems than just extremism. It needs to reform on so many fronts, especially on women’s and children’s rights.
It’s typical of western minsters and officals to ignore these issues and praise Saudi Arabia for diplomatic reasons.
Disgraceful.
And where was Obama’s first point of call in his tour of the Middle East? Saudi Arabia. The Times puts it rather understatedly.
Interesting post – I was doing a bit of research into the background to the Saudi ‘jihadi rehab’ question. I came across this first-rate report by Shiraz Maher on Newsnight from a few months back, and can recommend taking the time to watch it.
I know it’s a slightly off-topic for this thread, so maybe worth a full post in its own right?
So Sadiq Khan should have attempted to ‘pressure’ the Saudis to do something or other, should he? Like apologising for torturing British citizens into making false confessions, you mean?
Come off it and give your brain a chance!
The Saudis take one look at the aforesaid Sadik Khan and see someone who looks remarkably like a Pakistani, albeit one with clean fingernails and some sort of temporary job with a temporary British government.
The British envoy was probably offered ten Riyals to wash the car of the first Saudi minister he met.
An aide briskly stepped in and hissed, “Your Excellency. He’s a British government minister!”
“Oh, all right. Twenty Riyals.”
Seriously, has anyone counted which British and American politicians are current and former recipients of Gulf, especially Saudi, largesse? Directly or indirectly, that is. There was Saudi money slipped to the Republicans in Nixon’s day and some people seem to think that John Major might know a thing or two about what is, all things considered, a very disgusting business.
Permit me to add that I write from sweltering Dhahran-on-the-Gulf.