It’s all because of ignorance, doncha know. “King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia tells young people that “˜True” Islam is not terrorism,” by Eman El-Shenawi for Al-Arabiya, July 24:
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has urged Islamic scholars to teach young people “true” Islamic principles and avoid extremism and fanaticism.
The king’s remarks were read out by Prince Khaled Al Faisal at an international Islamic conference in Saudi this week.
The king said that scholars should resolve problems facing the international Muslim community, such as the widespread association of Islam to terrorism, the Saudi Gazette reported.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia keeps a tab on the developments in the Muslim World, and pays special attention to the problems confronting the people,” the king said.
“Undoubtedly, terrorism was a product of ignorance of the Islamic principles which advocate moderation, flexibility and tolerance,” King Abdullah said….
And there’s a lot of ignorance in Saudi Arabia:
“Wikileaks: Saudis ‘chief funders of al-Qaeda,'” by Alex Spillius in the Telegraph, December 5, 2010:
Private individuals in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states friendly to the United States are the chief source of funding for al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups, according to leaked US diplomatic cables. Despite extensive efforts to limit the distribution of funds to extremists from the Middle East, the documents show deep frustration in Washington with the level of co-operation from governments in the region.
“It has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority,” read a cable from Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, dated Dec 30, 2009.
“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” added the document.
The Saudis have recognised that they have trouble policing the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, when it is estimated that millions of dollars are raised for militants who send agents into the oil-rich kingdom under the cover of Muslim pilgrims.
The Saudi interior ministry co-operated when terrorist funding was brought to its attention, but remained “almost completely dependent on the CIA to provide analytic support and direction for its counterterrorism operations“, said a cable from the US embassy in Riyadh. “As such, our success against terrorist financing in the kingdom remains directly tied to our ability to provide actionable intelligence to our Saudi counterparts.”
There was no accusation of official Saudi government support of militants. The Clinton memo credited the Saudis with “significant progress” under US pressure to deal with the issue, especially disrupting al-Qaeda’s finance channels.
However, it claimed that “Riyadh has taken only limited action” to interrupt the flow of money to Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and associated groups which have launched attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. It believed that private funds from Arab states were the Taliban’s greatest source of income, above revenues from the opium-poppy trade….
