Ibrahim Kontao “studied theology in Saudi Arabia, heads Mali’s wealthiest Islamic charity, known as Al-Farouk, which channels $3 million a year from donors in Gulf Arab states and Turkey.” This money goes to open health clinics in remote areas, but also for mosques and Qur’anic schools. Kontao busily signs checks “as men and women line up outside his air-conditioned office in the Malian capital, Bamako, to ask him for donations and help with their children’s school fees.”
Critics say it and other groups are championing the stricter Wahhabi school of Islam that inspires al-Qaeda- and Islamic State-affiliated militants who claim attacks across West Africa.
All over the world, oil money is fueling the global jihad. That is common knowledge. And such efforts are not limited to the spread of Wahhabism in mosques. Islamic leaders buy the minds and hearts of needy families, and their children, too.
“They gain people’s trust by taking care of their needs,” said Brema Ely Dicko… head of the Social Anthropology Department at the University of Bamako. “Today you see women wearing niqabs, something that used to be very foreign to Mali.”
“Gulf Cash Fuels Fight for Muslim Hearts and Minds in Africa,” by Katarina Hoije, Bloomberg, November 27, 2018:
Ibrahim Kontao is busily signing checks as men and women line up outside his air-conditioned office in the Malian capital, Bamako, to ask him for donations and help with their children’s school fees.
Kontao, who studied theology in Saudi Arabia, heads Mali’s wealthiest Islamic charity, known as Al-Farouk, which channels $3 million a year from donors in Gulf Arab states and Turkey to open mosques, Koranic schools and health clinics in rural areas starved of social services. Critics say it and other groups are championing the stricter Wahhabi school of Islam that inspires al-Qaeda- and Islamic State-affiliated militants who claim attacks across West Africa.
“They gain people’s trust by taking care of their needs,” said Brema Ely Dicko, the 36-year-old head of the Social Anthropology Department at the University of Bamako. “Today you see women wearing niqabs, something that used to be very foreign to Mali.”
Mali teetered on the brink of collapse when a loose alliance of ethnic Tuareg separatists and Islamist insurgents, bolstered by an influx of weapons from Libya, seized the north in the wake of a 2012 coup that left the army in tatters.
Timbuktu Attacks
The militants shocked the international community with a series of attacks in Timbuktu on the centuries-old buildings with tombs of holy men, turning sites into piles of rubble because they were considered idolatrous by the insurgents. The International Criminal Court, in an unprecedented ruling in 2016, jailed the leader of the raids for nine years.Despite the deployment of a 15,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission and a French military force, jihadist attacks have spread to Mali’s center, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of troops and civilians…..
John Vic says
Proves the UN is Helping islamic Barbarism and nothing else, The UN is just a Satanic islamic organisation
christianblood says
(…Wahhabism was spread at the behest of West during the Cold War…) Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia…
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1672777/3-wahhabism-spread-behest-west-cold-war-mohammed-bin-salman/
infidel says
The UN has become a DISGRACE a Dhimmi.. I really do not care for this stupid LEFTY org anymore!!!
James Lincoln says
The United States should not purchase one drop of oil from Islamic theocracies.
We should become either totally energy independent or purchase energy – in any form – only from US friendly governments.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Christian Williams, evil wahhabi ideology was sponsored by mithraist christian west through British colonial power as strategy when fighting ottoman Turks. As such Turkey has no reason to finance the spread of this obnoxious ideology used to undermine Turkish leadership in the Muslim world. I know Turkey has been assisting these mithraist christian west sponsored war ravaging Muslim countries in Africa like Mali and Somalia with developmental projects ,which is now turning them around .obnoxious wahhabism is falling with the fall of fascist evil Zionist agent bastard murderer Ibn salman. In Nigeria, Wahhabi takfiri groups like Izala spreading this cancerous ideology are now running short of financial supply from fascist evil Zionist saudi monarchs and are now abandoning the evil ideology .Boko haram as militant faction of Izala wahhabists are now being decimated by Nigerian military.