Breaking News. New Global Understanding on the War on Terror.
Gabrielle Reilly | 30.07.2003 01:39 | No War F15 | Anti-militarism | Culture | London
Saudi Arabia’s backing of terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda is only now beginning to be fully understood. A collection of articles and testimonies from around the world shed further light on Saudi Arabia and the terrorist network’s extensive global infiltration. The umbrella “charity” organizations behind this State sponsored and financially supported terror still operate today from the Saudi Royal Family. To begin with here is a testimony from the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism:
Financing Radical Islam
Saudi financing of Islamic extremism plays such a huge role in its emergence as a global phenomenon that a proper understanding of it is impossible without coming to terms with its dimensions. Simply put, without the exorbitant sums of Saudi money spent on supporting extremist networks and activities, the terrorist threat we are facing today would be nowhere as acute as it is.
While the Wahhabis have always been sympathetic to Sunni Muslim extremists and evidence exists that they have supported such people financially as early as a century ago, the real Saudi offensive to spread Wahhabism aggressively and support kindred extremist groups world-wide began in the mid-1970s, when the kingdom reaped an incredible financial windfall with rocketing oil prices after Riaydh's imposition of an oil embargo in 1973.9 "It was only when oil revenues began to generate real wealth," says a government publication, that "the kingdom could fulfill its ambitions of spreading the word of Islam to every corner of the world."
There are no published Western estimates of the numbers involved, which, in itself, is evidence of our failure to address this key issue, but even the occasional tidbits provided by official Saudi sources, indicate a campaign of unprecedented magnitude. Between 1975 and 1987, the Saudis admit to having spent $48 billion or $4 billion per year on "overseas development aid," a figure which by the end of 2002 grew to over $70 billion (281 billion Saudi rials). These sums are reported to be Saudi state aid and almost certainly do not include private donations which are also distributed by state-controlled charities. Such staggering amounts contrast starkly with the $5 million in terrorist accounts the Saudis claim to have frozen since 9/11. In another comparison, it is instructive to put these figures side by side with the $1 billion per year said to have been spent by the Soviet Union on external propaganda at the peak of Moscow's power in the 1970s.
For rest of story click here.
http://www.gabriellereillyweekly.com/full/st072803.htm
Saudi financing of Islamic extremism plays such a huge role in its emergence as a global phenomenon that a proper understanding of it is impossible without coming to terms with its dimensions. Simply put, without the exorbitant sums of Saudi money spent on supporting extremist networks and activities, the terrorist threat we are facing today would be nowhere as acute as it is.
While the Wahhabis have always been sympathetic to Sunni Muslim extremists and evidence exists that they have supported such people financially as early as a century ago, the real Saudi offensive to spread Wahhabism aggressively and support kindred extremist groups world-wide began in the mid-1970s, when the kingdom reaped an incredible financial windfall with rocketing oil prices after Riaydh's imposition of an oil embargo in 1973.9 "It was only when oil revenues began to generate real wealth," says a government publication, that "the kingdom could fulfill its ambitions of spreading the word of Islam to every corner of the world."
There are no published Western estimates of the numbers involved, which, in itself, is evidence of our failure to address this key issue, but even the occasional tidbits provided by official Saudi sources, indicate a campaign of unprecedented magnitude. Between 1975 and 1987, the Saudis admit to having spent $48 billion or $4 billion per year on "overseas development aid," a figure which by the end of 2002 grew to over $70 billion (281 billion Saudi rials). These sums are reported to be Saudi state aid and almost certainly do not include private donations which are also distributed by state-controlled charities. Such staggering amounts contrast starkly with the $5 million in terrorist accounts the Saudis claim to have frozen since 9/11. In another comparison, it is instructive to put these figures side by side with the $1 billion per year said to have been spent by the Soviet Union on external propaganda at the peak of Moscow's power in the 1970s.
For rest of story click here.
http://www.gabriellereillyweekly.com/full/st072803.htm
Gabrielle Reilly
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