Saturday, July 26, 2008

Saudi Salafism a Stronger Force in Islamist Militancy than Recanting Clerics

"...In his new article, Scheuer asserts that the Western press has bought the idea that al-Qaeda is near defeat. Journalists, he says, have bought it because some Islamist ideologues who previously supported al-Qaeda have criticized the organization. (Scheuer calls these criticisms “recantations,” but only a few of the people he mentions have recanted.) These criticisms, Scheuer says, “are part of a bigger project conducted by several Arab states–led by Saudi Arabia–to make the United States and its allies believe Islamism’s strength is ebbing.” This idea has been picked up by the Western media because people in the West “desperately wants to believe such claims.”
Why is Saudi Arabia conducting this campaign? To divert attention from the real problem, Salafism, which Scheuer calls “Saudi Arabia’s state religion.” The Saudis have even gone so far as to reach out to the pope and to consider the building of a church in the kingdom, all in the hopes that the West will forget that its religious ideology is the “engine of contemporary jihad.” Via Jihadica, here

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