I recently came across this interesting admission by a senior US government official putting it on record that:

Saudi Arabia today remains the location where more money is going to terrorism, to Sunni terror groups and to the Taliban than any other place in the world

As the report, Saudi Arabia’s Terror Finance Problem by Douglas Farah notes,

There is little willingness to tackle the Saudis anymore on the issue of cracking down on terror finance. Intelligence services here and in Europe know most of the money for the mujahadeed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere still come from wealthy donors in the Kingdom.

Only a handful of officials, however, dare to say so publicly

The exception has been Stuart Levy, the Treasury undersecretary for terror finance issues, who recently and publicly took on the Saudis in little-noted Congressional testimony.

One of the more interesting parts of the story, however, is…that, in essence, the Saudi government has repeatedly lied to the U.S. government over the steps the Kingdom has taken to crack down.

For example more than two years ago, the Saudis assured then-Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY) that the Kingdom, as promised in 2003, had set up a financial intelligence unit and a commission to oversee the financial dealings of charities, many which have had ties to funding terrorist activities.

Now, Saudi spokesman Nail Jubeir (brother of ambassador Adel Jubeir) “confirmed that Saudi Arabia has not set up the financial intelligence unit or charity commission, but said it was cracking down on the financiers of terrorism in other ways, such as making it illegal for anyone to send money outside the kingdom -without going through official government channels.

Why should I loose sleep over this, you may ask. What concern is it to us?

If this report is anything to go by, it should be of pretty serious concern to us. I doubt though that anyone is loosing sleep over this – yet.

From, “Saudi Arabia Woos China and India“ by Harsh V. Pant, read this richly referenced extract:

A more significant impediment, especially with regard to India, is the proliferation of Saudi-funded religious schools in the country.

A madrasa (Islamic school) education in India has long been a part of many Muslim children’s lives. Madrasas in India number between 8,000 and 40,000.[46] But concerns have been rising in India about the dated and, with Saudi financing, increasingly radical curricula. In 2001, a report of the Group of Ministers on “Reforming the National Security System” recommended the need to modernize madrasa education.[47]

Saudi financial assistance has gone to a range of Indian-Islamic organizations resulting in the establishment of mosques, madrasas, and publishing houses inculcating the Saudi worldview.[48]

Riyadh also provides scholarships to Indian students to study religion in its universities.  The Ahle-Hadith (People of the Tradition of the Prophet), a Sunni Islamic sect with ties to the Saudi state dating back to the 1920s, has arguably been the biggest beneficiary of Saudi monetary assistance contributing to internecine rivalries among various Indian Muslim sects.[51]  While the early Ahle-Hadith was in many ways progressive, it has now altered into an intolerant, literalist strand.

Several Indian Islamic jurists and scholars seem to have gravitated towards this Saudi-sanctioned, radical interpretation of Islam and to a conspiratorial version of global politics. Instructive in this context is a claim made by a Muslim jurist from the Deoband sect in India that “should it be proved that Osama was the mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, he would not be punished under Islamic law since his actions were the result of an independent, legal opinion issued by top jurists.”[52]

Another Islamic scholar from a prominent seminary in north India has argued that “a worldwide anti-Muslim alliance has been formed and is headed by the U.S. It runs in an arc from Hindu fundamentalist India, through China and Russia, and ends with Europe and the U.S. in the west. The effect is to encircle and choke the Islamic world.”[53]

While the radicalism of Deoband would hardly surprise readers – given its reputation for teaching “the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid, oppressive version of Islam that exists anywhere in the world today – what is more worrying (at least to me) is the slow radicalisation of otherwise harmless Madrassas now flush with Saudi money and dominated by Wahabbi ideas (do remember the “S” in SIMI)

That is the real danger lurking beneath the surface and that is what we should be most worried about.

Unfortunately, such worries are rather unfashionable in Lutyen’s Delhi…and such thoughts are far from the mind of our government which earlier this week sent External Affairs Minister, Sh. Pranab Mukherjee to Riyadh to establish a “strategic partnership” with Saudi Arabia.

Curiously, ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna issued a statement after the meetings saying:

“Both sides were keen that genuine businessmen from both sides be given multi-entry visas to boost bilateral investment…”

“genuine businessmen”? I hope they mean it!!

Related Posts:

India’s Islamist Groups – Extracts

Madrassas on Nepal border