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This also goes back to the 1979 Siege of Mecca. Since then, the Saudis have attempted to reduce the threat of Islamist extremism at home by redirecting it abroad, turning jihad into a sort of quasi-official foreign policy.
That same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Saudi government, which hated the Soviets and saw them as a threat, sought to support Afghan rebels. Here was an opportunity: the Muslim world was outraged by the Soviet invasion. The Saudi government implicitly encouraged their country's Wahhabi clerical establishment, recently rich with oil money and dangerously idle, to fund extremist Afghan rebels, and rebel-training extremist madrassas in neighboring Pakistan. Many young Saudi Wahhabis went off themselves to fight, usually quite poorly.
For the Saudi rulers, this foreign policy of jihad was at first a great success. It strengthened Saudi Arabia's effort to fund Afghan rebels, it positioned the often-lecherous Saudi monarchs as leaders of the Muslim world against the Soviet atheists, and, crucially, it distracted the Wahhabis from causing trouble at home. But this strategy was destined to backfire, and disastrously. Those jihadists would inevitably turn their guns on the very Saudi government that had enabled their creation, just as the Ikhwan of the 1920s and the cultists of the 1970s had done. The most famous of those was Osama bin Laden.
In 1991, Saudi Arabia again faced much the same problem it had in 1979. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; the Saudis, fearing they could be next, invited the US military to station thousands of troops in the Kingdom. The Wahhabis were outraged, seeing this as a humiliation and a desecration of Muslim holy land, and openly hinted they might support a coup or violent uprising. Meanwhile, many Saudi jihadists had returned home from Afghanistan, giving the threats real teeth.
Fearing another 1979-style terror attack of worse, the Saudis once again co-opted and appeased the Wahhabis. They did this in part by shutting down some nascent reforms — some women had begun to drive in defiance of the female driving ban; initially tolerated, they were shut down. They also established the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, which ostensibly supported Islamic charities but also funded Wahhabi extremism and jihadism throughout the Muslim world. It worked; the Wahhabi establishment directed their energies toward causing trouble abroad, which the Saudis tolerated. At the same time, the Saudis also cracked down on Wahhabists who would not get in line, including by deporting a well-known veteran of the Afghan jihad named Osama bin Laden. copied VOX
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/26/7877619/saudi-arabia-questions
That same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Saudi government, which hated the Soviets and saw them as a threat, sought to support Afghan rebels. Here was an opportunity: the Muslim world was outraged by the Soviet invasion. The Saudi government implicitly encouraged their country's Wahhabi clerical establishment, recently rich with oil money and dangerously idle, to fund extremist Afghan rebels, and rebel-training extremist madrassas in neighboring Pakistan. Many young Saudi Wahhabis went off themselves to fight, usually quite poorly.
For the Saudi rulers, this foreign policy of jihad was at first a great success. It strengthened Saudi Arabia's effort to fund Afghan rebels, it positioned the often-lecherous Saudi monarchs as leaders of the Muslim world against the Soviet atheists, and, crucially, it distracted the Wahhabis from causing trouble at home. But this strategy was destined to backfire, and disastrously. Those jihadists would inevitably turn their guns on the very Saudi government that had enabled their creation, just as the Ikhwan of the 1920s and the cultists of the 1970s had done. The most famous of those was Osama bin Laden.
In 1991, Saudi Arabia again faced much the same problem it had in 1979. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; the Saudis, fearing they could be next, invited the US military to station thousands of troops in the Kingdom. The Wahhabis were outraged, seeing this as a humiliation and a desecration of Muslim holy land, and openly hinted they might support a coup or violent uprising. Meanwhile, many Saudi jihadists had returned home from Afghanistan, giving the threats real teeth.
Fearing another 1979-style terror attack of worse, the Saudis once again co-opted and appeased the Wahhabis. They did this in part by shutting down some nascent reforms — some women had begun to drive in defiance of the female driving ban; initially tolerated, they were shut down. They also established the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, which ostensibly supported Islamic charities but also funded Wahhabi extremism and jihadism throughout the Muslim world. It worked; the Wahhabi establishment directed their energies toward causing trouble abroad, which the Saudis tolerated. At the same time, the Saudis also cracked down on Wahhabists who would not get in line, including by deporting a well-known veteran of the Afghan jihad named Osama bin Laden. copied VOX
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/26/7877619/saudi-arabia-questions
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