Category Archives: Wahhabi

Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Caliphate, Syria, Wahhabi, Yemen

New Wahhabi International: Al Qaeda as the New Great Hope of Jihadis in Syria……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Al-Qaeda affiliates are significantly expanding their footholds in Syria and Yemen, using the chaos of civil wars to acquire territory and increase their influence, according to analysts, residents and intelligence officials. The gains have helped the terror group’s affiliates become major players in the countries and have complicated efforts to resolve the conflicts. Al-Qaeda offshoots could also be gaining sanctuaries to eventually plan attacks against the United States and Europe, analysts say. In Syria, al-Qaeda’s wing, Jabhat al-Nusra, plays a leading role in a new rebel coalition that has captured key areas in the northwestern part of the country. In Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has seized parts of the country’s largest province, territory that includes military bases, an airfield and ports. “Al-Qaeda is becoming more deeply entrenched in Syria, and it is gaining significant momentum in Yemen…………..”

A known Salafi activist on the Persian Gulf tweeted the other day, wishing, urging Al Nusra Front to break its allegiance to Al Qaeda. For years that same Salafi activist was urging Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to make their peace with his Saudi masters, the princes and their Muftis. Other Gulf Salafis who openly supported Al Qaeda and its affiliates, especially AQI and ISIS among other terrorist groups, have shifted away from the latter. At least in the open, but it could be just the usual Salafi taqiyya, feigning and faking.

Al Nusra is not as successful as the Caliphate of ISIS, but Al Nusra has one important advantage for the opportunistic Salafis. It is now being supported by their patrons, the Wahhabi princes and potentates of Saudi Arabia and Qatar (and non-Arab Turkey). It is being armed and financed by all of them. The Salafis, especially in the Persian Gulf countries listen to the dictates of these neighboring potentates, their patrons. Besides, it is the American support and weapons that they covet, which explains the phony claim of leader of Jaish Al-Islam (Army of Islam) a couple of weeks ago that he is now almost a Jeffersonian democrat.

It is as if a new global International, a Wahhabi International emerging, taking its signals and orders from the clerics and moneybags of Riyadh and Doha. Just like the Communist International of yesteryear (Comintern), the Wahhabi one is now divided. At least two major rival branches, possibly more if Al Nusra can be bribed to split from Al Qaeda. Not to mention other affiliated groups of Salafi cutthroats: AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), the Shabab, Boko Haram, the Bel-Mukhtar Group of Northwest Africa, etc, etc.

There have been reports in recent months that the Saudis are trying to affect a shift in loyalties. Saudi warplanes raining cluster bombs on Yemen tend to attack Houthi and Yemeni army forces in areas where they fight AQAP. That they do not attack gatherings of AQAP terrorists. American drones are still allegedly attacking AQAP. As usual, the Saudis believe they can in the end buy and regain the loyalty of AQAP and possibly the Southern Independence movement around Aden.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, US Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

Caliphate of Erdogan: How Turkey and her Wahhabi Arab Allies Screwed up Syria…………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“To make sense of this unlikely alliance between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, let’s travel back in time to 2011. Amidst the turmoil of the Arab Uprisings, Erdoğan was counting on the overthrow of the dictatorships of al-Assad, Qaddafi, Mubarak and others, fondly imagining that Muslim Brotherhood parties would then come to power across the Middle East. This was the “Islamic order” of which Erdoğan and his colleagues dreamed, an order which was to be led by Turkey. In an apparent homage to the Ottoman sultans’ tradition of performing their prayers in a newly-conquered capital, Erdoğan declared that he would soon be praying in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. However, Erdoğan has been unable to make good on this promise. Erdoğan’s Syrian venture — the most ambitious such undertaking in the entire 90-year history of the Turkish Republic — has also proved to be the undoing of Turkey’s foreign policy. Intent on overthrowing al-Assad from the very beginning, Erdoğan is one of those responsible for the devastation in Syria today, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States. A March 24, 2013 report in the New York Times stated that 120 cargo flights from Qatar and Saudi Arabia had carried military supplies to Turkey destined for the rebels in Syria. This weaponry was then delivered to the rebels in trucks alleged to belong to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).………..”

I have often posted, as have others, that nobody is as responsible for the bloody mess in Syria as Mr. Erdogan of Turkey and his Arab Wahhabi allies (the Al Saud princes, Al Thani of Qatar, and other Persian Gulf Islamists). Together these anti-democratic forces, with some misguided Western cooperation, managed to turn what started as a legitimate demand for Syrian democracy into a nightmare. One more Arab uprising became a Wahhabi Salafi terrorist campaign out of control, fed by petro-money, petro-weapons, and petro-volunteers. The Saudis and Qataris count on being far away from any spillover in their on police states on the Gulf, with no common borders with the inferno that is Syria. Turkey does not: their miscalculation is next door.
Just as the Pakistani ISI helped create the Afghan Taliban and now have to put up with terrorism in Pakistan, the Turks now will face spillover terrorism across their borders. They have the aspiring Kurds and they have millions of Alevis who strongly oppose Erdogan’s Syria adventure. The latter no doubt felt more secure under a secular regime in Ankara than under the Caliphate of Erdogan, ensconced in his new billion dollar royal palace.
    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Humor, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi

The Overlooked Faces of Real Saudi Reform………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

Since the creation of the modern Saudi state some hundred years ago there have been three constants. These three constants have defined the country that the ruling family arrogantly renamed after themselves. They called it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The three constants have been: (1) Wahhabism; (2) Absolute family rule and the subsequent kleptocracy; (3) Goateed kings and princes, from Abdulaziz through kings Saud, Faisal, Khaled, Fahd, Abdullah, and Salman, including several crown princes like Sultan and Nayef. The first two have been widely exported with plenty of Saudi money. Wahhabism now covers a vast area from Indonesia to Morocco, including AQAp and ISIS. It has noticeable influence in major European cities. This last expansion into Europe has led to the phenomenon of Islamophobia.

The last constant, the goatee beard (saksooka), did not take much hold outside the Arabian Peninsula. There are a few exceptions, for example Saad Hariri in Lebanon but he is the Saudi man in that country and sporting a goatee is like raising the Saudi flag. There might be one or two others in Lebanon with goatee beard, but I have not seen them nor heard of them. Inside Arabia, the goatee has ruled. Any prince worth his salt who aspired to reach the top of the hierarchy had to sport a goatee, preferably dyed jet black (Kiwi brand). Any minion who aspired to rise in the bureaucracy had to do the same.

Now King Salman has started his rule with a new face, literally. He has appointed a crown prince with no goatee beard, a first. He has appointed his son as deputy crown prince, also without a goatee, but with an Emirati style trimmed beard. It is worth noting that the crown prince apparently has no male heirs, comforting thought for his deputy.

That is the new future of the Arabian Peninsula, so long as the Al Saud rule it. That is the new face of Saudi reform, literally, and almost certainly the extent of it. No more goatee………….

(P.S: Now if they can get rid of the moustache, then they might have a slew of kings and princes who are as hairless as Francois Hollande or David Cameron or Angela Merkel).

    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Culture, Indonesia, Marriage, Misogyny, Sex, Wahhabi

Virginity Tests: from Indonesia to Ipanema………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Indonesia urged to ban virginity tests for fiancées of officers, female recruits. Indonesian authorities have been urged to cease the “invasive” and “discriminatory” practice of “virginity tests” for female recruits and fiancées of military officers in the country’s armed forces. International military physicians are set to gather in Bali, Indonesia on May 17-22, 2015, to urge the country’s president, Joko Widodo, to stop the practice, according to Human Rights Watch…………….”

Virginity tests aren’t new: the Egyptian military famously used them extensively during the Tahrir Uprising in 2011. But they used them against female protesters whom the military and bureaucracy suspected of being promiscuous and engaged in sex with male protesters. In their minds it made sense: why else would young women come out to face the regime goons and risk life and limb unless it was for sex? That also fits in somehow with the Saudi clerical claims that allowing women to drive cars would end virginity overnight in that country. At least “no more virginity as they know it” ( you can use your imagination and figure it out).

Apparently Indonesian officers are allowed to marry virgins only and the state take the responsibility of ensuring that. No more surprises on the wedding night in Indonesia. There are no doubt other places where this practice is de rigueur, possibly Malaysia.
I tell ya Wahhabism and its, er, practices have spread all over the globe, possibly with the exception of Ipanema.

    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Caliphate, Culture, GCC, Jihadis, Persian Gulf, Wahhabi

Islamic State Goes Institutional and Cultural and Global…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

The Islamic State (of Syria and Iraq for now) of Caliph Abu Bakr Al Samarrai reportedly has been forming the skeleton of a state. At least they were before the bombing campaign started. With reported coinage and taxes and schools and other trappings of a state. Yet they need to do more to look like a real state. Something other statelets, sorry, other ‘states’ (statelets or half-states is what Generalissimo Al Sisi called the sisterly states on the famous tapes). Here are a few more steps that might be taken: 

  • Solicit and permit local branches of elite or semi-elite Western universities and colleges. Perhaps a branch of the Sorbonne in Raqqa, an NYU in Mosul (while Mosul lasts). Sort of like they have in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and other Persian Gulf venues. These campuses would be for men only, of course. Modified Sorbonne or NYU, just like they have modified watered-down versions in other parts of the Gulf. They can add some new local curricula: the Teachings of Ibn Taimiyyah, the Teachings of Mohammad Ibn AbdulWahhab, (but of course not the music of Mohammed Abdelwahhab of Egypt).
  • Open up local branches of elite Western think tanks. That ought to make you look more serious than you really are. Brookings, Cato, Rand, etc. Just as they do in the UAE and Qatar: provided these branches do not criticize local politics (or lack thereof) and local culture (or lack thereof).
  • Take a bold leap and allow opening ersatz branches of famous world museums. They need it after the Caliphate has destroyed every local monument they could get their hands on in Iraq and Syria. Museums and galleries like the Louvre, Guggenheim, and Tate might be happy to expand into a new ‘market’. Just as some have done in the UAE and Qatar.
  • Start a new campaign, insisting that the Persian Gulf be renamed ‘Gulf of the Caliphate’, or Salafi Gulf. Spend a lot of oil money doctoring ancient historic maps of the region to show that should be the new name of the Gulf. Just as they do in the UAE and Qatar, for example.
  • Start seriously thinking of membership requirements for world bureaucracies: the Arab League, United Nations, IMF, World Bank, WTO, WTF, etc……….

But I think I am getting ahead of myself here…….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum     Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Caliphate, Culture, Iraq, Islamic History, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, Wahhabi

The Wahhabi War on History Continues: Now the Grave of the Prophet……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“A fatwa from a Qatari-owned online portal has been widely circulated by Egyptian press this week after it called for the destruction of pharanoic(sic) monuments on the grounds that they are contrary to Islam. The religious edict, issued by Islam Web, was picked up by several independent Egyptian news outlets…….But Egyptian newspapers carrying the story failed to notice the fatwa was first issued in December 2012…………..”

Saudi Alarabiya network is relishing this item about a Qatari fatwa against (Egyptian) monuments (the fatwa goes back to 2012 but Cairo’s subservient press has revived it recently). This indicates that the famous Saudi-Qatari dispute, the Wahhabi civil war, is on again. 
Speaking of destroying monuments, it seems to be a typical Wahhabi/Salafi thing to do. Saudi Arabia has been systematically destroying Islamic monuments over the years. In Mecca and Madinah homes of the Prophet and his early allies were razed and converted to luxury hotels, shopping malls, parking lots. On this case it is a mix of financial greed and Wahhabi doctrine. A few months ago they sent out a trial balloon about erasing, essentially desecrating, the grave of the Prophet Mohammed in Madinah.

The Taliban famously destroyed ancient Bamiyan monuments in Afghanistan. ISIS is destroying museum pieces in Mosul and monuments in other towns in Iraq (and Syria). In Syria Salafis among the ‘opposition’ destroyed shrines, threatened others, and destroyed Christian churches and old Crusader castles. They had threatened to destroy Shi’a shrines, which prompted Lebanese and Iraqi Shi’as to send armed militias to guard them. This led to their further involvement in the Syrian conflict.

Even in historically tolerant Egypt the Salafis have threatened to destroy ancient Islamic monuments, including some from the Fatimid era. Oddly they have left the Pharaonic monument alone, knowing it would be extremely unpopular to destroy major Western tourist attractions.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Culture, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi

Chaste Saudi Cleric Excommunicates Frosty the Snowman……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious ruling forbidding the building of snowmen, described them as anti-Islamic. Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”……..”

Yes, Great Cleric, there are snows in many Muslim Lands! There are snows in Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, etc, etc. And the children in these countries also build snowmen, even Frosty, in winter without anybody going either heathen or lusty. And their women are as chaste now as they would be if there were no snows there, no more nor less…..

So, I hereby issue a counter-fatwa: it is okay to make a snowman, and it is okay to fast pitch snowballs at a cleric. A snowman is not to be worshiped like a king or a potentate.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Qatar, Wahhabi

GCC Summit: Brotherly and Sisterly Problems Between Little and Big Wahhabis……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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The Gulf GCC heads of state are supposed to hold their summit for this year next month in Doha, Qatar. No, the Saudis did not pick December for the annual meeting because of Christmas or Hannukah. They just happened to pick this cool month.

Anyway, this year’s meeting, if it is held, will be different. Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are not the main entree on the menu. The Big Wahhabi Brother (Saudi Arabia) is seriously angry at the Little Wahhabi Brother (Qatar). The two ruling families often support and finance rival Jihadis in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere where Jihadis roam. The Al Nahayan Brothers who own Abu Dhabi and rule the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are in the Saudi camp for now. The poorer Bahrain rulers usually follow the Saudi orders and do as they are told. Anyway, the two regimes would probably like to ex-communicate Qatar, unless they can force the Doha regime to change its foreign policies. I doubt they have any hope of instigating another palace coup attempt in Doha as the Saudis tried in the 1990s.

Odd, these princes and potentates can force the prime minister of Great Britain to seek an excuse to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, but they can’t force little Qatar to do the same. But then David Cameron is after their money and he’d do almost anything to get some of it. The Qatari rulers don’t need any more money, not from the Saudis and Emiratis.

The other two GCC members who are not parties to this dispute, Kuwait and Oman, have reportedly been trying to mediate and resolve this issue, but without success so far.

One promising fact is that Gulf media have not started to claim that Iranian Brigadier Qassem Suleimani of Quds Force is a regular visitor to Doha. Not yet. I recall how they started making fantastic claims and allegations about his secret visits to Cairo hotels just months before the military coup be Generalisimo Al Sisi against Morsi.

Will the GCC summit be held in Doha as scheduled? That depends on the mediations going on and on the caprice of the suddenly-insecure Saudi princes. A possible alternative is to go ahead with the non-summit but with lower rank representatives from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Crusade, ethnic cleansing, Islam, Muslims, Religion, Sectarian, Wahhabi

Worldwide Wahhabi Crusade Turns More Violent……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Yesterday was Ashura, a special day in a special month in the Middle East. But to some it was just another day that brought new opportunities for more sectarian bloodshed.
We occasionally complain about discrimination against Muslims in Europe. That is mainly because we expect better, much better, in the Western democracies than we do in our own “Islamic” region, where your tribe or faith or sect decides your fate. Where your tribe or faith or sect often seals your fate, in some places quite violently.

Just read the headlines from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and other places. In Iraq it is a daily occurrence, with cowardly terrorist bombings of unarmed civilian. In dysfunctional nuclear Pakistan, from Quetta to Karachi, it is becoming an almost daily occurrence. Even Afghanis kill their compatriots of another sect in Pakistan.

The news headlines yesterday did not bring anything new. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and through Iraq, many people were targeted and killed and maimed simply because of their sect. Most of the victims of terrorist killings were as usual Shi’as. It was a good day for mass killings from a Wahhabi Jihadist point of view, given that it was a special Shi’a day of pilgrimage. Many unarmed humans packed together practicing their faith, risking their lives, some of them knowing the risks. The killers were also Muslims. It was as usual part of an onging systematic campaign of killings, a one-way terrorist war against Shi’as. There is some occasional sporadic misguided retaliation, mainly in Pakistan or in Iraq, but the trend is clear.

This war goes beyond our native region, spreading into Europe. I recall at least one case of a planned mosque in a Scandinavian city a few years ago. The strong opposition to the mosque did not come from the native Europeans. It came from other dominant Muslims who were of another sect. A Shi’a mosque was strongly opposed, fought against, by Wahhabis in a European country. Establishing a Shi’a mosque is even harder, nay impossible, in many Muslim countries. It is impossible, verboten, in places that have strong Wahhabi influences like Indonesia, Malaysia or Egypt. In these places people have to practice their rites ins secret and risk arrest or worse. Sounds familiar to some in old Europe, doesn’t it?

It is almost like a Wahhabi crusade, absofuckinglutely no pun intended. As violent and with as much indiscriminate mass killings as in the original European crusades.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized, Wahhabi

Paranoid Gulf Opposition: Dastardly Secret Alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean…..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Following the currents of Saudi opinion on the media and especially the more spontaneous social media is becoming more interesting than ever. The traditional media is not as important anymore, since it is owned, controlled, or otherwise preempted by the rulers and their oligarchy allies. This applies to other Gulf countries as well.

The various shades of the Wahhabi opposition in Saudi Arabia are now very active on social media. They are now the most active, more active than the ‘traditional’ liberal (or the Wahhabi-liberal?) opposition. For one, the Wahhabi opposition are more driven and more ambitious, as more extreme groups often are, than the traditional opposition. They are more absolutist and more active, which sometimes makes them the ‘main opposition’ by sheer noise and default. Remember Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks? Or Khomenie and the Tudeh Communists and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq? Or Hitler and von Hindenburg?
And the educational system and the theocratic bureaucracy still reinforce their ideology of excommunicating and killing the ‘others’.

The Saudi Wahhabi opposition has lately been trying to make a case for the existence of a secret alliance between the Al Saud and the resurgent Houthis in Yemen. They also try to make a case for a secret alliance between the Al Saud and Bashar Al Assad, between the Al Saud and the ruling Shi’a-Kurdish blocs in Iraq: plotting against the ISIS Caliphate and, in their words, “against the Sunnis”. During moments of wild clarity they even tie the Al Saud to Hezbollah of Lebanon, their main nemesis in the eastern Mediterranean. Need I elaborate on where this is leading? No, it it clear that this all leads to Tehran and Qom, via Karbala and Najaf.

To wit: the Al Saud, alleged guardians of the Wahhabi right, are in fact secret allies of the Shi’a left. But the Wahhabi and no-so-Wahhabi argument is commonly heard along the Paranoid Persian Gulf that the mullahs of Iran and their allies from Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut are secret allies of the United States. Hence, they are secret allies of Israel (to the delusional faithful it is a.k.a. TZE: The Zionist Entity).

This paranoia is more frenzied than ever these days, as the nuclear talks move on and the U.S. Knesset Congress has calmed down about its idiotic lobbyist-driven drive to bomb and maybe invade Iran. (BTW: how come the U.S. Congress never threaten to bomb North Korea, for example? Is it because it is not Muslim? Is it because of the aforementioned TZE? Is it both?)

One conclusion drawn by some of the leaders of this Wahhabi opposition is that “the Al saud will never execute Shaikh Nimr Al Nimr” (the Shi’a cleric who was sentenced to be beheaded and crucified). They opine this conclusion:”the Al Saud will never dare execute  him“, they write regretfully. This is supposed to be proof that they are in cahoots with the ‘unbelievers’. Or maybe they are just trying to dare the rulers into chopping the head of Al Nimr and crucifying him.

Cheers
MHG

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