The Wahhabi connection
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How British, American and Israeli intelligence agencies shaped radical Islam
Divide and conquer
British Imperial policy often involved the creation of deviant sects in its colonies, in order to divide and conquer, as was the case with the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in India in the nineteenth century. That a British spy by the name of Hempher was also responsible for shaping the extreme tenets of Wahhabism was already mentioned in a Turkish work, Mir’at al-Haramain, by Ayyub Sabri Pasha between 1933–1938.
The details of this conspiracy are outlined in a little known document by the name of The Memoirs of Mr. Hempher published in episodes in the German paper Der Spiegel, and later in a prominent French paper. Waqf Ikhlas publications put out and circulated the document in English under the title “Confessions of a British spy and British enmity against Islam”.
The document is a first-hand account by Hempher of his mission for his government, which sent him to the Middle East to discover ways to undermine the Ottoman Empire. Among the vices the British were to promote were racism and nationalism, alcohol, gambling, fornication and tempting Muslim women to uncover themselves.
But most important was the strategy to insert heresies into Muslims’ creedal tenets and then criticize Islam for being a religion of terror. To this purpose, Hempher located a particularly corrupt individual by the name of Mohammed Ibn Adb al-Wahhab.
Abd al-Wahhab
To understand the brand of fanaticism that Wahhabism inculcated, it is first necessary to recognize that Islam called upon all Muslims, regardless of their race or nationality, to see themselves as brothers in faith. The killing of another Muslim is strictly forbidden.
As the British hoped to pit the Arab Muslims against their Turkish brothers. The only way to do so was to find a loophole in Islamic law whereby the Arabs could declare the Turks as apostates. Abd al-Wahhab was the instrument by which the British were able to insinuate this vile idea into the Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula.
One of the main tenets of Abd al-Wahhab’s doctrine has become the key idea of takfir.Under the takfiri doctrine, Abd al-Wahhab and his followers could deem fellow Muslims infidels should they engage in activities that in any way could be said to encroach on the sovereignty of the absolute Authority (that is, the King).
Abd al-Wahhab denounced all Muslims who honored the dead, saints, or angels. He held that such sentiments detracted from the complete subservience one must feel towards God, and only God. Wahhabi Islam thus bans any prayer to saints and dead loved ones, pilgrimages to tombs and special mosques, religious festivals celebrating saints, the honoring of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, and even prohibits the use of gravestones when burying the dead.
Abd al-Wahhab demanded conformity — a conformity that was to be demonstrated in physical and tangible ways. He argued that all Muslims must individually pledge their allegiance to a single Muslim leader (a Caliph, if there were one). Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated.
The first Saudi state
Abd al-Wahhab’s advocacy of these ultra radical views inevitably led to his expulsion from his own town — and in 1741, after some wanderings, he found refuge under the protection of Ibn Saud, a descendant of Jewish merchants from Iraq.
Ibn Saud’s clan, seizing on Abd al-Wahhab’s doctrine, now could do what they always did, which was raiding neighboring villages and robbing them of their possessions. Only now they were doing it not within the ambit of Arab tradition, but rather under the banner of jihad. Ibn Saud and Abd al-Wahhab also reintroduced the idea of martyrdom in the name of jihad, as it granted those martyred immediate entry into paradise.
In 1744, Saud founded the First Saudi State. In the beginning, they conquered a few local communities and imposed their rule over them. By 1790, the Alliance controlled most of the Arabian Peninsula and repeatedly raided Medina, Syria and Iraq.
Their strategy was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear. In 1801, the Allies attacked the Holy City of Karbala in Iraq. They massacred thousands of Shiites, including women and children. Many Shiite shrines were destroyed, including the shrine of Imam Hussein, the murdered grandson of Prophet Muhammad.
In 1803, Abdul Aziz then entered the Holy City of Mecca, which surrendered under the impact of terror and panic. Al-Wahhab’s followers demolished historical monuments and all the tombs and shrines in their midst. By the end, they had destroyed centuries of Islamic architecture near the Grand Mosque.
But in November of 1803, a Shiite assassin killed King Abdul Aziz. His son, Saud bin Abd al Aziz, succeeded him and continued the conquest of Arabia. Ottoman rulers, however, could no longer just sit back and watch as their empire was devoured piece by piece.
In 1812, the Ottoman army, composed of Egyptians, pushed the Alliance out from Medina, Jeddah and Mecca. In 1814, Saud bin Abd al Aziz died of fever. His unfortunate son Abdullah bin Saud, however, was taken by the Ottomans to Istanbul, where he was gruesomely executed.
In 1815, Wahhabi forces were crushed by the Egyptians (acting on the Ottoman’s behalf) in a decisive battle. In 1818, the Ottomans captured and destroyed the Wahhabi capital of Dariyah. The first Saudi state was no more.
The second Saudi state
The first Saudi to attempt to regain power after the fall of Dariyah in 1818 was Mishari ibn Saud. Mishari was soon captured by the Egyptians and killed. Turki, a grandson of the first Saudi imam Muhammad ibn Saud, is generally regarded as the founder of the second Saudi dynasty and is also the ancestor of the kings of modern-day Saudi Arabia.
Turki was assassinated in 1834 by Mishari ibn Abdul-Rahman, a distant cousin. Mishari was soon besieged in Riyadh and later executed by Turki’s son, Faisal, who went on to become the most prominent ruler of the Saudis’ second reign. Faisal, however, faced a re-invasion of Najd by the Egyptians four years later. The local population was unwilling to resist, and Faisal was defeated and taken to Egypt as a prisoner for the second time in 1838.
The Egyptians installed Khalid ibn Saud as ruler in Riyadh and supported him with Egyptian troops. Khalid was the last surviving brother of the last imam of the First Saudi State, and had spent many years in the Egyptian court. In 1840, however, external conflicts forced the Egyptians to withdraw all their presence in the Arabian Peninsula, leaving Khalid with little support.
Seen by most locals as nothing more than an Egyptian governor, Khalid was toppled soon afterwards by Abdullah ibn Thuniyyan, of the collateral Al Thuniyyan branch. Faisal, however, had been released that year, and, aided by the Al Rashid rulers of Ha’il, was able to retake Riyadh and resume his rule. Faisal later appointed his son Abdullah as crown prince, and divided his dominions between his three sons Abdullah, Saud, and Muhammad.
Upon Faisal’s death in 1865, Abdullah assumed rule in Riyadh but was soon challenged by his brother, Saud ibn Faisal. The two brothers fought a long civil war, in which they traded rule in Riyadh several times. Previously a vassal of the Saudis, Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Rashid of Hail took the opportunity to intervene in the conflict and increase his own power. Gradually, Ibn Rashid extended his authority over most of Najd, including the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Ibn Rashid finally expelled the last Saudi leader, Abdul-Rahman bin Faisal, from Najd after the Battle of Mulayda in 1891.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
After his defeat at Mulayda, Abdul-Rahman ibn Faisal went with his family into exile in the deserts of eastern Arabia among the Al Murra bedouin. Soon afterward, however, Abdul-Rahman found refuge in Kuwait as a guest of the Kuwaiti emir, Mubarak Al Sabah. In 1902, Abdul Rahman’s son, Abdul Aziz, took on the task of restoring Saudi rule in Riyadh.
Supported by a few dozen followers and accompanied by some of his brothers and relatives, Abdul-Aziz was able to capture Riyadh’s Masmak fort and kill the governor appointed there by Ibn Rashid. Abdul Aziz, reported to have been barely 20 at the time, was immediately proclaimed ruler in Riyadh. As the new leader of the House of Saud, Abdul-Aziz became commonly known from that time simply as “Ibn Saud”.
Ibn Saud spent the next three decades trying to re-establish his family’s rule over as much of the Arabian Peninsula as possible, starting with his nativeNajd. His chief rivals were the Al Rashid clan in Ha’il, the Sharifs of Meccain the Hijaz, and the Ottoman Turks in al-Hasa.
From 1915 to 1927, Ibn Saud’s dominions were a protectorate of the British Empire, pursuant to the 1915 Treaty of Darin. By 1932, Ibn Saud had disposed of all his main rivals and consolidated his rule over much of the Arabian Peninsula. He declared himself king of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that year.
Bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America began as early as 1933, when full diplomatic relations were established and the Saudis granted oil concessions to California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc), affiliate of Standard Oil of California (Socal, today’s Chevron), headed by the Rockefellers.
Since that time, Saudi Arabia has been the most important ally to the West in the Middle East, not only providing ready access to its plentiful oil reserves, but later also in tempering Arab aggression against Israel.
The profusion of petro-dollars in the coffers of the Saudi family has made it possible for them to propagandize their own brand of Wahhabism to other parts of the world, most notably to America, where they purportedly subsidize up to 80% of the mosques in the country. Among critics of Wahhabism, Saudi Wahhabism is said to “substitute political awareness for dogmatic insistence on ritualistic fanaticism”.
Bush, bin Laden and the CIA
George Bush Sr. became Director of the CIA in 1976. The same year, according to a trust document, James Bath of Houston, TX, became the US liaison for Salem bin Laden, brother of Osama bin Laden. Also that year, according to William White, identified by MSNBC as “an associate of Bath’s” and fellow “Annapolis graduate and Naval fighter pilot,” Bath began working as the CIA liaison to Saudi Arabia.
Salem and Osama bin Laden are the sons of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to both the Saudi royal family and the Bush family. Being very familiar with Western culture, the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle are said to be among his favourite literature. He also enjoyed playing soccer and followed English club Arsenal F.C.
The former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The same year a young and bright civil engineering student named Osama bin Laden obtained his degree from the University of King Abdul Aziz in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. At the university bin Laden encountered Dr. Abdullah Azzam, a Jordanian Palestinian who was a key player in both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Azzam had founded Maktab al Khidmat lil-mujahidin al Arab (MaK), commonly known as the Afghan bureau and enlisted the naive and idealistic bin Laden to become MaK’s official leader and financier. Thus, bin Laden would move to Afghanistan and take upon him this difficult task.
Two Saudi Banks were instrumental in MaK’s financing activities: Dalla al Baraka, founded by King Fahd’s brother in law, and Bar al Islami, founded by Prince Mohammad Faisal, brother of Prince Turki bin Faisal, head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence service. Another major channel was the National Bank of Oman.
Among the organizations funneling money through the bank in the 1980s was the CIA as part of a project called Operation Cyclone. For this project, he National Bank of Oman was used as a conduit to send CIA black project funds through Pakistan to Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Further funding came from CIA assisted heroin trade by men like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a local drug lord and Mujahideen leader.
By the late ‘89s the collapse of the Soviet Union was nigh and the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan. Bin Laden, considering his job done, returned to Saudi Arabia that year while working for his family business the Binladin Group. There, he became increasingly disappointed with the leadership of the Saudi royals and the corruption of his family members. He became increasingly critical of the government and his family members as he realised how disconnected their lives were with those of the ordinary muslems he’d met during his work for MaK.
In The Two Faces of Islam, Stephen Schwartz writes, “Their tastes led them to taverns, casinos, brothels … They bought fleets of automobiles, private jets, and yachts the size of warships. They invested in valuable Western art they did not understand or like and which often offended the sensitivities of Wahhabi clerics. They spent as they wished, becoming patrons of international sexual enslavement and the exploitation of children.”
Today, Saudi Arabia’s 64 billionaires control more than 70 percent of the country’s wealth. Bin Laden became increasingly disgusted by the way these men exploited the masses and by the double standards they applied as they lived lives of decadence and luxury while promoting puritanism among ordinary people. After Hasan al Turabi’s National Islamic Front had risen to power in Sudan, bin Laden had gotten enough of it and moved to Sudan.
Saddam Hussain and the Taliban
Meanwhile, nationalist leader Saddam Hussain was installed by the CIA to become their puppet leader in Iraq. Inspired by Stalin, however, Hussain would soon disobey his masters and follow his own path. This lead to what we know today as the second Gulf War where Hussain was forced on his knees and demanded to reestablish his loyalty.
During the second Gulf War, thousands of U.S. and other foreign troops were based in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi rulers had promised to expel foreign troops from the country after the war. Bin Laden labeled the royal family “false Muslims,” and advocated a so-called “true” Islamic state. After a failed attempt to settle their differences, Naif complained to King Fahd and Bin Laden was declared persona no grata.
Bin Laden left the country for Sudan that year — widely reported as a deportation — but retained ties to some members of the Saudi Royal family, Saudi Intelligence and Pakistan’s ISI. As Bin Laden kept active in his criticism of the Saudi government, the Saudis dispatched hit squads to Khartoum with a contract on bin Laden’s life and revoked his Saudi citizenship. After being forced to leave Sudan, Bin Laden eventually returned to Afghanistan with a large entourage including three wives and thirteen children.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the Soviet army had withdrawn, but left a pro-communist leader Mohammad Najibullah in charge of the country. After the fall of Najibullah’s regime in 1992, civil war broke out almost immediately and the country was carved up into fiefdoms with warlords joining and breaking up alliances with each other.
The CIA took advantage of this chaos to work with Pakistan to create the Taliban. They had promised to restore peace, disarm the population, enforce Islamic Sharia law, and defend the integrity and Islamic nature of Afghanistan by promoting their own brand of Wahhabism based on the Saudi model.
In 1996, the Saudi royal family had lost so much credit in the Arab world due to bin Laden’s criticism they invited him to return home and tried to negotiate with him again. They offered to restore his citizenship and property if he swore an allegiance to King Fahd. Bin Laden refused, describing the Saudi royal family as increasingly corrupt, alienated from the country’s religious rank and file, and so weakened and frightened that it has brokered its future by channelling hundreds of millions of dollars in what amounts to protection money to groups hostile towards the regime.
Al Qaeda and the “War on Terror”
In the meantime, Saddam Hussain had yet gone rogue. So had the Taliban. Anglo-American control of the region was crumbling like a cookie and its leadership feared losing control of the Muslem world entirely if they didn’t respond soon. It was decided both regimes had to be overthrown, but public opinion wasn’t ready for it. After the failure of the initial intervention in Iraq. It needed a “Pearl Harbor” type event to get people supporting American military investment in these regime changes.
On September 11, 2001, MI6, CIA, Mossad, ISI and Saudi Intelligence collaborated in the planning and execution of an elaborate PR stunt that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, known since that day as 9/11. High tech bombs were used to level New York’s World Trade Center to the ground. Additionally, hijacked planes were used to provide a shocking visual image that would be burnt onto everyone’s eyes. Mossad and Saudi intelligence operatives were used as patsies.
Possibly inspired by George Orwell’s Emmanuel Goldstein (1984), the event was blamed on a non-existent phantom organisation called Al Qaeda, which appears to have been named after a project or database during the previous war in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden was labeled the head of this phantom organisation. His connections with Afghanistan could then be used as an excuse to invade Afghanistan and it would at the same time eliminate Bin Laden’s credibility as a Muslem among Muslems critical of the Wahhabi movement.
Since then, 9/11 and Al Qaeda became memes used in a fictional Orwellian war on terror that was used to justify attacks on both Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile, the US kept supporting the actual Muslem terrorists through their connections with the Saudi government and the Pakistani government.
The Islamic State
When the fictional Al Qaeda had outlived its usefulness, the intelligence agencies responsible for 9/11 continued their collaboration, creating an actual Islamic terrorist organization capable of centralizing all radical Islamic actions across the world, using a strategy called Hornet’s Nest. This organisation is known as The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS) or the Islamic State (IS).
Key members of IS were trained by US CIA and Special Forces command at a secret camp in Jordan in 2012. The US, Turkish and Jordanian intelligence were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region, conveniently near the borders to both Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the two Gulf monarchies most involved in funding the war against Syria’s Assad, financed the Jordan IS training.
The leader of IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been reputed to be a Mossad-trained operative whose real name is Elliot Shimon, the son of Jewish parents, who took intensive military training for a year from Mossad as well as courses in theology and Arabic speech.
IS revives the violent Wahhabi imperialism of the first Saudi state as well as its original purpose. Targeting especially Syria, Iraq and Iran, their goal is to turn the entire Middle East into vassal states of the British-American-Israeli alliance by any means possible. This plot is unfolding as we speak.
