|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/woolsey200512140823.asp
The Elephant in the Middle East Living Room: Watching Wahhabis
(National Review) R. James Woolsey - In February 2005, a secularist reformer, Muhammad Ahmad al-Rashid, headed the Saudi Education Ministry. As he was beginning to respond to internal criticism of curricula that incited hatred of non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi Muslims, he was replaced by Abdullah bin Saleh al-Obaid, a hard-core Wahhabi. Controlling 27% of the national budget, al-Obaid will have a substantial effect on the views of the next generation of Saudis. From 1995 to 2002, al-Obaid headed the Muslim World League (MWL). According to the U.S. Treasury, the MWL's Peshawar office was led by Wael Jalaidan, "one of the founders of al-Qaeda." Moreover, the main arm of the MWL is the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). The Egyptian magazine Rose al-Youssef describes the IIRO as "firmly entrenched with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization." The writer is a former director of U.S. Central Intelligence.