By
Sattar Rind
Many writers, intellectuals, government or non-governmental think tank personnel and scholars are writing about and discussing the cause of ISIS’ birth.
Somehow, either intentionally, otherwise missing the link of ISIS’ creation or trying to show it as a new and out of the blue phenomenon, they have all been changed as a result of a dangerous epidemic which now appears to be out of control. The world therefore should be on high alert to face and be ready to bear the losses in this world war on terrorism.
At least I have been getting this impression by reading newspapers, opinions, articles, research papers and statements from world leaders each day online. This appears to be nothing but extending more fear around the world and proving how large the threat is and how it dangerously dominates the world and society. As a result this even threatens to infect the blood of people who are living in relatively ‘safe’ countries like Demark, France, United Kingdom, USA, Belgium, etc.
Again and again alert sirens are being sounded and no one is ready to think that these terrorists, even at their height, are nothing but human beings. With whom we have been living over the last fourteen hundred years, at least. With whom we have had a history of interaction, even having fought many wars, either lost or won. Above all they are part of our gene pool. They are not aliens. They are made of the same flesh and require the same oxygen to breathe as we all do.
Where did the monster come from? Did we not once call them freedom fighters, then President Ronald Reagan inviting them to the Oval office? Were they were not trained as the ‘Mujahideen’ by the CIA and Pakistani intelligence agency to fight back against the ex-USSR army in Kabul? Through the billions of dollars spent on Operation Cyclone, started in partnership with Saudi Arabia, Britain’s MI6 and Special Air Service, Egypt, Iran, Israel and China, we equipped them with extremely sophisticated weapons including the Stringer Missile.
Or we could refute the fact that the CIA Afghan Task Force officer Gustav Avrakotos, with US Congressman Charlie Wilson, specifically requested Israel to make shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons to be used against Soviet gunship helicopters. Did the CIA not develop and train one hundred thousand militants within a very short period of time for jihad in Afghanistan?
This has all been written by George Crile in his book: ‘The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History’ which portrays U.S. involvement in the Afghan War. A film was also released on him, ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’, released in 2007.
All along the CIA also created links among Muslim fighters, mostly criminals on death penalties around the world, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri for Afghanistan.
Above all does anyone know that Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, said during her visit to the US and then President George W. Bush in perspective of the Afghanistan war, that he had created “a Frankenstein in the shape of Islam”?
The aforementioned Operation Cyclone was later assumed to be substantially responsible for the world changing events of 9/11.
Now it is being questioned why Muslims reached that particular peak, in a chronological listing of which however, everyone avoids the Afghan Mujahideen which turned into the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and lastly into ISIS.
For many it may not be known that the CIA started an education program with the help of USAID for the Afghanistani pupils with their schoolbooks encouraging a jihadist outlook. Even the Taliban did not change them when they captured Kabul.
These schoolbooks were essential for all schools established in Afghani refugee camps in Pakistan, there being millions of refugees. The new syllabuses introduced new meanings of English words. For example “T” is for “Topak” – the ‘Gun’ in the Pashto language.
“How do you use this word in a sentence?” was one question, the replies being that “my uncle has a Topak” or “he does jihad with Topak.”
There was not only “Topak”, but other lessons or core curriculums were also filled with talk of jihad and pictures of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines.
Was it not a fact that all of this created a newly dangerous breed –Afghani pupils, the Mujahideen and al-Qaeda had all been left without any direction by the CIA and the earlier mentioned powerful countries?
The ex-chief of Pakistan’s intelligence organization, the late General Gul Hamid, was always complaining that the US had betrayed their struggle to capture Kabul and vis-a-vis Central Asian countries after the Russian forces had withdrawn from Afghanistan through the Geneva Agreement in 1988.
Saudi Arabia was equally involved in the Afghanistan war on the basis of matching dollar to dollar funding for the Mujahideen up to their last movement. In that time Prince Turki bin Faisal who was the Director General of the Saudi intelligence agency and brought Osama bin Laden into Afghanistan for the special reason of the Saudis giving a personal touch to this war, bin Laden being a close friend of the Saudi royal family and leading the war against Russia in Afghanistan.
Leaving all of this history behind we must return to the subject of ISIS and the facts determining their creation, funding, training and provision of weapons.
Has it not been established that Saudi Arabia gave a special assignment to the powerful ex-US ambassador and Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan who is a known terrorist in the media?
The ex-head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove claimed in a speech that soon after 9/11 Prince Bandar bin Sultan told him that “The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally ‘God help the Shiites’.”
He does not doubt that substantial and sustained funding from private donors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to which the authorities may have turned a blind eye, played a central role in ISIS’ surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. He said that “Such things simply do not happen spontaneously.”
Therefore ISIS did not become the monster it is today by accident. The Western media and governments bore witness to the inception, growth, and expansion of this radical jihadist group, with funding from the Arab Gulf, sectarian agitation, and political blessing, until the time ISIS became a monster.
Saudi Arabian sympathy for anti-Shiites’ “militancy” is identified in leaked US official documents. The then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in December 2009 in a cable released by Wikileaks that “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups.”
Again it’s well known around the world that when the Saudi King charged Bandar bin Sultan with handling the Syrian file, the Republican Senator John McCain said to CNN “Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, we’re starting to see a little bit of reversal there in Syria.”
Following this, press reports extensively covered the rise of the al-Nusra Front and ISIS in Syria, and how they became the dominant opposition forces along the battlefronts in the country. But where did the two groups get their cash and weapons? According to investigative reports, wealthy people from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait have been financing the radical groups.
In November 2013, The New York Times in a report that said huge amounts of money were being transferred from banks in Kuwait to support opposition fighters in Syria.
“Qatari support for Syrian fighters”; “Wealthy Saudi and Kuwaiti sponsors”; “through banks in Kuwait”: These revelations and more were mentioned repeatedly in most Western articles investigating the source of al-Nusra and ISIS funding, in addition to enumerating other sources such as the seizure of a weapons supply, robbing banks and looting of other assets in Syria.
Recruitment for the “jihad” began in earnest, overtly and through the internet, using religious and material incentives, with logistical facilities on the border. The Western press extensively covered how jihadists crossed the Turkish border to fight in Syria.
At around the same time, Andrew J Tabler of the Washington Institute candidly said that “Everybody knows the money is going through Kuwait and that it’s coming from the Arab Gulf. Kuwait’s banking system and its money changers have long been a huge problem because they are a major agent for money to extremist groups in Syria and Iraq.”
Now many journalists and writers in the mainstream western media have finally broken their silence. Headlines are saying it more candidly now: ‘Saudis must stop exporting extremism‘. In a New York Times editorial Ed Husain declared that “ISIS atrocities started with Saudi support for Salafi hate.’’
The writer, who himself is a Sunni Muslim, at a meeting organized by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, explained at length the danger the Wahhabi ideology poses to the region and the world, saying “I’d say the Iranians haven’t been as vociferous. Yes, they’ve funded Hezbollah and, yes, they’ve funded the Assad government, but neither have the level of dislike and hatred of Sunnis that the Saudis have pumped into their institutions, their syllabi in various mosques and Madrassas that they control that has led to real hatred of Shiite Muslims from Pakistan to the Caucasus to parts of Africa to Afghanistan to mostly in the Middle East.”
‘The Atlantic‘ quoted a senior Qatari official as saying that ISIS was a Saudi project. The magazine also said that the radical jihadist group was an essential part of Bandar bin Sultan’s covert strategy in Syria.
In this factual scenario, what happened in the west in the same connection, is no longer a secret to anyone. The MI6 intelligence agency supported the militants to recruit individuals from western countries for ISIS to create this cruel international profile, for reasons known only to them.
However this sickening situation is not out of control for all states and could never be for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, US, UK and Pakistan. At which time they decide to eliminate them once and for all, it would take no longer than a year to do so, purely by stopping the supply of weapons, funding, recruiting, training and Madrassas, which are the manufacturing sources of the jihadists individual to ISIS.
Besides this the electronic media is playing an important role in enhancing their ideologue and they should not be allowed to do this.
Doesn’t it all sound very simple? Yes, I stand with this simple way out.
Your article was forwarded to me by a friend, who I often debate with on similar subjects. After reading the article, I have certain clarifications that I should request of you. I acknowledge that you, being an author and a columnist, have access to authentic information and hence will be a valuable source for me to correct my understanding. The clarification requested is as follows: You have hinted in your article that ISIS is a product of the "Mujahideen of the Afghan war against USSR"/Taliban/Al Qaeda. Is there any authentic basis to say this? In my view the only common thing in all these is probably their faith; I do not question the faith of the Mujahideen nor the Taliban, nor Al Qaeda, but I have some doubts in the faith of ISIS, at least their leaders. You make reference to the Muslim fighters as "mostly criminals on death penalties around the world", what is your basis for saying this? And you add, "including Osama Binladin and Ayman Al Zawahiri". I do not think you have any clue on who, at least, Osama Binladin was. I hope you study the concept of jihad in Islam and repent calling most of them criminals. Right or wrong, most of these people left their homes and, families and belongings, to fight for the cause of Allah against a communist occupation of a Muslim majority country - you have a right to disagree with them, but calling them criminals!! Allow me to correct you on one particular point, you have stated in one place that Benazir Bhutto had said to President George Bush that he had created "a Frankenstein in the shape of Islam". If you are referring to Islam becoming a monster, Frankenstein was the scientist who created the monster, not the monster. Are you aware of what "salafi" means? Especially, in the context of Islam? Are you aware of what Wahabi represents? And please don't quote the media, do some original research of your own and find out what these two words mean/represent. I do not wish to express my opinions on what you have said. I have noticed that most of your references are of Wikipedia, which is commonly known "not to be a very dependable source". and, you have quoted articles written by people living far away from reality and use their writing skills to join the most popular and widely written themes! With best wishes