Naif Asks Scholars to Fight Deviants [Mujahidin]

[Mustafa al-Muhaajir]

Naif Asks Scholars to Fight Deviants

P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News

JEDDAH, 2 December 2007 — Interior Minister Prince Naif has urged Islamic scholars, especially prayer leaders in mosques, to play a greater role in the Kingdom’s efforts to eliminate terrorism and extremism.

In comments published yesterday, Prince Naif said imams and khateebs were not doing enough to discourage militancy among Saudi youth, including those who travel to Iraq to fight alongside insurgents.

Last June, Prince Naif held a meeting with the imams and khateebs across the country and sought their support in fighting the deviant ideology that has been used to recruit Saudi youth to Al-Qaeda.

Asked if he felt there had been any progress since that meeting, the minister said: “No, not at the level I would have hoped for.”

Hundreds of Saudis are thought to be among foreigners fighting with insurgents in Iraq against US forces and the US-backed government. There have also been reports concerning the sons of prominent Saudi clerics who have attempted to join foreign fighters in Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is worried that the growing militancy in neighboring Iraq will overflow into the Kingdom, especially when the trained Saudi fighters return home.

Al-Qaeda militants in the Kingdom have been blamed for a campaign of suicide bombings and attacks on government installations, energy facilities and foreigners across the country over the past three years.

The Interior Ministry announced last week that it had arrested 208 people who had formed cells aiming to attack an oil site, assassinate prominent Islamic scholars and security figures, and set up a media wing that was helping Saudis go to Iraq.

“There are those who have done their job and those who have still to step up, and that includes religious scholars, intellectuals and the media,” Prince Naif said. “But as for preachers, there has to be an ideological effort that is strong enough to refute the falsehoods and tell people the truth about Islam,” he added.

The announcement of the massive sweep of terror suspects comes less than three weeks before the annual pilgrimage when more than 2.5 million Muslim faithful travel to the Kingdom to perform Haj.

The Interior Ministry listed six separate arrests in its statement, including the capture of 18 suspects led by a non-Saudi missile expert. The suspects were allegedly “planning to smuggle eight missiles into the Kingdom to carry out terrorist operations.”

A security official said the cell leader was a Yemeni rocket expert who had come illegally into the Kingdom over Saudi Arabia’s southern frontier with Yemen.

The official urged Saudi parents to monitor their sons’ behavior closely and be on guard “against the danger of terrorism.” He also asked parents to report to the authorities any “ideological deviation” on the part of their sons.

The new arrests of militants show that the Kingdom’s security crackdown is not sufficient to vanquish them and that the authorities also need to combat the extremist thinking that drives them.

“By focusing on the security approach, the state has eliminated the visible threat by foiling a series of attacks,” said Sheikh Mohsen Al-Awaji, a prominent Saudi scholar. “But the latent threat is there, and it is a big one. There is no guarantee that (the crackdown) will always succeed” unless accompanied by an effort to “confront the deviant thinking” of the militants.

Awaji said the Kingdom needs to “mobilize the whole society” in order to defeat the militants’ ideology of “takfeer” — branding other Muslims as infidels in order to legitimize violence against them.

“The state has achieved results that were beyond expectations by doing this in prisons,” he said, referring to the government-appointed “advice committee” that reportedly convinced 1,500 detained militants to change their ways.


http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&sect...tegory=Kingdom

[Mustafa al-Muhaajir]

Saudi must wage battle of minds with Al-Qaeda: analysts

DUBAI (AFP) — Saudi arrests of hundreds more Al-Qaeda suspects for plotting attacks shows that Riyadh's security crackdown is not enough to vanquish them and that the authorities also need to combat the extremist thinking that drives them, analysts said Thursday.

"By focusing on the security approach, the state has eliminated the visible threat" by foiling a series of attacks, Sheikh Mohsen al-Awaji, a prominent Saudi Muslim cleric, told AFP.

"But the latent threat is there, and it is a big one. There is no guarantee that (the crackdown) will always succeed" unless it is accompanied by an effort to "confront the deviant thinking" of the militants.

The Saudi interior ministry said on Wednesday that security forces had rounded up 208 suspected Al-Qaeda militants plotting assassinations and an attack on a logistical oil facility in the Eastern Province.

The arrests, made over the past few months, were among the most numerous since the kingdom began fighting followers of Saudi-born Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who launched a spate of bombings and shootings in May 2003.

Saudi Arabia has often reported arrests of "deviant" cells despite its success in thwarting attacks such as those that shook the oil powerhouse in 2003-2004.

In April, Riyadh reported rounding up 172 suspects, some of whom had plotted airborne suicide attacks on oil facilities and army bases.

In February 2006, it announced that it had foiled an attempt to blow up the world's largest oil processing plant in the Eastern Province.

Awaji, a moderate Islamist, said Riyadh needs to "mobilise the whole society" to defeat the militants ideology of "takfeer" -- branding other Muslims as infidels in order to legitimise violence against them.

"The state achieved results that were beyond expectations by doing this in prisons," he said, referring to the government-appointed "advice committee" that reportedly persuaded 1,500 detained militants to changed their ways.

It must enlist clerics, academics, psychiatrists and others to "raise awareness in society of the danger" posed by extremism, Awaji said.

Fares bin Huzam, a Saudi journalist and researcher who specialises in Al-Qaeda, said the "ideological battle" was slow, in contrast with the security crackdown being waged at full speed.

"The takfeeri ideology is there, and the ground is fertile for it -- through the spreading of hatred and hostility toward non-Muslims and foreigners," he told AFP.

"It's not in the (academic) curricula. It's in the street, in mosques, in seminars ... It may have decreased, but just a little," he said.

Bin Huzam said that while security forces had managed to thwart any major Al-Qaeda operation for three years, "there is no guarantee that this success will continue because of the absence of an ideological battle."

He said foreign states were exploiting the extremist thinking still prevalent in Saudi Arabia to recruit and manipulate militants.

"All indications are that there are states behind these groups, and that they are not directed only by bin Laden and (his second-in-command Ayman) al-Zawahiri," bin Huzam said.

"Al-Qaeda has spent one billion riyals (266 million dollars) since launching its operations in 2003. Where are they getting this money from and who is giving them weapons? Forty percent of the 208 people arrested are not (Saudi) citizens," he said.

Although bin Huzam did not name any state, he pointed out that the interior ministry has repeatedly linked the militants to "troubled regions," in veiled references to Iraq and Afghanistan, and that it spoke on Wednesday of militants who were "tools in the hands of others."

"Who is helping returnees from Iraq (get into Saudi Arabia)? There is no way they can cross the border" directly due to tight security at the frontier, he said.


http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...UkJr1GQ12PaBQw

[Mustafa al-Muhaajir]

Saudis on High Terror Alert Before Hajj

By ABDULLAH SHIHRI

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia's announcement of its largest anti-terror sweep ever was timed ahead of the Muslim Hajj as a warning to those who might be plotting attacks during the pilgrimage, a security official said Thursday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the arrests of more than 200 al-Qaida-linked militants was "a warning" to those who seek to abuse the December event to "disturb" the pilgrims and to "damage the image of a forgiving Islam."

The kingdom said Wednesday it had arrested 208 suspected terrorists in six cells, including some who were planning to carry out attacks against oil installations in the country's east, home to most Saudi petroleum reserves.

The announcement came less than three weeks before the Hajj, when more than 2 million Muslim pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia each year. The government usually steps up security during this period.

The Interior Ministry listed six separate arrests in its statement, including the capture of 18 suspects led by a non-Saudi missile expert who were allegedly "planning to smuggle eight missiles into the kingdom to carry out terrorist operations."

The security official told The Associated Press that the cell leader was a Yemeni rocket expert who had sneaked across Saudi Arabia's southern border with Yemen.

Some clerics in the kingdom have been accused of feeding hard-line ideology to Saudi youth to fuel militancy and terrorism.

The security official urged Saudi parents to closely monitor their sons' behavior and be on guard "toward the danger of terrorism." The official also urged them to report to authorities any "ideological deviation" on the part of their sons.

The Interior Ministry said the detained militants had been linked to a number of plots, such as attacks on oil installations, the smuggling of fighters to and from Afghanistan and Iraq, and plans to assassinate the kingdom's religious leaders and security officials.

The kingdom, which is the birthplace of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has been waging a heavy crackdown on the group's militants since a 2003 wave of attacks on foreigners here.

The largest previous sweep by Saudi authorities was announced in April. It netted 172 militants, including pilots allegedly trained to carry out attacks on oil refineries using civilian planes.

The announcement indicated that al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists were still actively attempting to destabilize the monarchy, which holds a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves.


http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h...hTF4AD8T7IGDO0

[Noorah]

do you reckon those who kill and threaten hujjaj are mujahideen?
because they hate the government they kill innocent muslims?

[abumuwahid]

do you reckon those who kill and threaten hujjaj are mujahideen?
because they hate the government they kill innocent muslims?

Only a complete fool will believe all this filthy propaganda of the Saudi Taghut Government and their supporters.

[waziri]

do you reckon those who kill and threaten hujjaj are mujahideen?
because they hate the government they kill innocent muslims?

Who has killed the hujjaj? Who has threatened to kill or harm them? No one thats who.

Do you regard those who aid in the wholesale slaughter of muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan as being muslim rulers who shaould be obeyed?

[Um Abdullah M.]

They are not mujahideen
what they are doing is not jihad.

May Allah guide them.

[waziri]

They are not mujahideen
what they are doing is not jihad.

May Allah guide them.

Who are not mujahideen?

[Um Abdullah M.]

The ones who bomb inside saudi Arabia

If they did jihad in Afghanisatn or Iraq then they are mujahideen at that time, but at the time they are bombing in KSA, they are not mujahideen, because what they are doing is not jihad

[waziri]

The saudi dictators are not legitimate rulers who deserve our obedience,they are allies of the west (amreeka) and are obstacles obstructing the implementation of shariah in its purest form.


The view that they are apostates is a legitimate one and the fact that they are guilty of clear and open major kuffr is undeniable.


ps what is your view with regards to the saudi authorities preventing mujahideen traveling to Iraq to fight the americans?and what is your view regarding those clerics who issue fatawas stating that to travel to Iraq for jihad is not allowed?