- Joined
- Mar 5, 2014
- Messages
- 4,974
- Reaction score
- 1,047
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
Every since I heard that the Sunnis in charge of the Iraqi Army in the Sunni areas of Iraq abandoned their posts and let ISIS take over, I have been wondering if Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel have helped ISIS rise to force the US back into the Middle East. While pondering this today, I came across this very interesting article from back in July:
Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country
Very interesting indeed.
This also came on the radar today
Saudi king warns of terrorist threat to Europe, US
Very interesting indeed.
I personally think it's quite possible that Saudi Arabia may have paid those officials in the Iraqi Army to abandon their posts so that ISIS could take over and the US would have to come back into Iraq.
So what do you think? Did Saudi Arabia facilitate the rise of ISIS so that the US would be forced to come back into the Middle East with military force?
Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country
How far is Saudi Arabia complicit in the Isis takeover of much of northern Iraq, and is it stoking an escalating Sunni-Shia conflict across the Islamic world? Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: "The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally 'God help the Shia'. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them."
The fatal moment predicted by Prince Bandar may now have come for many Shia, with Saudi Arabia playing an important role in bringing it about by supporting the anti-Shia jihad in Iraq and Syria. Since the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on 10 June, Shia women and children have been killed in villages south of Kirkuk, and Shia air force cadets machine-gunned and buried in mass graves near Tikrit.
In Mosul, Shia shrines and mosques have been blown up, and in the nearby Shia Turkoman city of Tal Afar 4,000 houses have been taken over by Isis fighters as "spoils of war". Simply to be identified as Shia or a related sect, such as the Alawites, in Sunni rebel-held parts of Iraq and Syria today, has become as dangerous as being a Jew was in Nazi-controlled parts of Europe in 1940.
There is no doubt about the accuracy of the quote by Prince Bandar, secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council from 2005 and head of General Intelligence between 2012 and 2014, the crucial two years when al-Qa'ida-type jihadis took over the Sunni-armed opposition in Iraq and Syria. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute last week, Dearlove, who headed MI6 from 1999 to 2004, emphasised the significance of Prince Bandar's words, saying that they constituted "a chilling comment that I remember very well indeed".
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, has played a central role in the Isis surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. He said: "Such things simply do not happen spontaneously." This sounds realistic since the tribal and communal leadership in Sunni majority provinces is much beholden to Saudi and Gulf paymasters, and would be unlikely to cooperate with Isis without their consent.
................
Very interesting indeed.
This also came on the radar today
Saudi king warns of terrorist threat to Europe, US
The king of Saudi Arabia has warned that extremists could attack Europe and the U.S. if there is not a strong international response to terrorism after the Islamic State group seized a wide territory across Iraq and Syria.
While not mentioning any terrorist groups by name, King Abdullah's statement appeared aimed at drawing Washington and NATO forces into a wider fight against the Islamic State group and its supporters in the region.
.............
Very interesting indeed.
I personally think it's quite possible that Saudi Arabia may have paid those officials in the Iraqi Army to abandon their posts so that ISIS could take over and the US would have to come back into Iraq.
So what do you think? Did Saudi Arabia facilitate the rise of ISIS so that the US would be forced to come back into the Middle East with military force?