PRESS RELEASE

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Saudi Role in Financing Jihadis Now Being Questioned in International Press

Feb. 9, 2015 (EIRNS)—Leading British Middle East journalist Robert Fisk, writing in the Belfast Telegraph Feb. 4, essentially asking, "If the Saudis aren’t funding ISIS, who is?" Putting it bluntly, Fisk asks, "Should the world blame the Saudis for the inflammable monster that is ISIS?" He says the U.S. may have to recalculate its relationship with the Kingdom, and alludes to Zacarias Moussaoui’s deposition, which he considers implausible in part.

"But Saudi Arabia is a Wahhabist state whose 18th-century puritan morality defined the Taliban—which received moral and financial support from Saudis—and whose misogyny and grotesque public beheadings after unfair trials parallel the cruelty of ISIS punishments.

"Deciding who is funding ISIS—and who should take the heat for its survival—depends upon the degree to which the world believes that the Islamic State is self-financing. Western governments have detailed the production of oil wells in ISIS territory and the vast amounts of cash supposedly stolen from Mosul banks after ISIS took over, but smuggling fuel and ransacking vaults can hardly sustain an Islamist nation which controls an area larger than the U.K.

"Millions of dollars must be arriving in ISIS hands from outside Iraq and Syria, and the question must be asked: If it doesn’t come from within Saudi Arabia—or Qatar—who on Earth is providing the wherewithal? Iceland? Peru?"