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Saudi hand makes US
uneasy
By Peyman Pejman
FALLUJA - United States officials in Iraq are
becoming concerned over increased activity by the Saudi
government and by radical Wahhabi groups in Iraq, and
while some of this is welcomed, the rest is not.
The Saudi government is certainly engaged in
charitable work and in aiding the Iraqi people, but US
officials are more troubled by the presence of radical
Sunni Muslim Wahhabi groups. The Wahhabis are a puritan
movement associated with the Saudi dynasty, and
officials say that some of them may have the direct or
indirect backing of factions within the Saudi
government.
There is no tangible evidence
linking any Saudi group to the Sunni Muslim groups who
have long allied themselves with the former regime of
Saddam Hussein, and who are believed to be behind the
almost daily attacks on US forces in areas north of
Baghdad.
But US officials are following the
issue closely. "We realize there is some Saudi activity
and involvement, and we've basically told them 'cut it
out'," a senior US official in Baghdad speaking on
condition of anonymity told Inter Press Service.
Any spread of the Wahhabi ideology in a country
where the US has been spending US$4 billion a month is
likely to anger many US lawmakers, the US official says.
Some of them still blame the Saudi royal family for not
keeping a tighter leash on the movement in the days and
months leading to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The Saudi government was the first to be allowed
to open a free hospital for Iraqis. The hospital is
officially run by the country's Red Crescent Society and
it has a staff of 10 doctors and 20 assistants, with 500
military personnel protecting the facility. The center
has treated some 66,000 Iraqi patients, operated on many
wounded by explosions, and even sent some who needed
complex surgery to Saudi Arabia, an administrative
official at the center says.
The Saudi
government has been sending massive amounts of food into
Iraq through the medical facility, in arrangement with
the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. The food arrives in
boxes clearly marked, "A Gift from the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia to the Brotherly People of Iraq". On the surface,
there is nothing sinister about the donations. But some
Iraqis say that such donations are usually considered an
entree into something deeper.
"We have told the
Americans to watch out for this type of behavior," a
senior Kurdish official who asked not to be named said.
" The Saudis are known for doing this, and they tried
this in Kurdistan. They would come in as a charity. They
help you. They give you food and money. Then they say,
'if you memorize this much of the Koran, I'll pay you
this much'.
"Next month, they'll double the
money if you memorize twice as much as the first month.
Then they'll offer to give you more money if you grow a
beard. Before you know it, you are a fundamentalist,"
the Kurdish official said.
But while no
connection has been found between the more traditional
Wahhabi groups and Iraqi Sunni Muslim groups bent on
expelling the coalition forces from Iraq, US officials
are keeping a close eye on worrying signs.
Circumstantial indications are not evidence, but they
have been enough to make the US forces watchful.
Last month, US forces raided a house in the
northern city Mosul, a traditional hotbed of Wahhabi
activity in Iraq, and arrested 15 people, all of them
Wahhabis. Large quantities of arms and ammunition,
including AK-47 guns, hand grenades and rocket-propelled
grenades were seized.
In Falluja, where many of
the attacks against US forces have occurred, the
hardline leader of a local mosque, Sheikh Abdul Aziz
al-Jenabi, denied to Inter Press Service that there is
"any Wahhabi influence in Iraq". Four feet away outside
the room, men in their early twenties were clearly
dressed in traditional Wahhabi dress.
(Inter
Press Service)
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