Storm Track Infiltration: The Education Jihad

Following is the HS Today (Homeland Security Today Journal) cover story “Jihad Versus Education.” An analysis of the impact of Jihadi influence and ideology on US Education and recommendations to the US Government, executive branch and Congress. Posted on Walid Phares and FDD web sites. The piece argues that for the past two decades the American educational system has been targeted and impacted by Oil producing regimes leading to a derailing of the national security analysis. The article underlines the fact that by reaching the classrooms, Wahabi and Khumeinist influence was affecting the newsrooms. Hat tip to The Counterterrorism Blog.

Here are some important excerpts of the Phares article.

THE WAR ON US EDUCATION: 1980s-1990s

One of the major results of the 1973 oil crisis was the rise of a determination by many oil producing regimes that the West, in general, and the United States, in particular, “understand” the greater Middle East, the Arab and the Muslim world and, accordingly, design its policies toward those regimes and ideologies on the basis of this “understanding”.

There is that need to ‘understand’ why our enemy doesn’t like us.

As a result, millions of dollars were invested in American and European educational institutions as a way to “foster” this understanding. But instead of fostering an objective understanding or spreading impartial knowledge, the growing influence of Wahabism, an extreme form of Islam, and other such ideologies on the nation’s campuses played a dangerous role: Because of the ideological nature of the donors, the financed programs followed the guidelines of the donor regimes and organizations, which obviously narrowed research and teaching to issues remote from the major historical crisis in the region, other than the modern Arab-Israeli conflict. It removed all serious attention to the rise of Islamism, jihadism and even Baathism, as well as the deep ethnic and religious conflicts and the mass abuse of human rights in that part of the world.

The apologists like John Esposito and Bernard Lewis say:

A careful review of curricula and research projects established within the US educational system, both public and private, since the 1980s stunningly reveals that American classrooms were deprived of knowledge on social, historical, ethnic and ideological movements rising to challenge the
United States. Moreover, as I taught comparative studies for over a decade and lectured on many campuses in the 1990s, I came to realize that defense, strategic and security studies were heavily influenced by “regional” studies when it came to identifying the backgrounds of international terrorist movements emerging from the greater
Middle East and penetrating western societies. History and Middle Eastern studies had been corrupted by Wahabi and other funding ith an impact on political science, international relations and, ultimately, defense and security studies across the land.

A thorough review of the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the Middle East Studies Association of America, the International Studies Association, the Middle East Institute and other professional education associations, of the hundreds of books, publications, articles, talks and research grants distributed by Ivy League universities and other colleges lead to only one conclusion: The gap is immense. There are no traces of the roots of jihadism and its long-term objectives against democracies and the
United States. Instead, prominent scholars produced an enormous amount of literature precisely deflecting scholars and students away from the most serious issues relatedto American defense and security after the collapse of the
Soviet Union.

The “hole” was so vast and the “deflection” (not to use the term “deception”) so wide that a systemic problem strode the field producing waves of effects into the professional worlds of the media and policy. An academic lobotomy led to an incapacitation of the public learning process about the national security threat and created a cultural crisis in perception. In short, if one isn’t taught about the political thinking of the enemy and his ideological objectives in the classroom, where else would one catch up?

Those who spread the doctrine of jihadism in
America during the 1990s had no counter check from the public or government, while even a minimal manifestation of Nazism, anti- Semitism or domestic violent racism was quickly countered. Clearly, Americans never lacked for imagination, but they were deprived of the necessary information.

If intellectual blurring starts in classrooms, it soon reaches the newsrooms and, eventually, the intelligence rooms and war rooms. If young Americans are mistaught the ideology, political culture and intentions of the enemy while at school and in college, once graduated, they will carry this misperception with them as they find jobs and are recruited in all the layers of national analysis. Students enter the media, legislative research, security, intelligence, foreign policy, justice, think tanks and other sectors crucial for national decision making at the bottom levels and rise up to the ultimate positions. By failing students in the classrooms, the educational system caused a national analysis failure: Media failed to report terrorism as it should have, impacting government’s various levels of policymaking; intelligence analysis, deprived of cultural understanding, saw the data but couldn’t put the bigger picture together; courts could’t process the concepts of terrorism beyond criminality; and, ultimately, both the legislative and executive branches were denied sound advice on the war already in progress against the country.

In conclusion, the failure in education led to a derailment of national analysis.

So what about today? How deep does the rabbit hole go?

In an article by Gordon Thomas in the G2 Bulletin, he writes that leading
UK universities are seriously infiltrated by jihadists.

MI5 has established that four of
Britain’s leading universities have been “seriously infiltrated” by al-Qaida recruiters. Another 15 campuses are under urgent investigation by the security services. Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, has publicly spoken of a “highly dangerous network that is designed to attract more and more students into al-Qaida.” Her claim is the first official indication of how far the terror organisation has penetrated British campuses that will produce the next generation of scientists and economists. “

Both professions have long been targets for al-Qaida.

Among the four universities already identified by MI5 are
London
University and
Brunel
University in the western suburbs of the city,
Manchester
Metropolitan
University and

Sheffield
University. Between them they graduate a steady stream of chemists, biologists and economists. One of the graduates was Dhiren Barot, the most senior al-Qaida plotter to be captured in
Britain. Barot, 34, a Hindu convert to Islam, was sentenced last week to serve 40 years in jail aftr he pleaded guilty to planning terrorist attacks, which the prosecution said “would have created carnage, bloodshed and butchers in Britain and
America.” It emerged during the trial that Barot had used his Brunel student card to travel to
America and film targets.

So how can al-Qaida recruiters openly do the recruiting?

MI5 increasingly believes al-Qaida recruiters are bypassing campus bans on groups with radical links by presenting themselves as “ordinary Muslims. They are also operating behind the names of harmless sounding societies like ‘The Search For Truth’ and ‘To Better Understand The Prophet,'” said an MI5 officer.

MI5 is not without resources, though.

Working with the security services are small teams of security cleared Muslim imams known as “the trouble shooters.” Their task is to go to campuses and tackle indoctrination head on. One of the trouble shooters is Sheik Musa Admani, a Muslim chaplain at

London
Metropolitan
University. “We are dealing at campus level with highly skilled recruiters who are filled with hatred. Hatred of the white man, and America and
Britain in particular,” he says.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Michelle Malkin reported in November that Jihad sympathizers are running amok in Australia.

A SIMULATION exercise in which Year 11 students played Arabs and Israelis has been dropped by NSW schools after parents complained it was creating racial tension and painted terrorists in a sympathetic light. An inquiry by a senior Education Department officer found the simulation exercise, devised by Macquarie University’s centre for Middle Eastern studies, risked creating disharmony in schools and the community and that there was a “significant risk” of harm to the “welfare and wellbeing of students from particular minorities”.

Documents given to The Australian show the inquiry was prompted by complaints from parents that background notes presented to the students gave positive descriptions of groups such as Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Students were not told the groups are listed terrorist organisations and support for them is an offence under Australian law. The profile of Hezbollah accurately said that its long-term aims were to rid
Palestine of the Jewish population and create an Arab state but no mention was made of its terrorist activities, only philanthropic ones.

A profile of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was presented without mention of his sponsorship of international terrorism. Rather, his goal was listed as trying “to bring the internet to
Syria”.

H.G. Wells wrote nearly 50 years ago that “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

As far as the true knowledge of Islam is concerned, education is losing.
————————————————————————————————————

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Fanatic Muslim Parents Groom SuicideKids

By Grant Swank, TCV:

What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The American child answers with “fireman” or “teacher” or “swimming coach” or whatever.

The extremist Muslim child answers with “future suicide.”

According to Ryan R. Jones of AHN, “Hezbollah has begun replenishing its ranks after more than a month of war with Israel by recruiting the children of its fallen fighters, according to the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yusuf. MORE

Crooked John Conyers

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006623.htm

Prayer in Virginia public school: Muslim prayer, of course, prayed by non-Muslims

“Not only will he learn about the culture by wearing traditional Muslim clothing and praying five times a day, but ‘Also going without pork for 30 days, that’s going to be rough but we’ll make do,’ said Morris.” In a public school. Imagine the outcry if the teacher were having his students dress as monks and pray Christian prayers. But we all know, of course, that Christian prayer is not allowed in American public schools. Muslim prayer, obviously, is another story: I was an expert witness a few years ago on a case in California that challenged exercises such as these. We lost.

“Living as Muslim,” by Kelly Creswell for WHSV.com, with thanks to Cindy:

The Spotswood High School students are researching the Muslim culture and finding out how much no one really knows about this culture that is sometimes is negatively stereotyped by the public.”What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Islam?” said Casey Morris.

“Iraq,” a fellow student replied.

That’s what Casey Morris hopes to eliminate through his research project, the stereotypes the public has about Muslims. Not only will he learn about the culture by wearing traditional Muslim clothing and praying five times a day, but “Also going without pork for 30 days, that’s going to be rough but we’ll make do,” said Morris.

Morris says he is prepared for the criticism that comes along with it.

“Yeah, we’re probably going to get some funny looks as we go down the hallway. I’m expecting comments maybe here and there. You know what, I’ll be honest, I’ll be disappointed if we don’t get some,” said Morris.

Members of the Muslim community here in the Valley say many people don’t understand the Muslim culture.

“Any effort that tries to educate people and increases to their information can turn very positive towards wider benefit of our society,” said Zulfiqar Ishaq, a member of the Muslim community.

Morris’ goal is to get a big dose of multiculturalism.

“Alan and I will obviously come out of the deal with a great understanding of the culture with great respect and appreciation for the Islamic culture and hopefully we’ll impart some of that upon other people too,” said Morris.

“What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Muslim?” asked Morris.

“Umm, prayer books?” replied a student.

Morris says he and his classmate will start the actual project January 2 and go for the whole month. They will capture everything on video and put together a documentary not only showing what they learned, but the local attitudes toward Muslims as well.

Not a shot was fired yet the Somali jihad was suddenly over…

Yes. It was sweet — although many among the Western elites would prefer a “stable” Sharia-ruled Somalia. By Xan Rice in The Guardian:

Their fortress fell without a shot. After just nine days of clashes in Somalia’s hinterland, the Islamists who had vowed to fight to the death abandoned Mogadishu, the city they had governed since June. From having controlled most of southern and central Somalia, they were holed up yesterday in the southern port city of Kismaayo, facing annihilation by Ethiopian troops.Ali Mohamed Ghedi, Prime Minister in Somalia’s transitional government – an irrelevance until last week – rode triumphantly into Mogadishu on Friday, announcing the end of ‘terrorism’ in the country. Ethiopia, which together with the US has stoked fears about the rise of a terrorist state in the Horn of Africa, was basking in the success of a campaign that was swifter and more successful than anyone had predicted.

‘Nobody expected the Islamists to show this little political resilience,’ said Matt Bryden, a consultant to the conflict-monitoring body, International Crisis Group. ‘They were the first movement to pacify southern Somalia for 16 years, yet they crumbled like a pack of cards.’

The Guardian also recently published an article entitled “International lawlessness: The US-backed invasion of Somalia to topple its Islamists is a dangerous, illegal act of aggression,” by Salim Lone, UN spokesman in Iraq in 2003 and a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya (thanks to Douglas Murray).

U.S. agencies missing links between illegal immigration and jihad terrorism

Another story highlighting the howling need for immigration reform, and underscoring its status as a national security issue. As the embattled Congressman Goode said, illegal immigration must be stopped, and legal immigration drastically curtailed — with an eye toward keeping jihadists from entering the country. “Of special interest: U.S. agencies missing links between illegal immigration and terrorism,” by Sara A. Carter in the San Bernardino County Sun, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

COLUMBUS, N.M. – On Sept. 5, a man calling himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was apprehended off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border.The tinted windows on Alfonso Salinas’ vehicle aroused the suspicion of Border Patrol agents patrolling a dark and desolate stretch of Highway 9, which runs parallel to the border and is the site of large numbers of illegal crossings.

The agents discovered three Mexican migrants in the vehicle with Alfonso Salinas.

But what they discovered several days later made a far greater impression.

Alfonso Salinas was not who he seemed, according to U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security documents. He lied to the agents about who he was, where he came from and what he was doing.

It would take nearly a week of interviews with federal agents before Alfonso Salinas would give his real name: Ayman Sulmane Kamal, a Muslim born in Egypt – a country designated as “special-interest” by the United States for sponsoring terrorism.

Kamal’s case is not an isolated one.

Evidence of “special-interest aliens” using the Mexican border to gain entry to the United States has been kept secret from the American public, according to federal law-enforcement agents, terrorism experts and critics of U.S. foreign policy with Mexico.

In 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2million people illegally in the U.S. Of those, 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico, and roughly 650 were, like Kamal, from special-interest countries, according to the Border Patrol.

Those interviewed by the Sun’s sister newspaper, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, say agencies including the FBI and CIA are not using information from Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration agents to make connections between the drug trade, illegal immigration and terrorist organizations.

“For us to believe that Mexican smugglers will not assist, knowingly or unknowingly, foreign terrorists trying to enter the United States is incomprehensible,” said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who, along with other representatives, has pushed for stricter border security policies.

1,500 in Minneapolis protest ouster of Sharia government in Somalia

What are 1,500 supporters of Islamic jihad and Sharia law doing in Minneapolis? What are the implications of this for our own national security? Why is no one with any power or influence even asking these questions?

“Area Somalis want peace for homeland: Many of the 1,500 protesters in Minneapolis were angered that the U.S. gave tacit support for ousting of Islamists,” by Liz Fedor in the Star Tribune, with thanks to CGW:

More than a thousand Somalis gathered in Minneapolis on Saturday to call for Ethiopian troops to withdraw immediately from Somalia.Their protest capped a week in which transitional government troops retook Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, with the backing of Ethiopian infantrymen.

The U.S. government “gave the green light” to Ethiopia to work in concert with the transitional federal government in Somalia, and that action was “totally wrong,” said Hassan Mohamud.

He is the president of the Somali Institute for Peace and Justice in Minneapolis, which organized Saturday’s rally.

“We ask the president of the United States, Mr. Bush, and his administration to stop supporting the terrorists. Ethiopian troops are terrorists,” Mohamud said to a cheering crowd.

Somali men, women and children gathered Saturday morning in Peavey Park in Minneapolis, and they carried an array of signs. Some said “No more war” and “Islam is the solution.”

Lt. Rick Thomas of the Minneapolis Police Department estimated the crowd at about 1,500 people for a rally that ran for more than two hours.

Mohamud said he and other Somalis want the United States to support talks that can yield “peace and reconciliation.”

Somalia has not had a stable government in 15 years, but many attendees at the rally said that the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) had brought some peace to the country during the past six months.

When that Islamic group took over the capital in June, many people were optimistic about the future, said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis.

“They brought back security,” Jamal said in a telephone interview. “We were all hoping that the moderates would be able to take the lead in the organization of the UIC. But unfortunately, the radicals hijacked the process.”

Don’t they always.

Jamal said the large Somali community in Minnesota “is divided,” adding that many local Somalis supported the overthrow of the Islamists over the past few days.Jamal said he attended the rally as an observer….

Sadia Egal, 23, said she had been planning to visit her parents in Somalia in January. But the recent military actions prompted her to postpone the trip. She is fearful that her teenage brothers in Somalia could be killed in revenge slayings. “My dad asked them to stop going to school,” she said, so they could stay home and avoid being targets for violence.

Egal, who lives in north Minneapolis, has not returned to Somalia since she left the country with her aunt when she was 12 years old. She works as a parking attendant and interpreter and has been saving her money for six months to pay for her plane ticket.

Abdullahi Hassan, a small-business owner from Eden Prairie, said, “What brought me here [to the rally] is our country is under occupation by foreign forces.” He said the United States should support a process that would allow highly educated Somalis to find solutions to stabilize the country and build hospitals and schools that will serve the people.

Tacit U.S. approval

A member of the Somali Institute for Peace and Justice, Abdul Mohamed of Minneapolis, said the military advances last week by Ethiopian troops created “one of the worst moments in Somali history.”

Mohamed disagrees with U.S. policy in Somalia, which he said is driven by “Islamophobia.”

If anyone in the American government had any courage, they would tackle this head-on, explaining that they opposed the Somali jihadists not only because they had ties to Al-Qaeda, but because Sharia government institutionalizes discrimination against women and religious minorities and denies freedom of conscience, and is in general an outrage to the dignity of the human person. In other words, they would engage the ideological challenge posed by the global jihad by asserting the superiority of the values of the modern West, and of the civilization built on Judeo-Christian values. But they don’t dare.

Shi’ite-Sunni rift laid bare by hanging

As predicted here by Hugh Fitzgerald.

By Lauren Frayer for AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BAGHDAD — As Iraqis awoke yesterday to television images of Saddam Hussein’s neck twisted by a hangman’s noose, Shi’ites cheered, Sunnis vowed revenge and at least 80 persons died from bombings and death squads — not far from the daily average.In Baghdad’s Shi’ite neighborhood of Sadr City, victims of Saddam’s three decades of autocratic rule took to the streets celebrating, dancing, beating drums and hanging Saddam in effigy.

Celebratory gunfire erupted in other Shi’ite neighborhoods across the country.

Outside the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of the capital, loyalists marched with Saddam pictures and waved Iraqi flags.

Defying curfews, hundreds took to the streets vowing revenge in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and gunmen paraded and fired into the air in support of Saddam in Tikrit, his hometown.

“He’s gone, but our problems continue. We brought problems on ourselves after Saddam because we began fighting Shi’ite on Sunni and Sunni on Shi’ite,” said Haider Hamed, 34, a candy store owner in east Baghdad whose uncle was killed in one of Saddam’s many brutal purges….

There was no immediate sign of a feared Sunni uprising in retaliation for Saddam’s execution.

But the London Sunday Telegraph reported that 400 to 500 Shi’ites had been kidnapped in the past two months and messages to relatives said they would be killed if Saddam died.

The responses within Iraq to Saddam’s death echoed the larger reaction across the Middle East, with his enemies rejoicing and his defenders proclaiming him a martyr.

Iranians and Kuwaitis welcomed the death of the leader who led wars against each of their countries.

Some Arab governments denounced the timing of the 69-year-old former president’s hanging just before the start of the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha.

Libya announced a three-day official mourning period and canceled all celebrations for Eid.

The jihad in Iraq will be intensified and attacks on invader forces will increase

The jihad in Iraq will be intensified and attacks on invader forces will increase”Reactions ranged from hailing Saddam as a hero to condemning him as another Hitler. “Jubilation and anger,” from Reuters:

…”There is a feeling of surprise and disapproval that the verdict has been applied during the holy months and the first days of Eid al-Adha,” a presenter on the official al-Ikhbariya TV said after programming was broken to read a statement.”Leaders of Islamic countries should show respect for this blessed occasion … not demean it,” said the statement, which was attributed to official news agency SPA’s political analyst.

[…]

“This is the worst Eid ever witnessed by Muslims. I had goosebumps when I saw the footage,” said Jordanian woman Rana Abdullah, 30, who works in the private sector.

Hesham Kassem, an Egyptian newspaper publisher and human rights activist, said airing the images was controversial, but added: “This man was one of the most brutal mass murderers in the history of mankind. He stands alongside Hitler and Stalin.”

But in the impoverished Iraqi village where Saddam was born, residents vowed revenge. “We will all become a bomb,” said one young man in Awja, 150 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Libya, the only state to show solidarity with Saddam in his death, declared three days of mourning and cancelled public Eid celebrations. Flags on government buildings flew at half-mast.

While many Arab governments refrained from comment, a senior aide to Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called the execution “a tragic end to a sad phase in Iraq’s history”.

“We hope that the Iraqi people would focus on the future to be able to pass this stage, stop the violence and achieve reconciliation,” Hesham Youssef told Reuters in Cairo.

The Foreign Ministry in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, expressed regret that authorities in Iraq went ahead with the execution, and for carrying it out on the first day of the Eid al-Adha feast.

“We hope that carrying out the execution … would not lead to more deterioration in the situation,” the official MENA news agency quoted the ministry’s spokesman Alaa El-Hadidi as saying.

The government of Iraqi neighbour Jordan said it hoped the execution would not have “any negative repercussions”.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said Arabs wondered who most deserved to face trial: “Saddam Hussein, who preserved the unity of Iraq, … or those who engulfed the country in this bloody civil war?”

No street unrest was reported in Arab capitals, where Muslims were preoccupied with the Eid holiday, but thousands of Indians, mostly Muslims, staged anti-US protests.

Tajeddine El Husseini, a Moroccan international economic law professor, said Saddam’s “symbolic sacrifice” on a religious day when Muslims slaughter animals would make things worse.

In Afghanistan, a Taliban commander said Saddam’s demise would galvanise Muslim opposition to the United States.

“His death will boost the morale of Muslims. The jihad in Iraq will be intensified and attacks on invader forces will increase,” Mullah Obaidullah Akhund told Reuters by telephone.

News of Saddam’s death shocked Palestinians, many of whom had seen him as an Arab hero for his missile attacks on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War that ended Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait.

“The Americans wanted to tell all Arab leaders who are their servants that they are like Saddam, nothing but a sheep slaughtered on Eid,” said Abu Mohammad Salama at a Gaza mosque.

Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri said Saddam’s execution was a “proof of the criminal and terrorist American policy and its war against all forces of resistance in the world”.

In Kuwait, where Saddam is reviled for his 1990 invasion, parliament speaker Jasim Mohammad al-Kharafi hailed the execution, saying it had brought the country “two Eids”.

Top Saudi cleric issues religious edict declaring Shiites to be infidels

Top Saudi cleric issues religious edict declaring Shiites to be infidels

The Associated Press

Friday, December 29, 2006

CAIRO, Egypt A top Saudi Arabian Sunni cleric on Friday declared Shiites around the world to be infidels who should be considered worse than Jews or Christians, the latest sign of increasing sectarianism in the Middle East. Abdul Rahman al-Barak, one of the top several Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia and considered close to the Kingdom’s royal family, also urged Sunnis worldwide to oppose reconciliation with Shiites. The Wahhabi stream of Sunni Islam that is followed in Saudi Arabia is conservative and views Shiites as heretics.

“By and large, rejectionists (Shiites) are the most evil sect of the nation and they have all the ingredients of the infidels,” Abdul Rahman wrote in a fatwa, or religious edict, that was posted on his web site Friday.

“The general ruling is that they are infidels, apostates and hypocrites,” he wrote. “They are more dangerous than Jews and Christians,” he wrote in the edict, which Abdul Rahman said was in response to a question from a follower.

Like most hardline Sunnis, Abdul Rahman employed the word “rejectionists,” used as a derogatory term to describe Shiites because they opted out of the Sunni school of Islamic theology. He also said the sect was the work of a Jewish conspiracy.

Abdul Rahman’s remarks comes amid concern by many Sunni Arabs about what they perceive as a Shiite revival following the 2003 war that toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq. They include Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Earlier this month, Nawaf Obeid, an adviser to the Saudi embassy in Washington, spoke of “massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis” if the United States withdraws from the country. Saudi citizens are also reportedly raising funds for Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

Earlier this month, about 30 prominent Saudi Wahhabi clerics called on Sunni Muslims around the Middle East to support their brethren in Iraq against Shiites and praised the anti-American insurgency.

Thousands of Iraqis have been killed this year in sectarian bloodshed between the majority Shiites and the Sunni Arab minority, who lost their dominance after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Saudi Arabia, like most Arab countries, is predominantly Sunni but has a significant Shiite minority.