An eye-opening, look at the source of the current wave of Saudi Arabian-sponsored terrorism, how it spread, and why the West did nothing. Here is the truth about ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and more.

Lifting the mask of international terrorism, Terence Ward reveals a sinister truth. Far from being “the West’s ally in the War on Terror,” Saudi Arabia is in reality the largest exporter of Wahhabism—the severe, ultra-conservative sect of Islam that is both Saudi Arabia’s official religion and the core ideology for international terror groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Boko Haram.

Over decades, the Saudi regime has engaged in a well-crafted mission to fund charities, mosques, and schools that promote their Wahhabi doctrine across the Middle East and beyond. Efforts to expand Saudi influence have now been focused on European cities as well. The front lines of the War of Terror aren’t a world away; they are much closer than we can imagine.

Terence Ward, who has spent much of his life in the Middle East, gives his unique insight into the culture of extremism, its rapid expansion, and how it can be stopped.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

“In recently leaked diplomatic memos, Hillary Clinton highlighted the success of

wealthy, conservative Gulf donors in bankrolling the Afghan and Pakistani

conflicts while their host governments have done little to stop them. Since the

1990s, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh ibn Baz, had urged his

countrymen to donate generously to the Taliban, whom he called heroic, pure,

young Salafi warriors.

By December 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clearly understood

where the money trail began. “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most

significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. Saudi Arabia

remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (in Pakistan).”

Clinton’s cables also give us insight into how donations were made. Pakistani

militants slipped into Saudi Arabia disguised as pilgrims. There, they raised

funds and created front companies to receive money from government sanctioned charities.

One cable detailed how a Saudi–based front company funded the Pakistani

group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, that launched the bloody Mumbai attacks in 2008.

Officials of this group’s charity wing traveled to Saudi Arabia to seek donations

for new schools at vastly inflated costs—then siphoned off the money to fund

their terrorist operations.

Clinton, in the same cable, described her Saudi allies as reluctant to stop this

flow of funds. “It’s an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat

terrorist funds emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.” She then

identified three Saudi charities, seen as terrorist entities in the US, which were

still operating in the Kingdom. “Intelligence suggests that these groups continue

to send money overseas and, at times, fund extremism overseas.”

By July 2013, the European Parliament publically declared “Wahhabism as

the main source of global terrorism.” And, in another released email of a private

conversation three months later, Clinton, allegedly said “the Saudis have

exported more extreme ideology than any other place on Earth over the course of

the last thirty years,” during a closed-door speech to the Jewish United Fund in

Chicago on October 28, 2013.

Meanwhile, the Saudi ruling family still applauded and promoted Wahhabism

for its piety and the movement’s strident opposition the regional ambitions of

Iran and Shia communities in the Arab world.

Recently, the US State Department has estimated that over the past four

decades Riyadh has invested more than ten billion dollars into charitable

foundations in its attempt to Wahhabize mainstream Sunni Islam. European

Union intelligence experts estimated that from this sum between 15 to 20 percent

has been diverted to al-Qaeda and other violent jihadists.

In the end, the roots of the crisis may be the exclusive thoughts of Ibn

Taymiyyah and Abdul Wahhab that justify the use of violence by ISIS and alQaeda.

Jihadists have carried out attacks inside and outside Saudi Arabia.

From atrocities in Paris, bombings in Brussels and Beirut, attacks in London,

Manchester, Nice, and Berlin, to suicide bombings in Shia mosques in eastern

Saudi Arabia, that ideology remains the same.”

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