(Weekly Standard) Olivier Guitta - The most important political event in Saudi Arabia in the last year may have been the appointment on Feb. 9 of Abdullah bin Saleh al-Obaid, a hard-core Wahhabi, as education minister. Al-Obaid replaces a secularist reformer at the head of a ministry controlling 27% of the national budget and influencing the minds of the next generation. In choosing a Wahhabi for this vital post, Crown Prince Abdullah snubbed his Western friends and handed a victory to the sympathizers of al-Qaeda. From 1995 to 2002, al-Obaid was head of the Muslim World League, an organization that in its origins, mission, and associations is bound up with Islamic extremism. Since its founding in 1962, it has spent billions of Saudi government dollars to expand worldwide for the purpose of spreading Wahhabism. The Muslim World League also has direct links to al-Qaeda. Its branch in Peshawar, Pakistan, was led by Wael Jalaidan, "one of the founders of al-Qaeda," according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
2005-03-29 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive