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Who Finances the Fanatics?


(U.S. News) Mortimer B. Zuckerman - On Nov. 20, 1979, 500 fundamentalists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site of Islam, and took 6,000 pilgrims hostage. The siege was a devastating blow to the House of Saud, mocking their role as guardian of Islam's holy places. They understood the deep attachment of their people to their puritanical variant of Islam, Wahhabism. Their response? Co-opt the ideology of the Wahhabists and give Wahhabi clerics more control over the social, economic, and educational life of the kingdom. Even worse, the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs was given billions of dollars to export Wahhabism to the Muslim world. The Saudis must realize that President Bush sees 9/11 as a wake-up call. They will truly regret it if they get into the cross hairs of America.
2002-12-30 00:00:00
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