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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAs one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi project.”
I'm watching all the gasbags gurgling merrily about the new arab Muslim coalition of the willing participating in the bombing inside Syria tonight (one guy said on CNN he was darned proud to have trained them.) They are Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates and I just can't stop thinking about this piece by Steve Clemons from a few months ago:
Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, John McCain told CNNs Candy Crowley in January 2014. Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, and for our Qatari friends, the senator said once again a month later, at the Munich Security Conference.
McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabias intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assads regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.
But shortly after McCains Munich comments, Saudi Arabias King Abdullah relieved Bandar of his Syrian covert-action portfolio, which was then transferred to Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. By mid-April, just two weeks after President Obama met with King Abdullah on March 28, Bandar had also been removed from his position as head of Saudi intelligenceaccording to official government statements, at his own request. Sources close to the royal court told me that, in fact, the king fired Bandar over his handling of the kingdoms Syria policy and other simmering tensions, after initially refusing to accept Bandars offers to resign. (Bandar retains his title as secretary-general of the kings National Security Council.)
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the moderate armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assads forces are Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the latter of which is now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Qatars military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra, to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, ISIS has been a Saudi project.
McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabias intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assads regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.
But shortly after McCains Munich comments, Saudi Arabias King Abdullah relieved Bandar of his Syrian covert-action portfolio, which was then transferred to Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. By mid-April, just two weeks after President Obama met with King Abdullah on March 28, Bandar had also been removed from his position as head of Saudi intelligenceaccording to official government statements, at his own request. Sources close to the royal court told me that, in fact, the king fired Bandar over his handling of the kingdoms Syria policy and other simmering tensions, after initially refusing to accept Bandars offers to resign. (Bandar retains his title as secretary-general of the kings National Security Council.)
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the moderate armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assads forces are Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the latter of which is now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Qatars military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra, to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, ISIS has been a Saudi project.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/
He's my enemy, he's my friend. He's my enemy and my friend ...
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/cui-bono-who-hell-knows.html
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As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi project.” (Original Post)
kpete
Sep 2014
OP
blm
(113,043 posts)1. Like TeaParty was a GOP project. Create the monster then fear it.
That's what you get when you manipulate the fevered imaginings of fundamentalists in order to exploit them. The rest of us are stuck with the results.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)2. No matter how many times this gets pointed out
the booster club just dismisses the obvious as absurd. Our policy right now in the region is, to put it mildly, "incoherent".
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)3. release the 28 pages of the 911 report
and it will open the second front on the real enemy
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)4. Whatever it takes to feed the MIC. Whatever it takes.
K&R.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)5. I thought Qatar was funding the terrorists as well.