TEHRAN - Speaking at the so-called Shura Council on November 12, Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud accused Iran of “fostering of terrorism” and “fanning the flames of sectarianism”.

It was a joke to hear such words from King Salman whose country’s name is synonymous with intolerance, sectarianism, hatred, Wahhabism, Takfirism, terrorism, etc. 

Senior analysts and certain officials have been openly saying that the Saudi religious and education system has been planned in a way that germinates and nurtures extremism. 

The Saudi-funded madrassas, that were training and still maybe training Wahhabism, are famous around the world. Those educated in these madrassas consider anyone except themselves as infidels.

During the Afghan jihad against the Soviets (1979-1989), these madrassas, that recruited students from many countries, started training terrorists. 

Salman knows well that his country is the birthplace of al-Qaeda, which its outgrown version is now Daesh (ISIS). He also knows well that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens.   

In an interview published on the PBS website, Vali Nasr, a Middle East expert who served as an adviser to President Obama's administration, says violent “interpretations of Islam are being propagated out of schools that receive organizational and financial funding from Saudi Arabia.”

Nasr says, “In fact, I would push it further: that these schools would not have existed without Saudi funding. They would not have proliferated across Pakistan and India and Afghanistan without Saudi funding. They would not have had the kind of prowess that they have without Saudi funding, and they would not have trained as many people without Saudi funding.”

Citing examples, the distinguished scholar says, “For instance, in one madrassa in Pakistan, I interviewed 70 Malaysian and Thai students who are being educated side by side with students who went on to the Afghan war and the like. These people return to their countries, and then we see the results in a short while. ... At best, they become hot-headed preachers in mosques that encourage fighting Christians in Nigeria or in Indonesia. And in a worst case, they actually recruit or participate in terror acts.”

What is quite clear is that these graduates, each of who naturally brainwashed some others, later found their way in Iraq and Syria, committing indescribable crimes under the names of Daesh, al-Nusra, etc. 
 
According to Al Jazeera, the Saudi king also condemned what he alleged was the Houthi movement’s “deliberate and methodological” targeting of civilians inside Saudi Arabia via drones and missiles.

Contrary to what Salman claimed, it is the Yemeni citizens who are being dismembered by the Saudi-led aerial raids and wedding ceremonies are turned into tragic scenes.

It is better that the 84-year-old king ask himself that who initiated this unprovoked war on Yemen in March 2015, which the United Nations has said it has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. 

On September 2, 2018, the Human Rights Watchdog (HRW) said a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that killed at least 26 children and wounded at least 19 more in or near a school bus in the busy market of Dhahyan, in northern Yemen, on August 9, 2018, is an apparent war crime.

Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at the HRW, said, “The Saudi-led coalition’s attack on a bus full of young boys adds to its already gruesome track record of killing civilians at weddings, funerals, hospitals, and schools in Yemen.” 

Tribal leaders in Riyadh cannot whitewash their record by leveling accusations against Iran. 

If they are caught in the Yemen swamp it is not because of Iran. If they were wise enough, Iran showed them the road of how to get rid of the self-created mire in the first months of the war. 
 
Such accusations are the result of their hatred of Iran as was best exemplified in their disdain to the 2015 nuclear deal –JCPOA- and their $400 billion trade reward to Donald Trump to undermine the agreement. 

Despite all these useless attempts, the name of their country is still and will remain synonymous with extremism and terrorism.
  
PA/MH