Know thy KingSourav Banerjee

Following the demise of King Abdullah hardly a month ago, one of his younger brothers, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud sworn in as the new King of the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, who by default is also the custodian of the two holy mosques as well as the head of the House of Saud.

The who’s who at the helm of global capital and power including US President Barack Obama, George HW Bush, Secretary of State John Kerry, CIA director John Brennan, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condoleezza Rice, Britain’s Prince Charles et al shot diplomatic obituaries and also were prompt enough to congratulate the new ‘Master’ of the kingdom of liquid gold that lubricates and runs the world.

Braving every criticism and controversy, Britain kept the Union Flag at half-mast over the nation’s most important political landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, as a tribute to the deceased Saudi King Abdullah. As a pay-back to Abdullah’s staunch support for the current Egyptian regime, its President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi declared seven days of mourning – four days longer than the usual mourning periods. Bahrain, Jordan and the Palestinian territories too observed days of mourning.

India however, wasn’t lagging behind in paying homage to the ‘Master’ in order to get blessed, as it had flown Vice President Hamid Ansari down to King’s funeral in Riyadh to convey the country’s deepest grief on the nonagenarian King’s sad demise.

But now, after days of grief let us come back to senses, as with the new ruler on the throne, it is an imperative to evaluate its political implications in consultation with history, before we pin our hope for a new era of reform in the war-torn region as well as the world on our new King.

Who is he?

The 79-year-old King Salman has been the defence minister of Saudi Arabia since 2011 and also, the crown prince since 2012. Salman was also appointed deputy prime minister of Saudi Arabia in the same year.

What is bugging?

Ironically, contrary to the praises heaped by scores of statesmen, King Salman has been a huge patron of terrorism globally for decades. Evidences available are plenty, and it is no more a secret despite a staunch mainstream media silence. Here’s why I am getting paranoid.

Investors Business Daily (a weekly business newspaper headquartered in California, USA) notes:

“Former CIA official Bruce Riedel astutely pointed out, Salman was the regime’s lead fundraiser for mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, as well as for Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan struggles of the 1990s.” In “Why America Slept,” author Gerald Posner claims that Salman’s son Ahmed bin Salman also had ties to al-Qaida and even prior knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

According to a ‘Washington’s Blog’ hardnosed report published in ‘Global Research’ — a peer review political journal published from Canada, Salman once ran a Saudi charity — Saudi High Commission for Relief to Bosnia and Herzegovina — owing allegiance to al-Qaida, and has been named a defendant in two lawsuits accusing the Saudi royal family of helping the 9/11 terrorists, one of which the US Supreme Court recently reconsidered after years of Saudi lobby funded media blackout.

According to a UN-sponsored investigation, “Salman between 1992 and 1995 transferred more than $120 million from commission accounts as well as his own personal accounts to the Vienna-based Bosnian aid organisation Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), another al-Qaida front and main illegal weapons supplier to al-Qaida fighters in the Balkans,” before its closure in 2011.

A 1996 CIA report mentions, “We continue to have evidence that even high ranking members of the collecting or monitoring agencies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan – such as the Saudi High Commission (SHC) – are involved in illicit activities, including support for terrorists.” In 1997, SHC employee Saber Lahmar is arrested for plotting to blow up the US embassy in Saravejo. 

Former CIA officer Robert Baer has reported that an international raid of SHC’s Sarajevo offices in 2001, led by NATO forces, unearthed a terrorist plot against America, and seized a large cache of fundamentalist literature including before-and-after photographs of al Qaeda attacks, instructions on how to fake US State Department badges, and maps of important government buildings across Washington.

By 2001, the organization had collected around $600 million for humanitarian and religious purposes, a major chunk of which allegedly went to facilitating arms shipments, despite a UN arms embargo on Bosnia and other Yugoslav successor states from 1991 to 1996.

A defector from al Qaeda while deposing before the UN for lawyers representing the families of 9/11 victims, alleged that both Salman’s SHC and the TWRA provided essential support to al Qaeda in Bosnia, including to his 107-man combat unit.

In November 2002, Prince Salman patronised a fundraising gala for three Saudi charities — the International Islamic Relief Organization, al-Haramain Foundation, and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth — which were under Washington’s scanner since 9/11, and later forced to close or sanctioned over allegations of financing terrorism.

One of the closest allies of the new king has been Saudi cleric Saleh al- Moghamsy, a radical anti-Semite, Islamic supremacist who in  2012 declared Osama bin Laden had more “sanctity and honor in the eyes of Allah,” simply for being a Muslim, than “Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, apostates, and atheists.” Such was the relationship with Moghamsy that the new Saudi king recently served as head of the supervisory board for a Medina research centre directed by Moghamsy. A year after Moghamsy’s offensive comments, Salman sponsored and attended a large cultural festival organized by the preacher. Moghamsy also advises two of Salman’s sons ….

According to another US based journal Washington Free Beacon, Salman was also associated with Safar Hawali, a one-time mentor of Osama bin Laden. Rachel Bronson in her book, Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership With Saudi Arabia, claimed Salman also helped recruit fighters for Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan Salafist fighter who served as a mentor to both

Osama bin Laden and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

If these are not enough; hardly flashed in the mainstream media, the US government’s Joint Task Force Guantanamo once enlisted SHC as suspected “terrorist and terrorist support entities.” The Defence Intelligence Agency also once accused the SHC of shipping both aid and weapons to Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the al Qaeda-linked Somali warlord depicted as a villain in the movie Black Hawk Down. Somalia was subject to a United Nations arms embargo starting in January 1992.

The board of trustees for the Prince Salman Youth Center, which Salman himself chairs, includes a Saudi billionaire Saleh Abdullah Kamel aka “golden chain”, whose name surfaced on a purported list of al Qaeda’s earliest supporters.

What’s now?

Devils are on prowl, and civilisation is in serious peril, while West wages “Global War on Terrorism”— a humanitarian endeavour with a “responsibility to protect” humanity and peace. But all said and done, peace remains only in a piece of paper because the ‘business’ must go on.

Muslim countries possess more than 60 per cent of total oil reserves, Saudi being the largest. In contrast, the US has barely 2 per cent of total oil reserves, five times less than Iraq, let alone other major European and Asian countries which has to completely depend on Middle East for oil. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Demonization of Muslims and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, January 4, 2007).

So, King is indispensable. Whoever needs oil must submit before him. In a capitalist economy poor have no choice while the King reigns.

It is high time we being a responsible human being should collectively refuse to accept all the unholy alliances and challenge the war criminals and the powerful corporate lobby groups which encourages indiscriminate killing of men, women and children in order to retain vast natural resources, naturally meant for all of us. The big hypocrisy must be exposed before it destroys the commitment of people towards their fellow human beings.