Saudi Arabia wants to destabilize Iraq: expert

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Interview with Zayd al-Isa, Middle East expert, about terrorist attacks in Iraq. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Q: Zayd al-Isa, tell us based on some analysis on this it is Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda’s Iraq who is exercising what has been couple months of some of the worst terrorist attacks and deaths that Iraq has witnessed.

So if that is the case, do you agree and how far Saudi Arabia is willing to go through al-Qaeda for example in undermining the al-Maliki government?

Al-Isa: Well it is absolutely clear and indisputable that the al-Qaeda in Iraq helped by and supported by the remnants of the Baathist and the Saddamist who are carrying out those attacks.

The al-Qaeda in Iraq has been dramatically bolstered. It has gained ground in terms of its power, prowess and influence in Iraq and that is all because of the arming, funding and salaries paid and logistical support given by Saudi Arabia mainly and Qatar to Jabhat al-Nusra which is part and parcel of al-Qaeda.

Now Jabhat al-Nusra is in Syria, it is another Wahabi Salafi group which is as the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the criminal of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq has said clearly that Jabhat al-Nusra is nothing but mainly an extension and its head al-Jawlani is simply a foot soldier of al-Qaeda.

All that funding, all that logistical support, all that arming has actually went to al-Qaeda in Iraq and that is why we see a dramatic surge in its ability and we also can say that the protest which have been going on in western Iraq in Anbar despite the major concessions given by the government and their adamantly refusing and stubbornly refusing to negotiate with the government, refusing to allow anyone else to negotiate on their behalf, added to all that is the fiery explosive and virulent antagonistic rhetoric by the speeches made by the hardline extremist Salafi Wahabi preaches in those protests who have been given the al-Qaeda an ability, an extra ability to recruit and to actually reactivate the sanctuaries and safe havens in the Anbar Province.

All that has been backed up by the Saudis who are interested now and desperately need to see a sectarian war in both Iraq and also in Syria. They need to see that because the popular uprising in Saudi Arabia has amounted the biggest defense of the Saudi regime which is the sectarian divisions.

The Saudi regime has been ramping up the sectarian rhetoric and ratcheting up the sectarian strife in the region because it desperately needs to prove to its own people that it is not only the guardian and the defender of Sunni Islam, although we know fully well and everybody knows that the Saudi regime adheres to the Wahabi Salafi, a version of Islam which is the most extreme backward version of Islam and it is propped up by the Wahabi Salafi establishments in Saudi Arabia where all the fatwas that are used by the al-Qaeda and other extremist groups emanate from Saudi Arabia by governmental Wahabi Salafi clerics.

So the Saudis want to prove to their people that it is still the guardian and protector of Sunni Islam in order to stave off the internal popular uprising and to tell their people that it is engaged in confronting and combating an existential major threat coming from the Shias and particularly from the Islamic Republic of Iran in order to make it very difficult and extremely hard for their people to stand up and defy the regime.

And that's why we see a dramatic surge in violence in Iraq particularly targeting the overwhelming majority of people in Iraq in order to inflict maximum damage and against the Shia population which form the bulk and the majority in Iraq.

So that's why we see an increase in the targeting of the Shia in order to discredit, derail and destabilize Iraq and weaken its government in order to dismantle the entire fledgling democracy in Iraq which the Saudis had seen as a major existential threat in front of their people who are desperate for democracy.

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