The current commander of the RSNF, Vice Admiral Dakheel-Allah Bin Ahmad Bin Mohammad Al-Wakadani, is also a graduate of Pakistan Naval Academy and reserves a special place for his alma mater.
The RSNF has now come of age and taken its rightful place in guarding the maritime interests of KSA. Despite its exposure to naval exercises with the most advanced navies of the world, the RSNF holds PN in high esteem. Naseem Al Bahar (NAB) is a biennial exercise, which was evolved as manifestation of the unique Pak-Saudi interpersonal relationship and mutual resolve to enhance bilateral cooperation in facing the common challenges.
Scheduled from January 12 to 22, 2013, the joint exercise is not merely based on physical manoeuvres of various surface, aerial and sub-surface naval platforms, but involve the entire gamut of maritime operations; planning, executing and drawing lessons from NAB-X
Saudi Arabia is said to be the world's largest source of funds for Islamist terrorist militant groups, such as al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba in South Asia, and donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide, according to Hillary Clinton. According to a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state, "Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups."
ReplyDeleteThe violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is partly bankrolled by rich, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them.[1] Three other Arab countries which are listed as sources of militant money areQatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, neighbours of Saudi Arabia. Taliban and their militant partners the Haqqani network earn "significant funds" through UAE-based businesses. Kuwait is described as a "source of funds and a key transit point" for al-Qaida and other militant groups. The Pakistani militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks, used a Saudi-based front company to fund its activities in 2005.
According to studies, most of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudis
15 of the 19 hijackers of the four airliners who did 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. Bin Laden was a Saudi. Bin Laden family is a wealthy family intimately connected with the innermost circles of the Saudi royal family.
Starting in the mid-1970s the Islamic resurgence was funded by an abundance of money from Saudi Arabian oil exports.[9] The tens of billions of dollars in "petro-Islam" largess obtained from the recently heightened price of oil funded an estimated "90% of the expenses of the entire faith."[10]
Throughout the Sunni Muslim world, religious institutions for people both young and old, from children's maddrassas to high-level scholarships received Saudi funding, "books, scholarships, fellowships, and mosques" (for example, "more than 1500 mosques were built and paid for with money obtained from public Saudi funds over the last 50 years"),[12]along with training in the Kingdom for the preachers and teachers who went on to teach and work at these universities, schools, mosques, etc. The funding was also used to reward journalists and academics who followed the Saudis' interpretation of Islam; and satellite campuses were built around Egypt for Al Azhar, the world's oldest and most influential Islamic university.]
The interpretation of Islam promoted by this funding was the strict, conservative Saudi-based Wahhabism or Salafism. In its harshest form it preached that Muslims should not only "always oppose" infidels "in every way," but "hate them for their religion ... for Allah's sake," that democracy "is responsible for all the horrible wars of the 20th century," that Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslims were infidels, etc. While this effort has by no means converted all, or even most, Muslims to the Wahhabist interpretation of Islam, it has done much to overwhelm more moderate local interpretations, and has set the Saudi-interpretation of Islam as the "gold standard" of religion in Muslims' minds.]
By its nature, Wahhabism encourages intolerance and promotes terrorism. Former CIA director James Woolsey described it as "the soil in which Al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing.