Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Opinion: ISIS is Also a Saudi Problem | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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French fighting Daesh


Those who do not read what the philosophers and leaders of ISIS write, do not watch all the videos that the organisation releases and are content to read simple analyses may not know that this frightening organisation has lots of enemies, and that Saudi Arabia occupies first place.

ISIS has a long list of enemies all over the world such as the United Nations and more recently, Russia, European governments, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan. Of course, it is also fighting both the Syrian regime and the opposition.

For the last two years, the organisation has been spreading strong propaganda against Saudi Arabia, issued a series of hostile speeches and religious sermons charging the government with disbelief and penned inflammatory poems and songs, the most famous of which is “Oh bandaged head, where are you?” written in the Saudi Arabian dialect to incite resistance against the government. There is a large number of Saudi fighters in ISIS’s ranks and estimates of their numbers vary. The government is concerned that they may one day sneak back into the country from Iraq and Syria to implement the organisation’s project which Saudi Arabia considers to be one of ISIS’s most important aims.

The same applies to the terrorist Al-Nusra Front which tries to present itself as an opposition group that is hostile only to Bashar Al-Assad’s regime and is not concerned with schemes against other countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia.

We are aware that the Al-Nusra Front is an extension of the mother organization Al-Qaeda and has previously professed loyalty to it. The Al-Nusra Front’s aims resemble ISIS’s aims despite the former fighting the latter. It wants to establish a regime which charges the world with disbelief and fights in order to cleanse it. Al-Nusra Front fighters have previously threatened Saudi Arabia, and this is what makes us question the goals of those regional governments that support this organisation because its biggest plan is to attack Saudi Arabia which is considered to be the promised land and starting point of legitimacy according to terrorists.