Saudi Arabia has funded the indoctrination of U.S.
soldiers and inmates to an ideology adopted by Al Qaida.
Research conducted by the Washington-based Institute of World Politics
has asserted that Saudi Arabia poured tens of
millions of dollars into spreading Al Qaida-related ideology among American
soldiers and inmates. The report said the Saudi aim was to form insurgency
cells throughout the United States that support a Wahabi agenda.
"Islamists terrorists view conversions of non-Muslims to Islamism as
vital to their effort," J. Michael Waller, a professor at the institute,
said. "U.S. counterintelligence is vigilant against recruitment of American
military personnel by foreign intelligence services, but has been blind
toward the
possible recruitment of American officers into Wahabi political extremism or
Islamist terrorist networks."
The report said the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S.
military, Middle East Newsline reported. At least nine of the 14 chaplains in the U.S. military received
their religious training from the Saudi-funded Graduate School of Islamic
and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Va..
The report cited Bilal Philips, a former Jamaican Communist Party member
who was recruited in the United States and studied in the Saudi Air Force.
Philips was said to have turned into a Saudi agent of influence who claimed
to have converted thousands of American soldiers to Islam since the 1991
Gulf war.
"The strategic goal is twofold," Waller told the Senate subcommittee on
terrorism, technology and homeland security on Tuesday, "to dominate the
voice of Islam around the
world; and to exert control over civil and political institutions around the
world through
a combination of infiltration, aggressive political warfare, and violence.
Another Saudi-financed group, the North American Islamic Trust controls
most mosques in the United States, the report said. The group was said to
have aided in the construction of between 50 and 79 percent of the mosques
in North America.
Another group, the Islamic Society of North America was said to provide
ideological
material to about 1,100 of an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 mosques in North
America. The group has vetted and certified Wahabi-trained imams and is the
main official endorsing agent for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military.
The study said Saudi-sponsored Wahabi organizations
dominate Muslim prison recruitment in the United States and seek to create a
"radicalized cadre of felons who will support their anti-American efforts."
The report said Muslims comprise up to 20 percent of the prison population
and Muslim clerics linked to Saudi Arabia have excluded moderates.
"The Saudi government also pays for prison chaplains, along with many
other American Muslims, to travel to Saudi Arabia for worship and study
during the haj, the traditional winter pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims
are supposed to make at least once in their lives," the report said. "The
trips typically cost $3,000 a person and last several weeks."