Boko Haram and Saudi ideology

Crescent International

Rajab 11, 1435 2014-05-10

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Muslims around the world are once again faced by a criminal act perpetrated by a group of terrorists in the name of Islam. The kidnapping of hundreds of school girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria should be addressed by going to the source of the problem: the ideology being propagated by the Saudi regime and its court preachers.

Abuja, Crescent-online
Saturday May 10, 2014, 18:44 DST

The worldwide Muslims are once again confronted by a demonic phenomenon over which they have no control but for which they are held responsible.

The nearly month long kidnapping of some 220 schools girls in Nigeria by a group calling itself Boko Haram and threatening to “sell them” as slaves has put all Muslims in a quandary.

Apart from condemning such barbarism, what else can they do? There is no justification in Islam at all for kidnapping girls, much less demanding ransom for their release. But no matter how much they may condemn the actions of these criminals, this will provide further grist to the rantings of Western Islamophobes and their Muslim puppets.

Boko Haram is a Nigeria group led by a self-styled leader Abubakar Shekau. He has made a business of taking hostages and making money off such ventures.

Last year, his followers kidnapped a French family of seven near the Nigerian-Cameroon border and it is believed he collected some $3 million in ransom before releasing them.

He could collect huge sums for the release of the 220 or so kidnapped schools girls. There are obviously no easy options. Military strikes could prove fatal since such groups do not usually keep all their hostages in one place. If the kidnapped girls have been scattered, as is most likely, any rescue attempt to secure one group would prove fatal for others.

There are reports that the Nigerian government of Goodluck Jonathan is providing protection to these thugs. Successive Nigerian regimes have come down hard on Islamic activists but when it comes to confronting such criminals, there is hardly any action.

In a statement on May 9, Amnesty International accused the Nigerian regime of failing to take action even though it had prior warning of Boko Haram’s attack on the school.

“The fact that Nigerian security forces knew about Boko Haram’s impending raid, but failed to take the immediate action needed to stop it, will only amplify the national and international outcry at this horrific crime,” said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s Africa Director, Research and Advocacy.

“It amounts to a gross dereliction of Nigeria’s duty to protect civilians, who remain sitting ducks for such attacks. The Nigerian leadership must now use all lawful means at their disposal to secure the girls’ safe release and ensure nothing like this can happen again.”

Amnesty revealed that the Nigerian military in Maiduguri was aware of the impending Boko Haram attack on the school by 7 pm and did nothing to prevent it when the terrorist group struck at 11 pm.

Shekau may espouse popular Islamic causes—all terrorists do that—but Muslims should not fall for these. True, the West has committed terrible crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan and many other places but kidnapping innocent girls can hardly solve these problems.

What is really needed is to go to the source of this fitna. Such demonic ideas originate in Saudi Arabia that advocate the extremist view that it is permissible to kill non-Muslims or even Muslims if you disagree with them.

The Saudi regime and its paid preachers are the source of propagating these problems in the world. They have unleashed cannibals and mass murderers in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan.

Even if they are not issuing direct orders to Boko Haram, the influence of Saudi ideology is unmistakable.

Unless the world, and especially Muslims confront this challenge to their Islamic faith, they will continue to face serious problems in the world and will forever be put on the defensive by the actions of such criminals.

END