Reflecting the ever-growing sectarian nature of the Syrian Civil War, a group of 53 Saudi clerics, including some prominent Islamists, have issued a joint statement calling on the public to support a jihad against both the Assad government and their allies in Russia and Iran.
The Saudi government has tried to tamp down such efforts in the past, warning the public against funding the rebels through non-government channels and forbidding Saudi citizens to go abroad to join the Syrian Civil War. Today’s statement sought to avoid directly contradicting that, not making any specific calls for Saudis to go to Syria, but urging non-specific support for the “holy warriors” in Syria.
Sectarian agitation is always fairly successful in Saudi Arabia, but doubly so at the moment with the government engaged in an explicitly sectarian war in neighboring Yemen, and publicly endorsing a holy war in general terms for regime change in Syria.
So while the kingdom itself may admonish its citizens against backing al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, their talking points appear to be setting the stage for calls to arms like these which will do exactly that, and advances a narrative in which nations like Russia, in fighting ISIS, are “taking sides” with the Shi’ites against Sunni Islam.
Now where did I hear that term, "holy warrior?" Yeah….Osama Bin Laden,
the Saudi that was responsible for 9/11.
Inevitably, the arrival of the infidel Putin was going to attract the wrath of the Sunni clergy. Just one part of bogging Putin down.
A muslim may not kill another Muslim without legal justification (very strictly regulated by Sharia). No one may call another Muslim a Kafir – that is for God to decide. When a Muslim Cleric makes such calls, he violates the basic teachings of Islam, but then there is no place for “kings” in Islam either. Just goes to show how one evil(allowing kings), left to fester, will cause many others to follow (the country engaged in killing other Muslims as in Yemen) and in the end, even clerics, maybe fearing for their lives, have to “support” the leadership which is not-compatible with Islam. Do the Kings and princes in Saudi Arabia realsie just how precarious their own hold on power is now that they have lit the flames of destruction in Syria. They may be the very ones consumed by it, it is inevitable.