Jesus Christ - people still have not learned the difference between Shia and Sunni, Arab and Iranian.
I wonder why no one in the west ever comments on the Sunni Muslim Mosque siege of 1979? What happened in Iran was linked to the Shia but in 1979 Sunni fanatics declared there was a Mahdi and took over the Kaba Mosque. It took French mercenaries and Pakistanis to take it back in bloody fighting.
Before that the Saudis were modernizing and allowed for television (that freaked the Wahabist out) and they banned slavery in 1965 and other "reforms". The Mosque siege so freaked out the Saudis that they made a deal with the religious fanatics to become even more religious in their laws and to fund wahabist mosques all over the world.
With the start of the Afghan war the Saudis had a way to export their hotheads to die in jihad. I think I read somewhere that Osama Bin Laden was deeply affected by the Mosque siege and may have been a sympathizer.
Ignore Iran - in regards to ISIS and al-Qaeda Iran is meaningless because they are Persians and Shia.
Here is a good place to explain the current Sunni Arab world:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112051155
1979: Remembering 'The Siege Of Mecca' 7:48 Queue Download Embed Transcript Facebook Twitter Google+ Email August 20, 20096:00 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Yaroslav Trofimov, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, talks about the 1979 siege of the Grand Mosque at Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It is the holiest site in Islam, and gunmen held it for two weeks. It was one of the events that gave rise to al-Qaida, and Yaroslav wrote about it in his book The Siege of Mecca.
The seizure of the Kaaba in Mecca on November 20, 1979 was one of the consequences of the Iranian Revolution. Many of the demands of the occupiers mirrored what Khomeini used to topple the Shah, i.e., a repudiation of the West and its influences, a return to the fundamentals of Islam, and the removal of the country's rulers, the House of Saud.
Juhayman had turned against al-Baaz, "and began advocating a return to the original ways of Islam, among other things; a repudiation of the West; abolition of television and expulsion of non-Muslims." He proclaimed that "the ruling Al-Saud dynasty had lost its legitimacy because it was corrupt, ostentatious and had destroyed Saudi culture by an aggressive policy of Westernization."
The successful Iranian Revolution that deposed the Shah, installed Khomeini as the head of a theocratic state, and resulted in the mass exodus of Westerners from Iran were the inspiration for Juhayman al-Otaybi, a member of an influential family in Najd. The departure of the Shah from Iran on January 16, 1979 marked the end of US influence in Iran. And the seizure of our Embassy on November 4, 1979 coupled with a weak response by Carter signaled to the rest of the world that radical, Islamic fundamentalism could defeat the West and that they should not be feared. The Kaaba was seized two weeks later on November 20.
Shortly after news of the takeover was released, the new Islamic revolutionary leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini told radio listeners, "It is not beyond guessing that this is the work of criminal American imperialism and international Zionism." Anger fueled by these rumors spread anti-American demonstrations throughout the Muslim world—in the Philippines, Turkey, Bangladesh, eastern Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan.] In Islamabad, Pakistan, on the day following the takeover, the U.S. embassy in that city was overrun by a mob, which burned the embassy to the ground. A week later, in Tripoli, Libya, another mob attacked and burned the U.S. embassy.
Before that the Saudis were modernizing and allowed for television (that freaked the Wahabist out) and they banned slavery in 1965 and other "reforms". The Mosque siege so freaked out the Saudis that they made a deal with the religious fanatics to become even more religious in their laws and to fund wahabist mosques all over the world.
The Saudi Royal Family was spooked by what happened to the Shah in Iran and the seizure of the Grand Mosque. They did not want to suffer a similar fate as the Shah. They understood their unique role in Islam. The Saudi King started using the title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in 1986 with King Fahd. FYI: The Saudis have television and have had for decades. It is state controlled but satellite dishes abound.
With the start of the Afghan war the Saudis had a way to export their hotheads to die in jihad. I think I read somewhere that Osama Bin Laden was deeply affected by the Mosque siege and may have been a sympathizer.
You need to read OBL's fatwas. In August of 1996, Osama bin Laden issued his first fatwa, a 30-page polemic entitled "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," against the United States and Israel, and it was published in a London newspaper called Al Quds al Arabi. /
The second fatwa was published on February 23, 1998, in Al Quds al Arabi. Unlike the first fatwa, which was issued by Osama bin Laden alone, this fatwa was signed by Osama bin Laden; Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Jihad group in Egypt and al Qaeda second-in-command; Abu-Yasir Rafa'l Ahmad Taha, leader of the Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jumiat-ut-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlul Rahman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh.
OBL was a wanted man in Saudi Arabia. The Royal Family deemed him a dangerous enemy.
The US was engaged with the Saudis and others to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan. We provided money and arms and the Saudis acted as our surrogates in various ways. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan on December 25, 1979.
It is also worth noting that Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. It followed a long history of border disputes, and was motivated by fears that the Iranian Revolution in 1979 would inspire insurgency among Iraq's long-suppressed Shi'i majority, as well as Iraq's desire to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state.
Ignore Iran - in regards to ISIS and al-Qaeda Iran is meaningless because they are Persians and Shia.
No, ISIS and AQ are the children of the Iranian Revolution and Khomeini.
The Siege of Mecca The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al Qaeda
The government was stunned and slow in understanding what was happening. They tried to seal off news of the event to the outside world, but some Americans managed to notify the Carter administration in Washington. Washington played on fears of its enemy, Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, which was holding hostages at the U.S. embassy. An assumption was made that the rebels at the Grand Mosque were Shia spreading Khomeini's revolution. This was passed to the media, an article in the New York Times quoting an American official who described the militants in Mecca as likely to be responding to Khomeini's call for an "uprising by fundamentalist Muslims." President Carter decided that he had to act, and he ordered a battle group from Subic Bay in the Philippines including the carrier Kitty Hawk to the Persian Gulf to enhance Saudi Arabia's sense of security.
The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its fervent anti-Shi’ite worldview has once again sparked the debate about the “age-old” conflict between Shi’ites and Sunnis with countless “experts” offering analysis rife with clichés that the two largest Islamic sects have been fighting each other for “centuries” and even “millennia.” A brief glance at history not only dispels this notion but demonstrates that the rise of Shi’ite-Sunni sectarian warfare has its roots not in the distant 7th century, but in Saudi Arabia’s response to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the Saudi regime as a matter of policy began to counter Iran’s revolution by financing anti-Shi’ite Islamists across the Muslim world. That policy has born fruition with Islamists in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere taking up arms in the name of an Islam that is diametrically opposed to Shi’ism, the minority sect in Islam.