U.S. Revokes Visa of Cleric at Saudi Embassy: Monarchy to No Longer Be Islamic.....

[MORTARDUDE]

And the Saudis are supposed to be our friends and allies ??!!??

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Dec6.html

U.S. Revokes Visa of Cleric at Saudi Embassy
Monarchy to No Longer Be Islamic Institute's Sponsor
By Susan Schmidt and Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 7, 2003; Page A01


U.S. authorities have revoked the diplomatic visa of an influential Islamic cleric, and the Saudi government has decided it will no longer sponsor an Islamic institute in Virginia where he sometimes lectured, moves that reflect both nations' increasing efforts to curb the spread of extremist Islamic rhetoric, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.



Jaafar Idris, who was affiliated with the Fairfax-based Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, left the United States two weeks ago after his visa was revoked, U.S. officials said. Idris is a native of Sudan, but was sponsored as a diplomat here by the Saudi embassy and had an office in that embassy's Islamic affairs section, according to a lawyer associated with him.

Idris's departure follows a decision by the Saudi government to stop providing diplomatic status to Islamic clerics and educators teaching overseas, according to a senior Saudi official who declined to be identified. The official said that in the future, only staff with legitimate diplomatic business at Saudi embassies around the world will be given diplomatic visas, part of a larger effort to get Saudi embassies out of the business of promoting religion.

"We are going to shut down the Islamic affairs section in every embassy," the officials said. "That's the objective."

Referring to the Institute in Fairfax, which is a satellite campus of a prominent university in Riyadh, the Saudi official also said: "We're going to sever its ties with the embassy. . . . They will no longer be sponsored by the embassy."

Such a move could complicate the institute's future because its staff, lacking diplomatic status, will be required to obtain visas and work permits to teach in the United States, something that U.S. authorities may be unwilling to provide in some cases.

Officials at the institute could not be reached for comment.

The Saudi action is part of that government's increased vigilance toward expressions of religious extremism after the deadly May terrorist attack in Riyadh that shocked the oil-rich nation and its ruling family. The government has dismissed hundreds of imams from Saudi mosques for allegedly using extremist rhetoric, and has moved to delete language denigrating non-Muslims from school texts and curriculum.

The Saudis also have cracked down on violent Islamic extremists operating in the desert kingdom. In addition, U.S. law enforcement agencies are trying to learn whether hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the embassy here each year have aided extremists in the United States.

If the Saudi government follows through on its pledge to shut down the Islamic affairs offices in its embassies here and around the world, "It would be the first visible sign of an effort to tone down decades of extremist Wahhabi propaganda," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, a counterterrorism think tank. Wahhabism is a puritanical strain of Islam that sometimes views non-Muslims and Western cultures as enemies of Islam.

Saudi officials made the decision on the Virginia institute after looking into accusations that it promoted a brand of Islam that critics say is intolerant of other strains of the religion as well as Christianity and Judaism.

The institute, a campus of Riyadh's al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, is a "distance learning" center where Arabic and Islamic studies are taught. The chairman of the institute's board of trustees is the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the institute has trained at least 75 lay ministers for the U.S. military.

U.S. law enforcement officials complain that a large number of Saudis with diplomatic visas in this country do not have legitimate diplomatic business here. Several others have had their visas revoked in recent weeks, one law enforcement official said.

A State Department official said Idris's visa was revoked because his activities did not conform to the terms of his A-2 diplomatic visa. "Idris was required to perform duties directly related to and in support of the Saudi embassy. . . . It was learned that he was no longer performing such duties on a full-time basis at the embassy," the official said.

Khalid Musa, an official at the Sudanese embassy here, said that Idris left the United States for Sudan two weeks ago. Musa said U.S. government officials have not informed the embassy that Idris had been asked or ordered to leave the country.

In comments in Arabic posted Wednesday by Islamtoday.net, a Saudi-based Web site, Idris said he was questioned repeatedly by FBI agents about his lectures and travels to Europe. He said U.S. authorities asked him to leave the country.

Idris, whose lectures are published on Islamic Web sites around the world, has been a leading figure among Washington-area adherents of Wahhabism. He is president of American Open University in Alexandria and a founder of the Islamic Foundation of America in Springfield, institutions that also promote a very orthodox brand of Islam.

[HARDCORE]

LARRY -

It is my opinion that any current relationships within parts of the Middle East are merely marriages of convenience! They, like many others seedy little corners of the Earth, are forever playing the diplomacy game, crying to Big Brother (UN), attempting to reshuffle the international deck, and have a poisoned dagger pointed at our collective backs! (opinion)

We must indeed, "Speak Softly (like Hell) and Carry A Big Stick!"

"If this be paranoia, as it was claimed in 1939 when some warned of potential danger, then let us make the most of it!"

The word friend, like truth itself, is often used like just another weapon in the arsenal of infamy! In reality, however, these words are often naught but a Trojan Horse, and I would much rather be accused of being a living skeptic, than an ever trusting corpse!

VERITAS

[Seascamp]

Well for crying out loud, it?s about time I?d say. Forever the Saudi family has been buying-off the radical Whabbi Clerics that have brought the world things like the Taliban, Madrassa seminaries and Al-Qaeda. Now that those 9th century blood-cult demons have turned on the Saudi family and innocent Saudi civilians, the Family Saud is striking back at long last. A step in the right direction and we?ll see if they will go so far as to purge their own family members that are up to their ears in the blood bath.

Predictably, the fat is in the fire so to speak and this freight train has been seen coming from long ago. The family Saud cannot maintain international credibility while dealing out two different doors at the same time and they know that full well now. The next shoe to drop is if the Family Saud can survive the internal reaction that is a mathematical certainty now. It would be just if the Family Saud were to be consumed by the monster they allowed to be created, but that would not be in the best interest of the world at large I?m thinking. The interesting thing I see is that this new Saudi policy is global, not just the US. That speaks volumes about the width and breadth of the problem and an out of control monster.

Scamp