October 13, 2015 | Quoted bu Ariel Ben Solomon - The Jerusalem Post
Analysis: Gulf States Boost Aid to Syrian Rebels
The Sunni world is revving up for an explosive counterattack to Russia’s powerful intervention in Syria, and with limited options are likely to advance even more resources to Islamist rebels facing off against the Syrian regime.
The blood feud between Sunnis and Shi’ites in Syria and the region is not going to go away because of Russia’s attacks. In recent days, dozens of Islamist Saudi Arabian clerics have called on Arab and Muslim countries to “give all moral, material, political and military” support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria’s government and its Iranian and Russian backers.
The clerics’ statement compared Russia’s role today to the Soviet Union’s 1980 Afghanistan invasion, which prompted an international jihad and the eventual withdrawal of Soviet forc
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David Andrew Weinberg, a specialist on Gulf affairs and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Post that a sense of perspective is needed, “as just two months ago many observers were breathlessly predicting that Saudi Arabia was rushing into the arms of Russia instead of continuing to rely on US protection.”
“While the king’s son did pledge some new investments in Russia, the king’s expected follow-up visit to Russia never materialized. Now, analysts are predicting the total opposite: that Saudi Arabia will dramatically escalate in Syria against the Russians to bring down Assad.”
Toppling the regime in Damascus just got harder for Riyadh, said Weinberg, and Riyadh isn’t prepared to confront Russia directly over this. As for the Saudi clerics who called to support jihad in Syria in opposition to Russian “aggression” there, Weinberg said the most prominent preacher on the list is Nasser al-Omar, who is not a state official, but rather a prominent individual who occasionally receives gestures of state acceptance.
Weinberg, who has previously researched Gulf clerics, said that al-Omar had “held hands” with the Emir of Qatar.
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