[piggyback]

This chart is at the very least incomplete and inaccurate if not blatantly false. To accuse Iran of cooperating with Al Qaeda while claiming that Saudi Arabia does not is audacious. Saudi Arabia spreads the most violent branch of Islam (Wahhabism/Salafism) through indoctrination as well as direct funding for terrorism. Just look at the perpetrators of 9/11, all of whom were Sunni Arabs, most of them from Saudi Arabia. The same goes for Qatar, which is missing in the chart. Hamas and Iran broke up because the former (Sunni) joined the fight against the Syria government, which is supported by Iran. Iran is neither Sunni nor Arab, groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS would love to commit genocide against Iranians. They don't have any real allies and have propped up a few Shia proxies in Iraq and the Levant. Others are missing, like the Kurds, so is the the link to Central/South Asia as well, i.e. AfPak. Without Pakistan Al Qaeda and the Taliban could have not existed. It should be noted that the Pakistani government and military are bought and paid for by the Arab states in the Persian Gulf, where Pakistani mercenaries protect the Monarchs from their civilian population, Bahrain being a notable example: the majority of Bahrainis are Shia and they are naturally friendly with Iran/Iraq. Their government, however, is run by the same kind of Sunnis that control countries like Kuwait and the UAE.

[nl]

I think this chart reflects the position of county's government. The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda and has a careful relationship with Wahhabism (as they see both as potential threats to their powerbase).

Al Qaeda (the core part anyway) has never really had an anti-Shia bent (or, interestingly, anti-Israel) and Iran did tolerate some movement of Al Qaeda and Taliban through their territories.

Iran did have a real ally: the Syrian government of Assad. Even that was a difficult relationship prior to the fall of Hussein in Iraq because Assad was a Ba'athist (which is a secular ideology opposed to Iran's theocracy) and Hussein was also Ba'athist (Iraq and Iran were enemies since the Iranian revolution for those who missed that bit).

Ba'athism is pretty much irrelevant today, but until the 1990s it was one of the factors that shaped the Middle Wast we see now.

Edit: I assume the downvotes mean I'm factually incorrect about something. I'd appreciate enlightenment.

[sam88]

Your "The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda" sounds like a joke in bad taste, I mean come on? the CIA confirmed the majority of ISIS are Saudis, 9/11 had many Saudi terrorists, Bin Laden was Saudi, ISIS is being funded by Saudi and Qatar, to mention Saddam in the current situation sounds like an intentional misleading propaganda to say the least.

[nl]

Again, government position vs private citizens in that country. Not sure how to make that clearer?

[BugBrother]

You write as if it doesn't matter that ISIS have been kicked out of AlQ?

(The last I read, ISIS was fighting with all the other rebel groups in Syria? I thought that included AlQ? Also, is that really Saudi policy?! [Saudi A do send weapons to other rebels!] )

(sam88 is a three hours old account.)

[waps]

ISIS seems mostly to be western "idealist" muslims, recruited by extermist imams where those can operate (ie. in the west, mostly Europe, in Saudi Arabia, and not very many other places). The locals found them, well, what everyone finds them : cruel, extremist morons.

(Imams are tightly controlled in places like Iran, Turkey or Egypt. Why ? Well let's put it this way : "mosque" does not mean house of prayer. It means fortress (house of prayer is masjid. Keep in mind that that arabic is weird. Masjid by itself means house of prayer, but combined with other words it means different things, sort of like latin). The states there, well, it's not like there's anyone in them that doesn't know this. So recruitment of locals there cannot easily happen, except by the "state" (which may be a lot more local state than a map would have you believe))

The problem is what western agencies are pointing out, but nobody's listening. Currently Syria and Iraq are the targets. Mostly because they're in the middle east, and allow "other" religions (Shi'a islam is "other" to these guys, as is Druze religion, Alwite, hell, they're not all that fond of wahhabism (too many compromises for the state and the oil, first and foremost of course, the alliance with the United States, and "with Israel") ...). That won't last. We, as in you and me, England and Sri Lanka, Japan and Alaska, are on their list. They're just having some trouble with numbers one and two (Saudi Arabia and Israel).

[BugBrother]

Even I can say you're totally wrong already in the first claims.

Al Qaida has/had quite a bit of popular support in Saudi Arabia -- AND the explicit goal to overthrow the Saudi royal family. If you check history, that is what makes you top-of-the-list to most any dictatorial junta!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qaeda_in_Saudi_Arabia#Ideolo...

"Like al-Qaeda, it opposes the Al Saud monarchy.[8] AQAP was formed in January 2009 from a merger of al Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi branches.[1] The Saudi group had been effectively suppressed by the Saudi government, forcing its members to seek sanctuary in Yemen."

I write this because I want to point out:

It is disgustingly dishonest to blame a country for what a dozen individuals do, like you do with the 9/11 terrorists. If we allow that "reasoning", how should the world judge all Muslims considering the millions of murders/rapes/etc in Sudan? (At least those Muslims from the large part of the Muslim world where the criticism about [Sudan's violations of] human rights is ignored or claimed to be a western conspiracy.)