DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Today’s Saudi Arabia is very different from Saudi Arabia of September 11, 2001.
All but four of the 19 robbers who stole on 9/11 were Saudi nationals, and Saudi Arabia was the birthplace of Osama bin Laden, an al-Qaida leader and a major figure in the past 20 years. Twenty years since then, Saudi Arabia has said so met al-Qaida on his land, he also changed his books, tried to fight violence and cooperated with the United States to fight terrorism.
It was not until five years ago, that the empire began to abandon the religious ideals that had been established when it was established within and outside its borders – Wahhabism, a powerful Islamic interpretation that benefited the mujahedeen generations.
For countless people in the United States, Saudi Arabia will be permanently connected by 9/11, the collapse of the World Trade Towers and the death of about 3,000 people.
To date, the families of those affected are still trying to seize control of the Saudi government answering in New York and I pressured President Joe Biden to register other documents related to the threats, although the Saudi Arabian government has called any report that this is false “false.” Victims of 2019 shooting in Florida security and their families are re-arresting Saudi Arabia for the economic crisis, claiming that the empire was aware that the Saudi Air Force commander had been radically changed and could have stopped the killings.
The alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States, including the presence of American troops in the empire after the first Gulf War, made their leadership dangerous groups.
“It is important to note that the terrorist attacks that struck the US on September 11 have also targeted the people of Saudi Arabia, the leadership, the military and our most successful religious sites in Mecca and Medina several times,” Fahad Nazer, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, told the Associated Press. He also said that the Saudi-US counter-terrorism operation had saved many lives.
However, despite Saudi Arabia fighting al-Qaida and subsequent attacks by the IS group, Al Saud’s regime continued to give religious leaders control over preaching and leading the people in exchange for the empire.
The decades-old agreement was unveiled ahead of the 2017 global financial crisis when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the return to “established Islam”. In the first year, with the help of his royal father, the prince was seized power by the country’s religious police – who can drive Saudi Arabian boys and girls to the parks to mix, follow cars to play music and force the mall to close at the five prayers.
“It’s a new world. It is a developing country, “said Raghida Dergham, founder of the Beirut Institute’s humanitarian organization and longtime journalist in Saudi newspapers. doing things too much … and it wasn’t easy. “
The crown prince also appeared in April this year in a speech on Saudi TV. He said the Saudi reputation was built on its Islamic and Arabic culture. His remarks seemed similar to the two, showing the great efforts the government has begun to make to the entire Saudi state that is no longer bound by Islamic principles or the ideology of Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab, whose teachings are strictly Islamic in the 18th century. his name.
“If Sheikh Mohammed Abdel-Wahhab comes out of his grave and finds us clinging to his words and closing our eyes to an independent ideology (ijtihad) or making him great, he may be the first to challenge such a claim,” Prince Mohammed said.
Ali Shihabi, who is linked to the royal family, says the new statement shows “any religious leaders” that self-control is the only way forward.
Self-control, however, goes a long way. How Saudi Arabia works to change attitudes is keep the story behind it for the new generations of Saudis twenty years after 9/11, it is still politically oppressive.
Prince Mohammed’s rapid transformation is part of a series of efforts to gain power to distinguish his opponents, such as the country’s former anti-terrorist leader, and to suppress dissidents, including assassination of Saudi Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey by agents working for the prince.
Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution academic who has served in the CIA for 30 years, says the US-Saudi relationship has changed over the years, but even in good times it is “difficult to sell Saudi Arabia as America’s best friend.”
While Saudi Arabia is still far from open, the cloud of sanctions that has been in place for generations in the empire is coming to an end. No more eye-catching musical instruments, a movie theater and women driving the impossible or illegal.
“My opinion is that there is jealousy of young people who have this opportunity,” said Hisham Fageeh, a 33-year-old Saudi filmmaker, actor and writer in Los Angeles who grew up in 9/11.
But there are questions about where this new approach should go.
“There are a number of doors that people can go through,” Fageeh says. “The problem is, how can we reconcile all our components – past, present and future?”
In the two decades since 9/11, Saudi Arabia and the world have been transformed by television, the internet and international connectivity. In Saudi Arabia, however, there is a major generational change taking place. More than half of Saudi Arabia’s population is under 14 years of age, born 9/11. More than 60% are under 35.
They all celebrated the 11th anniversary of the September 11 protests. They, as the 36-year-old prince, were not born when the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979 and replaced by the anti-US and anti-Saudi Shiite government. That same year, Sunni Muslims surrounded Mecca, an Islamic shrine.
The Saudi authorities acted on the events of that year by empowering government officials and allowing Wahhabism to improve life in Saudi Arabia. Power struggles between Saudi Arabia and Iran erupted, which continued to fight for sectarian groups in the Middle East.
Recently fighting for a civil war in Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf countries either recommended or unchanged for militants, to fund and recruit jihadist militants who fought in the Shiite army and Iranian fighters.
But it was the efforts of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the 1980s that can be very meaningful today. Many years before the capture of Saudi citizens, Bin Laden and others in the Jewish capital were armed with funds and funds from the CIA and the empire to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan during the Cold War.
A few years later, Bin Laden plotted a 9/11 attack from al-Qaida base in Afghanistan, protected by the Taliban – a group that, like a few weeks ago, has returned to power.
In sentencing Saudi Arabia, Dergham says, look at the major demands that have been fueling US-Saudi relations. “The American people just think Saudi Arabia is 9/11,” he said. “You know, wake up and smell the flowers. This is a partnership, a partnership with the United States for many years. ”
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Aya Batrawy is a journalist from Dubai. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ayaelb