Senate hearing finds Saudi Arabia to be ‘epicenter’ of Wahhabi ‘enterprise of terror’

A Senate homeland security panel found Saudi Arabia to be what a senior federal counterterrorism official calls the “epicenter” of an international “enterprise of terror.”

The hearing, called by Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Homeland Security, heard expert testimony from the FBI, the Treasury Department, and two independent experts including Alex Alexiev of the Center for Security Policy.

Said Kyl, “The problem we are looking at today is the state-sponsored doctrine and funding of an extremist ideology that provides the recruiting grounds, support infrastructure and monetary lifeblood to today’s international terrorists.”

The senator pointedly tackled the issue of the Saudi state religion, Wahhabi Islam, head-on, titling the hearing, “Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States.

Significantly, the FBI witness, Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Larry A. Mefford, avoided mentioning Wahhabi influence in his testimony.

Alexiev warned senators that US terrorism-fighters “avoided suggesting that Saudi Arabia, an important U.S. ally, is the world’s leading source of terrorist funding, but that Treasury Department General Counsel David Aufhauser, the senior US official responsible for tracking terrorist finances, testified to senators that “‘in many ways, [Saudi Arabia] is the epicenter’ for the financing of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network and other terrorist movements.”

On the Democratic side, New York Senator Charles Schumer praised Kyl for holding the hearing, and in a detailed statement raised concerns about how Wahhabi extremists have infiltrated the Muslim chaplaincies in American prisons and in the U.S. Armed Forces.