State Department commission chief calls Saudi Wahhabism a ‘strategic threat’

The Saudi government continues to finance and export its extremist Wahhabi strain of Islam, and as such is a "strategic threat" to the United States.

That’s the assessment of the chairman of a State Department commission in a November 18 hearing called to discuss whether Wahhabism constitutes a threat.

Michael Young, Chairman of the State Department’s Commission on International Religious Freedom, said that Wahhabism "is an ideology that is incompatible with the war on terrorism."

The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security held a June hearing titled "Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States." It summoned the FBI to testify. The FBI avoided the subject completely. (The Center’s Alex Alexiev testified at the same hearing on Saudi-backed Wahhabism worldwide.)

The Commission on International Religious Freedom has performed a valuable public service where larger government agencies have not. May the others take heed of its warning.