July 19 - A Former Jihadi on the Radicalization of the Tennessee Terrorist; The Wikileaks Documents on Saudi Arabia; Saudi Arabia's Role in Radicalizing Islam

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the inquiry into the background of the terrorist who the FBI have identified as the killer of five U.S. servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee and speak with Mubin Shaikh, a former jihadi who is one of the few people in the world to have been undercover in Al Qaeda inspired terror groups. The author of “Undercover Jihadi: Inside the Toronto 18 – Al Qaeda Inspired, Homegrown Terrorism in the West”, we discuss the apparent low-cost strategy of the Islamic State to inspire terrorist attacks on the American homeland. And, in spite of the billions spent on counter-terrorism, the failure to notice that Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez spent seven months in Jordan last year then, after returning, grew a beard, acquired four guns and spent a lot of time improving his marksmanship on firing ranges.

Part 2

Then we examine the cache of documents hacked from the Saudi Foreign Ministry and published by Wikileaks. Dr. Ali Alyami, the founder and director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia joins us. He is mentioned in the documents as a target of Saudi efforts to silence critics along with data on financing the global spread of reactionary Wahhabi religious doctrine and reports on efforts to counter Iranian influence; all in the service of protecting the power and privilege of the Saudi ruling family.

Part 3

Then finally, joining us in the studio is Ani Zonneveld, the Founder and President of Muslims for Progressive Values. We will discuss Saudi Arabia’s role in the spread of an ultra-conservative anti-Western form of Sunni Islam that is in many ways indistinguishable from the theology that inspires the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. And while Muslim clerics in the United States decry the actions of Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, there is little discussion of how Islam itself has been radicalized by lavishly-funded Saudi religious doctrine.