Experts slam right-wing UK think-tank for lopsided anti-Saudi report
JEDDAH: The UK-based Henry Jackson Society’s recent report on foreign-funded Islamist extremism in the UK has come in for a lot of flak from leading and credible experts.
They have described it as a “cut-and-paste job” with no original reporting, and dismissed the allegations against Saudi Arabia as “unfounded.”
Oubai Shahbandar, a SyrianAmerican analyst and fellow at the New America Foundation’s International Security Program, told Arab News that the methodology employed by the report’s author Tom Wilson is extremely flawed.
“For example, take a look at some of the claims the report makes about Saudi Arabia, that it’s funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to fund extremist centers throughout the world, and specifically in England. They don’t back up that accusation with any accurate data,” he said.
“In the recent Manchester terror attacks, the perpetrator was associated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is connected to Ali Al-Sallabi, a Qatarifinanced terror supporter. That’s the hard fact, and it’s unfortunate that the Henry Jackson Society didn’t look at the data as it exists.”
It is “really unfortunate” that the Henry Jackson Society would take “such a lopsided, anti-Saudi position,” said Shahbandar.
Sir John Jenkins, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies — Middle East, said the report lacked original research. “Virtually all the things it says are taken from secondary sources. This means the report takes a lot of things from newspaper reports and from Innes Bowen’s book about mosques in the UK, which came out about four years ago,” Sir Jenkins told Arab News.
“As far as I can see, there’s very little, if any, original research. It’s a bit of a cut-andpaste job. It’s very superficial.”
He said the report failed to distinguish between funding from private individuals or semi-autonomous institutions such as the Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), and official Saudi government funding.
“If you can’t distinguish between official funding and private, you’re confusing the issue rather than clarifying it,” he said.