Saudi Arabia wages a phony war on terror

Behind its strategic manipulations and sham alliance to tackle the likes of IS, a purported ally of the West’s official ideology forms the heart of the terrorist creed, writes Brahma Chellaney

CONTAINING the scourge of Islamist terror will be impossible without containing the ideology that drives it: Wahhabism, a messianic, jihad- extolling form of Sunni fundamentalism whose international expansion has been bankrolled by oil-rich sheikhdoms, especially Saudi Arabia.

That is why the newly announced Saudi-led anti-terror coalition, the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism, should be viewed with profound skepticism.