AFP
Islam has been tarnished by “forces of darkness” and Saudi Arabia should do more to protect its youth from violent extremism, the kingdom’s second crown prince said yesterday.
The comments by Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, in a speech for Saudi Arabia’s 84th national day, come after the kingdom this month agreed with other Arab states to back Washington against Islamic State group militants.
The group has declared a “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria, where it controls swathes of territory.
The militant group has executed hundreds of Iraqis and Syrians, as well as foreign hostages in a campaign that has forced more than a million people from their homes.
“Today, as Muslims, we are concerned because we have not done enough to protect our nation from extremism and its youths from militancy and extremism”, Crown Prince Muqrin said, quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency.
He added that some of the misled have replaced the doctrine of tolerance with “terrorism and bombing”.
Officials and citizens must “join hands to deliver the true picture of Islam tarnished by the forces of darkness, and show our great religion with its ethics, knowledge and work in the face of deviant thoughts and interpretations,” said the crown prince.
King Abdullah in March named Prince Muqrin as a second heir, next in line after Crown Prince Salman.
Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh last month said Al Qaeda and the IS group “have nothing to do with Islam and (their proponents) are the enemy number one of Islam”.
The country is seeking to deter youths from becoming militants after Syria’s conflict attracted hundreds of Saudis.
King Abdullah decreed in February jail terms of up to 20 years for citizens who travel to fight abroad.
Despite the order, in August the interior ministry said Saudi police arrested eight people in the northwest suspected of recruiting young people to join the IS group in Iraq and Syria.
Three sentenced to death in terrorism case
A Saudi court yesterday sentenced three members of a “terror cell” to death in the murder of a foreign resident of the kingdom, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. The three were convicted of joining a terrorist organisation and of kidnapping, torturing and beheading their victim, whose name and nationality were not mentioned in the report. In 2004, Al Qaeda militants in the kingdom had kidnapped and beheaded American oil worker Paul Johnson. Twenty other defendants in the case received prison sentences ranging from five to 25 years, the report said. In a separate hearing on Sunday in the same case, four defendants were sentenced to death and 16 to prison terms ranging from two to 23 years. The sentences are the latest to be handed down in a series of terrorism cases coming before Saudi courts.
