Saudi Arabia has 'clear link' to UK extremism, says report

A new report has named Saudi Arabia as the foremost source of funding and promotion of Islamist extremism in the UK.

"While countries from across the Gulf and Iran have been guilty of advancing extremism, Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly at the top of the list," report author Tom Wilson of the Henry Jackson Society said.

The Gulf state has spent millions of dollars to "export Wahhabi Islam across the Islamic world, including to Muslim communities in the west" since the 1960s, says the report.

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In the UK, it adds, "this funding has primarily taken the form of endowments to mosques and Islamic educational institutions, which have in turn played host to extremist preachers and the distribution of extremist literature.

"A number of Britain's most serious Islamist hate preachers sit within the Salafi-Wahhabi ideology."

Saudi Arabia "is likely to be angered by the findings", The Guardian says, since its dispute with Qatar "has largely been based on the accusation that its Gulf rival is both the primary funder terrorism overseas and harbours terrorists that support the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas".

Prime Minister Theresa May is also under pressure to make public her government's own report on foreign funding of extremism in the UK.

She has been accused of "kowtowing" to Saudi Arabia by "suppressing" the report, says the Daily Telegraph.

The study, which was commissioned by David Cameron in 2015, was due to be completed by last Easter and is believed to have been in May’s possession for at least six months.

A spokesman for the Home Office said in May it may never be published as its contents were "very sensitive".

Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas told The Guardian yesterday the "astonishing" delay "leaves question marks over whether their decision is influenced by our diplomatic ties".

She added: "To defeat terror it’s vital that politicians have full view of the facts, even if they are inconvenient for the government."

The UK is one of the top suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia, "with successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, signing major arms deals with the kingdom", says Al Jazeera.

But a government spokesperson told Al Jazeera that Saudi Arabia was not the main focus of the report and denied the delay was linked to any sensitivity surrounding the kingdom.