It has been a month dominated by Saudi Arabia.

Last week, I wrote about the beheading of a Burmese woman in the Holy City of Makkah. The Saudi King was not dead then, but he died a few days after the incident.

King Abdullah’s passing, was a world event, with all the eager leaders of the free world rushing to pay their respects to the 90-year-old dead monarch and to curry favour with his new 80-year-old successor.

 

Also read: Call them ‘Dictators’, not ‘Kings’

 

The Americans sent President Obama, whose visit to India was cut short to enable his attendance. For peeved Pakistanis, sick of consuming the details of the love fest from across the border; reprieve comes from strange places.

Indeed, Pakistan’s present is inextricably tied to Saudi Arabia’s past.

The newest king in the world, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, was the man the House of Saud had put in charge of raising money for the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. According to Bruce Reidel, an analyst writing in The Daily Beast, then Prince Salman, was at one point instrumental in funneling almost 25 million dollars a month to the Afghan Mujahideen.

According to a former CIA officer quoted in the Foreign Policy magazine, who was stationed in Pakistan at that time, Prince Salman was responsible for a similar amount coming into that country for purposes of recruitment for jihad.