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Riyadh backs Daesh as almost all Saudis oppose it: Poll

In the file photo, militants from the Takfiri Daesh group are seen in the town of Tell Abyad in northern Syria. (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia continues to provide widely-reported support for Daesh, even as a recent opinion survey shows that an overwhelming majority of the country’s people oppose the Takfiri terrorist group.

The study, which was conducted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in September, showed that 92 percent of Saudi people hate and reject the terror group, and it has “the worst reputation among the Saudi general public.”

The percentage of the supporters was two, who held a “very positive” view of Daesh, and three, whose take on the group was “fairly positive.”

The pollster interviewed 1,000 adult Saudi nationals, half of them below 35 years of age, across the Persian Gulf kingdom, including the major cities of Riyadh, Mecca, Jeddah, and Dammam.

“All areas and demographic segments of the country were sampled in proportion to their share of the total population,” said David Pollock, a senior fellow of the American think-tank that conducted the research, adding that the Saudis who were polled described Daesh as one of the worst organizations in the world.

“This is almost the same result as in our poll conducted one year ago, leading to the important conclusion that despite sensational media claims by ISIS (Daesh) to represent Sunni Islam, the group still has almost no popular support in Saudi Arabia, a bastion of Sunni fundamentalism,” Pollock went on to say.

A large majority of the participants identified themselves as Sunni Muslim (86 percent) along with Shia Muslim (six percent) and other Muslim minorities (eight percent).

Among the respondents, 73 percent said they maintained a “very negative” view of the group, while 17 percent said their attitude toward it was “fairly negative.” Three percent of the participants said they did not know the answer to the questions posed to them.

Saudi Arabia is widely viewed as one of the countries chiefly funding the group.

Takfirism or the practice of accusing others of being 'infidels,' which is the group’s trademark, is largely influenced by Wahhabism, the radical ideology dominating Saudi Arabia and freely preached by Saudi clerics.

Observers say the ideological commonalities between Wahhabism and Daesh has occasioned the kingdom’s support for the group.

The Daesh terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Syria and Iraq and commit gruesome crimes against the civilian population in the areas under their control.


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