Radical Malaysian PM Loses Election, Banned From Travel Over Saudi ~$1bn Gift

May 16, 2018

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NewsRescue

In a surprise, Malaysian embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak was defeated in May elections by new Prime Minister, 92-year old Mohamad Mahathir.

Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir immediately began an anti corruption war, putting attorney general Apandi Ali on indefinite leave and beginning probes into corruption allegations against his predecessor.

The embattled former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak resigned this Saturday as head of his party and was slapped with a travel ban as Mahathir is set to reopen a probe into a multi-billion dollar scandal at a state fund.

In April of 2016, Saudi Arabia publicly confirmed the Saudi royal family deposited $681 million in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s bank accounts.

Minister Najib Razak has been noted to promote the Saudi extremist Wahhabi growth in the Asian nation and for his crack down on minority religious groups with hundreds of Shia Muslims detained during his regime.

Najib, the Wahhabi and the Americans

Najib Razak imports an Arab/Islam/American fight into Malaysian and regional politics

But why?

Whether or not the 2.6 billion ringgit had come from 1MDB or from an Arab donor, Najib Razak has gotten Malaysia into a fight over Islam, a fight among Arabs and a fight between the West and Islamists.

Other questions: If indeed a Wahhabi government gave Najib Razak 2.6 bn, how will Najib return the favor? What will he take from Malaysia as pay back? In Southeast Asia, the Wahhabis partnered with Najib; they didn’t pick the Indonesians or the Sulus or Acheh or Brunei. Why? Because Najib was willing? Why? How are the Americans tied in? What does America gain other than the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? Or, had Najib simply waded into this conundrum, being Malaysia’s most stupid premier heading Asia’s most incompetent Cabinet? Or, was it because, he had all along loved the luxury life, bags, clothes, diamonds, jets, and merely traded favors like Malays are raised and taught to trade favors — cash for cash-in-kind — to accumulate wealth.

As brief background, also recall:

(a) that the Wahhabi missionary state of Saudi Arabia is the US closest Arab ally.
(b) ISIS draws its cause and inspiration from puritan Wahhabi ideology.
(c) Najib himself has abandoned Malaysian non-aligned and neutrality foreign policy first drawn up by his father Tun Razak.
(d) And, in the past year Najib has placed Malaysian foreign policy squarely on the US side against China, in particular the former’s containment strategy in the South China Sea.

A time line of selected events related to Najib, the Wahhabis and the US might also help elucidate on the answers.

2003: US invades Iraq, dismembers the Shia country and destroys the army.

2009: Najib becomes prime minister

2009: 1MDB is born and almost immediately ties up with a dodgy company called PetroSaudi International Ltd.

2011: Syrian civil war is full blown. The Sunni terror group, the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIL/ISIS) moves in from Iraq where it had met with initial little success, picks up American weapons supplied to rebel groups fighting Russian-backed president Bashar al-Assad. Two years later ISIS was back in force in Iraq.

2011: Najib in Saudi Arabia, offers Malaysian troops for stationing in Bahrain following Shia riots in Manama, the capital, against the Sunni government. Najib offers Malaysia’s backing for a Saudi policeman role in the region.

2014: Najib praises the Sunni ISIS for beating remnants of the Iraqi Shia army. Urges Umno to emulate ISIS.

2015 Feb: Like Syria and Iraq before, Libya blows up then disintegrates; Muammar Ghadafi is killed. ISIS-related rebel groups take swathes of the country, target black African Muslims and Coptic Christians in particular. Refugees begin streaming into Europe.

2015 Feb: Negri Sembilan becomes the first Malaysian state to ban Wahhabism from propagation. The National Fatwa Council accepts the decision but says, as (constitutional) policy, this is an individual state matter to decide.

2015 Mar: Hamdan Muhammad of the PAS ulama wing protests the Negri fatwa.

2015 Apr: Kedah government states its stand against Wahhabism but did not followed up with fatwa decree.

2015 Jun: Najib visits Saudi Arabia with Hisham, Zahid, Anifah, his third official visit since as PM. Meets King Salman Abdulaziz Al Saud. Ask for money for a fundto aid Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi migrants. UAE promised to pay as well.

2015 Jul: Najib is exposed in WSJ report to have received 2.6 bn ringgit through three transactions in March 2013, December 2014 and February 2015, money ultimately from 1MDB.

2015 Jul: Najib disbands Task Force investigating 1MDB and 2.6 billion, sacks and replaces Muhyiddin, the Attorney-General, among others.

2015 Aug: First public-proxy acknowledgement that 2.6 bn was tied to Saudi Arabia, for championing a version of Islam known as Wal Jamaah and, as if on second thoughts, and then in a bizarre addition, for fighting ISIS as well, according Umno Kuantan division chief Wan Adnan Wan Mamat.

2015 Nov: WSJ reports of 1MDB ties with DuSable Capital Management LLC, a fundraiser for US President Barack Obama. Najib formally gives Malaysian backing for Obama’s TPP.

2015 Dec: Najib takes Umno to align with PAS, the principal Wahhabist front in Malaysian and regional Islamic politics. Hadi Awang president of PAS immediately agrees.

Saudi Arabia’s role in ISIS