By João Emanuel Lemos Esteves
The Islamists are growing their influence right at the heart of the European Union power structures – with the full support of Russian intelligence services and Chinese Communist Party’s financial backing. Portugal is, at one time, a sufficiently discrete country and a nice one that people look at with tenderness – two indispensable features that make this Iberian country ideal for the Free World’s foes to expand their international (decisive) footprint. Including, in this realm, by grabbing major political offices and bodies within International Organizations – be it the UN, WHO or EU.
Russia, China and Islamists managed to forge an unlikely alliance between Portuguese socialist Antonio Costa and traditionalist right-winger, Viktor Orban – a political relationship that had started with a (publicly hidden) love nurtured by each other and evolved to a notorious marriage with Costa’s election as the new EU Council’s President.
Portuguese socialist-communist, Antonio Costa, with illiberal traditionalist-statist, Viktor Orban. An alliance made by (not-so heavenly) China, Russia and Ayatollahs Iran. ORBAN and COSTA are a perfect fit for Putin’s dream of building a NATIONAL-COMMUNIST, HUGIN und munin (or NATIONAL-REVOLUTIONARY, depending on one’s perspective) Europe.
Despite Orban’s public bold remarks against immigration from Islamic countries, the truth is that the Hungarian Prime-Minister loves Putin more than he hates Islam. Truth of the matter is that Viktor Orban uses anti-Islamist tropes as pure political rhetoric – a bait to allure the support of the most radical fringes of his FIDESZ party.
What is Orban’s endgame? It is precisely to build a post-America world – a multi-polarist world, where his very own conception of “illiberal State” prevails. In order to fulfill his goal, Viktor Orban adopted as his main allies precisely Putin’s allies. That is why Viktor Orban forged such a strong alliance with Portuguese socialist (who has a very warm relationship with Portuguese Communist Party), ANTONIO COSTA, as well with the Saudi Old Guard’s main figures and allies.
The SAUDI OLD GUARD and QATAR – under PUTIN’s and Turkish President, ERDOGAN’s PATRONAGE (with some political PAINTING in dark, shady colors) – has officially become Orban’s main ally in the MENA region. One of the Hungarian Prime-Minister’s main interlocutors has been Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh, the current Chairman of Majlis Al-Shura.
Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh is known to be a leading figure of the most hardliner faction within Saudi Arabian power circles. His father is Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al ash-Sheikh, an icon of the Salafist movement, who shaped Saudi’s history by serving as Grand Mufti, which is simultaneously a religious and political role. He defended a strict, radical interpretation of Quran – AL ash-Sheik family belongs to the “founding fathers “of Wahhabism, the philosophical-religious source of legitimacy to global jihad. Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin IBRAHIM AL SHEIK is a main ally of war criminal Putin’s Russia in the Kingdom: Russian officials have turned him into their main interlocutor, bypassing the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN AL SAUD’s wish of not meeting with US and UK sanctioned Russian officials (he was eventually forced to do it). Putin’s Russia is a key ally of the Saudi Old Guard to sabotage the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN’s strategy of getting closer to the Western World.
Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh met with Putin’s confidant and President of Russian parliament (DUMA), Vyacheslav Volodin, to reinforce cooperation between the Kingdom and Russia, despite the war against Ukraine. Volodin continues to be a top Putin’s personal and political confidant, controlling the (alleged) opposition and even the allies of the Kremlin inside the DUMA (and Putin’s political party, UNITED RUSSIA). Volodin is also one of the “coordinator” of Putin’s political agenda and of the “global private diplomats” working for the KREMLIN.
Vyacheslav Volodin and Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh share another strategic interest: Africa. Lately, with their attention sharply focused on Portuguese-speaking African countries, namely Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. Both countries has been living a revival of Salafist-Jihadist movements sponsored (directly) by Qatar and Iran and, indirectly, by Erdogan’s Turkey. The Islamists and Russia are following the classical strategy of provoking chaos to reign.
Why is Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh so connected with Russia? Part of it has to do with his personal lineage: his father Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Al ash-Sheikh was a cousin of King Faisal, who ruled Saudi Arabia from 1864 to 1975. King Faisal promoted a strong anti-Israel (anti-Zionists) policy and tried to play double games with Western countries, especially the UK and the USA. As Prince, Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was the first Saudi to visit Moscow, having become impressed with some economic and social realities of Soviet Union’s capital. Later, FAISAL would advice King ABDULAZIZ to adopt an ambiguity strategy regarding the UK in order to increase Saudi Arabia’s leverage over the Britons.
Faisal proposed to the Saudi King to pretend he would be willing to celebrate a trade deal with the Soviets aiming at putting the British officials in a limbo, forcing them to accept the Saudi’s demands (in a time when the Kingdom desperately needed additional financial resources). This strategy of duplicity would be adopted several times during Faisal’s ruling over the Saudi Kingdom – as well as, in the subsequent years, by his heirs (from his direct lineage).
As a matter of fact, King Faisal’s influence on his part of the Saudi Royal Family justified his (and, previously, his father) strict religious education on Salafist-Wahhabism theological-political doctrine. With Russia’s support – and, lately, with a decisive Chinese Communist Party’s impulse – , Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh promoted the Parliamentary Network of NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT CONFERENCE to, simultaneously, block the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN’s foreign policy of rapprochement with the Western World and launch the seeds of a new world organization reflecting the multi-polarist order.
Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh counts on his followers within the Saudi national security apparatus, as well as on an intense pressure on the current King Salman Abdulaziz AL Saud, to sideline the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN on crucial matters of domestic and foreign policy – especially, regarding Israel, the US and the UK. ABDULLAH AL SHEIKH keeps doubling-down, as an advice to King SALMAN AL SAUD, on the falsehood that the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN does not possess the necessary finesse d’ esprit (the Crown Prince is not a poet, let alone a falconry aficionado) to be the ruler of the Saudi Kingdom. Especially, according to one of the leaders of the Saudi Old Guard, the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN lacks “good judgment” to understand major international events, namely on Israel and Palestine. This narrative was subsequently spread on AL JAZEERA and other Qatar-controlled media outlets and digital platforms.
ALGERIA is a major spot for the Saudi Old Guard to carry out their activities – gathering intelligence, forging high level contacts (mostly with other Islamists groups, China and Russia) and building up the “Resistance Movement” (to put it mildly) against the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN, who was at one point scheduled to visit Algeria but ended up not going for unexplained medical reasons. The Muslim Brotherhood has many and powerful cells in ALGIERS (coordinated with key elements living in French capital, PARIS), as well as in Algerian desert – also supporting the POLISARIO FRONT. Indeed, Macron was a major interlocutor in the Algeria-Saudi rapprochement in recent years, facilitating high level meetings leading up to a political delegation of Saudis visiting Algiers without the Crown Prince.
During this Inter-Parliamentary Conference in Algeria, Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash–Sheikh reassured his Algerian counterparts that “no change” in the Saudi Kingdom’s policy towards Israel would occur. Again, Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash–Sheikh assumed matters of foreign policy in total disregard for the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN’s new vision for the Kingdom. It is also noteworthy that while Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash–Sheikh keeps traveling the world, visiting his main (personal)allies, the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN has remained, for the most part, “locked” in the Palace. This is part of the overall strategy to further isolate – and neutralize – any political/diplomatic initiative from the Crown Prince.
Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash–Sheikh’s family lineage, linked to KING FAISAL, who was one of the founders of the precursor of the Islamist movement MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD – now, a powerful tool to spread the radical Salafist-Wabbahist ideology funneled by the SAUDI OLD GUARD, QATAR and IRAN. While originally Salafist movements were opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood or other forms of political Islam, the 1979 Grand Mosque takeover in Saudi Arabia promoted a deal between the Royal Family and the clergy, ended up empowering Islamist elements, and contributed to the cross-over between Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood followers, eventually leading to the rise of the Salafist-jihadists. Moreover, King Fahad and King Faisal were both responsible for inviting in Muslim Brotherhood followers who fled the Nasserist Egypt to the Kingdom, as part of the anti-Communist position by Saudi Arabia. However, these Islamists were not expelled once the Cold War ended; instead, they strengthened their networks, entrenched their roots, and made lucrative and influential alliances with King Faisal’s progeny.
Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al ash–Sheikh was the main promoter, with FAISAL, of strategic agreements between KSA and Erdogan’s Turkey.
Portugal and Hungary (more precisely: the new alliance forged between socialist-communist ANTONIO COSTA, elected President of the EU Council, and Putinist VIKTOR ORBAN, united by their illiberal, anti-America, unconditionally pro-CHINA agenda) are instrumental to the Saudi Old Guard to promote both the far-left and the far-right through European continental Royal families and groups: it is the prominent case of groups and personalities linked to the Habsburg House (fully supportive of Viktor Orban; very helpful to socialist-communist new EU Council leader, Antonio Costa). The transformation they seek to impose in the MENA region requires the full demise of the Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN from power – if not his flat-out physical elimination.
With the new EU leaders—discretely allied to Putin’s Russia, passionately allied to the Chinese Communist Party; subtly passionate about the Islamist movements funded by Saudi Old Guard and the Ayatollahs Iran—Western Democracy is under seriously under threat. Regardless of any ideological conflicts among and between neighbors of this Coalition of the Willing, they are an increasingly united front in confronting, diminishing, or outright destroying the US, Israel, and its ally. It’s time to stop playing into the false narratives and the equally false perception of conflicts generated by this network, and time to see it for what it is – an increasingly organized anti-Western bloc.