In a statement harkening back to the war against the Soviet Union 36 years ago in Afghanistan, fifty-five Saudi Wahhabi clerics have signed a call for jihad against Russia for its military intervention in Syria. America and the West are accused of colluding with Moscow by only pretending to support the Syrian opposition since 2011. The statement is not an official document of the Kingdom, but it undoubtedly has much support in the House of Saud.

The statement calls on all Sunni Muslims to unite to defeat “tsars and Caesars” who have backed the “Christian regime” and its Alawi partners in Damascus. Russians, the “fanatical people of the cross,” are warned to remember how the Afghan mujaheddin destroyed the Soviet Union in 1989 in Afghanistan. The Russian state will suffer the same fate.

Read the article “Saudi Clerics Declare Jihad on Russia for Bombing Syria” on brookings.edu.