CIA Director Behind ISIL Rise: Analyst

An American author and investigative journalist says CIA director John
Brennan who is “a known Saudiphile” has played a key role in the
creation and rise of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL).

Wayne Madsen made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on
Monday, saying Washington’s trainings and provision of arms and cash
to militants in Iraq and Syria gave rise to the brutal militancy.

As with al-Qaeda whose origin is traceable to “the US war against the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan,” Madsen explained, “we’ve once again
supported and trained and given cash to the same elements and now
we’ve got the rise of ISIL in Iraq and Syria and possibly they’re
going to take this war into Jordan and beyond because they’ve changed
their name now to the Islamic caliphate, [or] the Islamic state.”

On Sunday, US President Barack Obama said that “battle-hardened”
Europeans who have joined ISIL militants in Syria and Iraq pose a
“serious threat” to the US as they “have a European passport” and
“don’t need visas to get into the United States.”

This comes as Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said earlier this month
that the US has been arming the ISIL militants in Syria. “I think we
have to understand first how we got here,” Paul said on CNN’s ‘State
of the Union.’ “We have been arming ISIS in Syria.”

Madsen said Brennan has been instrumental in training and arming these
militants in Iraq and Syria.

“The fault lies with the current CIA director John Brennan. John
Brennan is a known Saudiphile, former CIA station chief in Riyadh. He
was there when a lot of Saudi connections were determined to many
terrorist attacks against the United States,” the analyst said, citing
the Khobar Towers bombing, the attack on the USS Cole and the 9/11
attacks.

Madsen concluded that there is “a terrorist threat against the United
States and that is the CIA director” who is training and financing
terrorists.

Brennan has overseen the massive proliferation of US drone warfare and
other “counterterrorism” programs.